Metrics

I just did some delving into the site stats for all of our history since 2007. TOP exceeded 30,000 pageviews 49 times; but the post I've always named as being our all-time record, "Sony vs. Nikon vs. Canon," from Wednesday, 17 December 2008, which attracted 54,575 pageviews, is actually only in 7th place all-time. The runner-up post by the actual numbers, which attracted 86,517 pageviews, was "Are UHS-II Cards Worth It?" published on Friday, 16 January 2015. The all-time draw unfortunately concerned a scandal: "The Sad Fall from Grace of Nicholas Nixon" drew 103,723 pageviews on the day of publication, Thursday, 05 April 2018, and a whopping 210,993 views the following day. At least I assume that must have been the attraction; the next day's post was about a tree that fell in my backyard, which I can't see being of interest to 210k people even though the picture was kinda nifty. Often, with a really heavily looked-at post ["popular" didn't seem quite the right word here], especially one for which the traffic is driven by referrals, the biggest traffic happens the day after.

The only way we could have gotten such an overwhelming number of visits on one day is for one or more much larger sites to link to our post, but I wasn't aware of what was happening at the time. Anyway, it's nice to know what the all-time record was, although I could wish that our most-viewed post was about something more...positive. I'm surprised it came so late in the arc of TOP's lifetime.

Yesterday's count was 13,566 pageviews. That's about two-thirds of the average daily traffic TOP got during the "glory years" of roughly 2011–2015, but I'm happy with it. [UPDATE: I forgot that there are also 9,275 people signed up to receive the feed, although it's more difficult to know how many of those read any particular post. I suppose a lot of people look at the title and don't read it? Like any newspaper.]

Another Nixon
And speaking of Nick Nixon, in looking into his current status I came across a recent annual installment of his series "The Brown Sisters"—as you no doubt know, Nick took large-format portraits of his wife and her three sisters annually beginning in 1975. He did one in 1974, but it was in 35mm and he threw it away because he didn't like it as a picture. Well, here's the one from 2020, the first year of the pandemic, taken "socially distanced":

Everybody's had to adapt.

I also ran across the following, which I thought was interesting, in a LensCulture interview, a description of how he became a photographer:

When I was in college, I had a bunch of jobs, and one of them was in a bookstore—a big, fancy art bookstore. In my spare time, I started to look at photography books and art books. I saw that Ann Arbor offered a summer course in photography for people who weren’t in the art school. Because I had seen Cartier-Bresson and I had looked at some of the books, I thought, “Oh, wow. I should do that.”

I signed up, and on the first day, that was it. The first day, I thought, “This is what I’m going to do.” All of a sudden I wasn’t a coach anymore—I was a player. Even if I was going to be a bad player, I’m a player. The future was uncertain, but it was instinctual. I thought, “I don’t care, I want to do this. I love it.” I was just smitten. I went down to the local drugstore, which was also the camera store. They had a Leica M3 in the window, a used one. I loved Cartier-Bresson already, but I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know this was his camera. I saw that thing and I thought, “Boy, that looks like a way to make pictures.” I went right in and I put $270 out of $300 I had in the world right down on the counter.

Whether he knows it or not, or accepts it or not, he will never outrun his disgrace, and the meaning of his life's work will forever be touched with it. A shame.

Mike

Comments

[Jeff Warden]

"Whether he knows it or not, or accepts it or not, he will never outrun his disgrace, and the meaning of his life's work will forever be touched with it..."

I don't think so. His series of the Brown sisters is probably his most enduring work and has nothing whatsoever to do with the way he lost his day job. His work is larger than the unrelated controversy that ended his teaching career.

Now his reputation as an academic? That, we can agree, has been tarnished.

[hugh crawford]

Used to be that when I heard stories of artists behaving badly I would reply “well, he’s no Caravaggio.”

[Peter Komar]

Wow, I went back to your original post on Nixon and yes quite disgusting. I take some real issue with way too many comments defending his behavior. Yeah right it’s a college setting and students need to grow up and learn lessons, ABSURD !!. Most of the individuals were probably just out of high school, young and impressionable, and yes the so called professor has all the power. His behavior and actions were and still are inexcusable.

[Cab]

Mike, I use feedly to read your posts. For a while it was only showing me the first few sentences and I would have to click through to the site for the full post. The recent changes you mentioned with your webhosting seem to have "fixed" that so everything is there in feedly again. I see featured (but not plebeian) comments as well.

I don't know how it works at all, but I assume you don't get "credit" for a page-view if I'm reading in feedly. Does that matter to you? I don't have a problem clicking through if it helps your metrics/ad revenue/whatever, but it is more convenient to use the aggregator.

[Alex G.]

I take issue with some of the comments on your post from 2018 about Nixon. Calling students ‘snowflakes’ because they are no longer willing to tolerate behavior that had been tolerated misses the point so thoroughly that I’m stunned. How does the male commenter have the gall to pretend to know that the previous generation of female undergrads was fine with this behavior? And if they had been, why would it matter? Aren’t students allowed to have some say in how they’re treated? Isn’t the point education and how can that happen if students are feeling violated?

