Think of the photo that you’re most proud of. Maybe it’s a portrait of a friend or family member. Maybe it’s a beautiful landscape that took hours of hiking to get there, and then even more hours of editing to get it just perfect. Maybe it’s a piece of street photography where all the elements came together perfectly at the right moment. That’s the one you want to be your most viewed photo, right? The one that you want people to happen across when they’re online, and then stop and admire.

So what’s my most viewed photo? That would be a very ordinary street view photo of Machrie Bay Golf Club and Community Tuck Shop on the Isle of Arran, just off the west coast of Scotland. It’s just a snapshot. But crucially, it’s the right snapshot.

Over the years, I’ve had various online presences. My first website, around 2002, was moderately successful. The advertising – and remember this was before Google AdSense was available – paid enough to regularly buy new camera equipment. Then I migrated my photos to Flickr, which was rapidly becoming the place to share photos, and I was successful enough that my contributions regularly made it onto Flickr’s front page. But then the rise of social networks made Flickr feel old-fashioned, and I withdrew from sharing my photos online.

Fast forward to 2018. My wife and I were holidaying on Arran – one of the ruggedly beautiful islands off Scotland’s west coast. It’s a fabulous place to visit but, at least in 2018, you couldn’t expect coffee shops and Italian bistros on every corner. Driving a circuit round the island, my wife searched for a refreshment stop and found that the clubhouse at Machrie Golf Club offered good lunches to non-members. It wasn’t difficult to find, easily spotted from the main road, but navigating Google Street View on a phone can be pretty challenging, and I remember thinking that it would have been nice if Google Maps had had a photo showing exactly how it looked from the roadside.

Clearly lots of other folk had the same thought, because very quickly the number of times the photo had been viewed was over 100,000. Last time I checked, in mid 2025, the number was approaching 320,000. Not bad for a random snapshot.