The Very Best of Johnny Martyr

Okay, I fully admit to being in a blogging lull right now.  And what do people do when they’re in a lull, they release their greatest hits!

Below are my blogs from each year for the past five years which had the highest number of views.  It’s funny how sometimes the the topics/photos/articles that I think should be the most well received are often not even on the radar, whereas unexpected ones rank highest.

In either case, I appreciate my audience – without you guys, I’m just talking to myself!

Enjoy!

On August 2, 2015, I posted my photos from an amazing and super fun Veruca Salt concert at Club 9:30 in Washington DC.  I covered the show with a 1960’s Polaroid Land Camera and some of the last Fuji FP-3000b peel apart pack film ever made.  I sure do miss that film!  But I’m still proud of what I did with it!  And just a follow up, Louise Post of Veruca Salt read my blog and I am mailing her one of my original prints from the show!  Here’s a recap:

Peeling Apart Veruca Salt

On April 22, 2016, I posted my photos from a Ted Cruz rally that was held Frederick Maryland.  Of note, a transgender person was removed from the crowd and the event made national news.  I was the only photographer there to get an image of it happening.  Buzzfeed used my photo and the incident, perhaps to a small degree, contributed to the failure of Ted Cruz to be nominated as a presidential candidate.  Given where we’re at currently, I’m not so sure this was a good or a bad thing!  Check out my 35mm b&w shots, in:

A Tubulent Cruz in Frederick

This year, 2020, few people were able to enjoy fireworks but I published my b&w fireworks images on Petapixel and Shoot It With Film to a good reception.  It wasn’t the first time I’d done something similar though.  Back on July 3rd 2016, I shot the annual fireworks on my Fuji Instax Neo 90 and shared how to do it oneself with:

Photographing Fireworks with Fuji Instax

Many cheap consumer grade 35mm cameras like the Canon AE-1 and Minolta SRT-101 make me cringe.  I know, it’s terrible!  Cameras are cameras.  But there are some underdogs that I’m happy to stand up for, like I did on August 21st, 2017 in:

Defending the Nikon FM10

You know how above I said that I’m sometimes surprised or not in agreement with what posts become popular?  Well, on May 2, 2019, I was really pleased to see that the main thing that I do for my photographic income, and what I consider myself best at, seemed to go over very well when I discussed how I shoot:

Wedding Receptions on Film with No Flash and No Automation

Finally, we come to 2020.  There are a few 2020 blogs that I thought you guys might enjoy but the most popular has continued to be the one that I posted on January 10th.  Maybe I should wait for 2021 to declare a winner for 2020 but hey, it’s been a rough year and I’m just glad something seems to have clicked for people when I wrote:

There’s No Excuse Not to Own a Leitz 9cm f4 Elmar

Did you really go back and peruse all of those?  Well thanks if you did or didn’t!  🙂  I don’t know what your experience of reading my stuff has been, but lists like this are really fun for me at least, to remember from where I’ve come and what I’ve done.

What have you been up to during the great pandemic of 2020?  What have you been up to for the last five years?  What are we doing to do next?

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

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