[Richard Tugwell]

I expect a lot of people come back in the next day or two to check the comments, especially if it's a topic that interests them (or if they have commented themselves)

Although I enjoy TOP, one quibble I have is the rather serendipitous nature of the comment updates

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Re: your traffic stats, while that's not going to excite many advertisers or garner you NDA gear preview junkets to exotic locations it still looks like very respectable traffic for a personal blog to me. Congratulations on sustaining your audience for so many years, Mike.

Re: Nicholas Nixon
"Whether he knows it or not, or accepts it or not, he will never outrun his disgrace, and the meaning of his life's work will forever be touched with it."

Highly unlikely, Mike. Nixon may have transgressed social and sanity boundaries as king of his classroom but he committed no criminal act. Nobody I encounter is looking at the "Brown Sisters" with anything but admiration for such a long project. (And sadness for the shrinking number of portraits.) One of the Art Institute's donors who subscribes to Nixon's annual portraits (and has pledged them to the museum) just showed the most recent print. And I'm not aware of anyone pulling his work from public display.

I stand by my original 2018 comments on the subject. But I don't think Nixon's poor judgement late in his teaching career will "cancel" his work. To the extent he will be remembered at all I think he will be primarily still be remembered for the Brown Sisters project.

[I meant that he himself will never outrun his disgrace. His work might indeed fare better.

But I'm surprised you think the Brown Sisters is his best work--most renowned, certainly, but doesn't it have quite a bit in common with novelty strategies like "Young Me / Now Me" projects and all the other time-lapse strategies on the Internet? Much as I like many of those. To me it seems like one of those strategies "done up serious," to make it palatable to the art world, like Mark Klett's Rephotographic Survey (which I love, don't get me wrong). It has a bit of the perfume of the cutesy when it comes to ideas, at least to me. I think he has done several very powerful bodies of work. I'd put the Brown Sisters among those, but no more than that. --Mike]

[Rob Campbell]

Perhaps the surprising thing about it all (the Nick Nixon thing), is that anybody really takes that kind of photography seriously.

I guess that the big camera becomes its own message. Much like Leica, then.

You don’t have the viewer numbers today compared with back then; how do you imagine commercial/advertising/fashion photographers have been feeling about the wipe-out of their profession? Most have no fallback position; you can write, you still get viewers. Teaching? You gotta be kidding. I’d rather be unemployed than con kids into thinking photography is something you can be taught: all you can be taught today is Photoshop, and how to perpetuate the teaching profession. Photography is a gift; if you have it, you find it in yourself all by yourself. If you don’t, welcome, at best, to the world of the clone.

[louis mccullagh]

I was shocked by the fact that you FEATURED a comment which attacked the students for not standing up to the sexual harassment of Nixon.

No one is responsible for nixon's behaviour (and it's consequences) except nixon. Saying that the victims of his harassment are in anyway at fault is disgraceful.

Why you gave oxygen to obnoxious views alarms me.

[I often feature opposing viewpoints, and, especially with controversial subjects, I often pick two that are the most in opposition to each other. The Featured Comments are meant to be a *sampling* of the Comments section, not a "best of." And I certainly don't cherry-pick comments for the ones that happen to support my own personal viewpoint. I get to have my say when I write the post. I know I sometimes can't help arguing with people in replies to comments, but I try to abide by the same guidelines I impose on readers. Or similar anyway. The basic principle is that not everyone agrees yet everyone has a right to respond as they see fit. I also try to distinguish between people who are being obstreperous or obnoxious and those who are disagreeing with the thesis or the stance of the post. Blocking the former is civility; blocking the latter is censorship. --Mike]

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Not to needlessly prolong this thread, Mike, but I really wonder how many people really know anything about Nicholas Nixon’s work? Jeffrey Fraenkel’s renowned San Francisco gallery represents Nixon and has a good online sampler of his notable work.

In my opinion having seen a good smattering of Nixon’s prints in-person his work seem worth viewing as one reference within your current b&w print project.

[robert e]

Curious to know how many page views this conversation adds to the totals of the above mentioned pages.

[darlene]

Using a position of authority to practice vulgar behavior is reprehensible but is shared among the perverted. Those that think he did nothing wrong are what victims call like-minded people. As an educator of art and photography, it is bullshit to use 'art' as the reason for the abuse. Thinking like that says the credit card is the reason to spend too much, not the personal irresponsibility that led to bankruptcy. It's all bullshit.

If this comment gets posted, I will be a little surprised as comments from me like this in the past never got published. Oh, it is lovely to be a woman among her male peers!

[There is no question that what Nixon was doing was wrong, in my opinion, at least according to the accounts I've read. Oh, and we are happy you are here. --Mike]

[Brian]

Mike you wrote

The basic principle is that not everyone agrees yet everyone has a right to respond as they see fit. I also try to distinguish between people who are being obstreperous or obnoxious and those who are disagreeing with the thesis or the stance of the post. Blocking the former is civility; blocking the latter is censorship. --Mike]

yes yes yes

real shame that these days people post on the invisible internet all sorts of bad things. i fear the behavior started there is carrying into the world at large

[Brian]

following my post

i value this little corner of civilization long may you continue

in gratitude