New research by SINGULART has been conducted to reveal the UK's most photographed buildings and architecture, by looking at statistical data from the number of posts created across relevant hashtags.
Unsurprisingly, four of London's most beautiful buildings reside at the very top of the list, starting with Big Ben followed by Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, and The Shard, comprising the top four with the largest number of Instagram posts.
• Looking for the best lenses for landscapes?
The research specifically focuses on the most photographed UK landscapes and pieces of architecture in modern times, with data collected solely using social media platform, Instagram. SINGULART is an online art and design gallery that supposedly looked at 40 of the UK's most popular architecture that has been cross-referenced with the most relevant hashtags on Instagram, where this data has been pooled from.
While there are still a large number of photographers and travel seekers who respectfully avoid apps such as Instagram, it's without a doubt that it is one of the most-used and most popular apps by photographers. Although, the data collected in this research should be considered as relatively limited in its findings.
Having excluded those who solely use Facebook, Flickr, and alternative apps to share their best architectural images, this data should evidently be taken with a pinch of salt. It is also extremely common for users to upload images with location tags as opposed to hashtags, meaning these figures could vary drastically from the truth, though, the results are certainly interesting to consider and reflect the predicted popularity of UK buildings.
London's Big Ben was revealed to be the most photographed construction across Great Britain, with 3.2 million posts curated under #bigben. Furthermore, the infamous Tower Bridge, one of London’s Neo-Gothic architectural landmarks racked up 2.6 million Instagram posts.
Buckingham Palace situated in third rank, a beautiful centrepiece of the UK’s constitutional monarchy, with 1.3 million posts on Instagram. Eight out of the top fifteen ranked architectures were in London, including the Shard, The Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral.
| Rank | Landmark | Location | Hashtag searched | Number of posts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Big Ben | London | bigben | 3,200,000 |
| 2 | Tower Bridge | London | towerbridge | 2,600,000 |
| 3 | Buckingham Palace | London | buckinghampalace | 1,300,000 |
| 4 | The Shard | London | theshard | 800,000 |
| 5 | Edinburgh Castle | Edinburgh | edinburghcastle | 628,000 |
| 5 | The Tower of London | London | toweroflondon | 628,000 |
| 6 | St Paul's Cathedral | London | stpaulscathedral | 468,000 |
| 7 | Windsor Castle | Windsor | windsorcastle | 406,000 |
| 8 | Brighton Pier | Brighton | brightonpier | 342,000 |
| 9 | Westminster Abbey | London | westminsterabbey | 303,000 |
| 10 | Cambridge University | Cambridge | cambridgeuniversity | 246,000 |
| 11 | Eden Project | Cornwall | edenproject | 216,000 |
| 12 | St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel | London | stpancras | 203,000 |
| 13 | York Minster | York | yorkminster | 186,000 |
| 14 | Hampton Court Palace | Surrey | hamptoncourt | 177,000 |
Outside of the UK capital city we have Edinburgh Castle, ranked in joint 5th place with The Tower of London at 628,000 shared images at the time the data was collected. This seems a little odd that both locations would have the exact same number of posts, though it's presumable that the data collectors, SINGULART, rounded the figures up or down to reach a solid number in the thousands, meaning one of them may have been slightly ahead.
Windsor Castle has been ranked at number 7, one of several homes belonging to Queenie herself, at 406,000 images on Instagram, followed by sunny Brighton Pier coming in at number 8, with 342,000 images shared to Instagram of the famous pebble beach. Additionally situating outside of London is Cambridge University with a figure of 246,000 images shared to the platform at the time of data collection.
The Eden Project in Cornwall is a beautiful botanical garden and worthy of making the top 15 most loved and photographed UK architectures. The project has 216,000 images, just ahead of London's St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel with 203,000 hashtagged posts. York Minster is second to last on this list with 186,000 images though isn't far in front of the last ranking location, Hampton Court Palace in Surrey.
The data collectors have shared wisdom from professional photographer, Gregory Herp, who focuses his work largely on architecture that can be found and purchased via SINGULART's art gallery. Herp suggests that architecture photography is "not just a matter of standing at the bottom of a building, looking up and taking a picture! I have to look for my point of view, make these lines and volumes the actors of my image. Architecture is fascinating if I can make it bounce off something else in my composition."
He continues, "Look around you and look for another angle, try to get on a roof on the other side of the street, or shift your position completely by incorporating one or more elements into your composition that will reinforce your image. I often tell the story about the film that changed the way I look around: Dead Poets Society".
Be sure to Visit SINGULART's website to see the full results of the research carried out and shop original art to add flair and beauty to your home decor collection.
• Read more:
Best cameras for landscape photography
Best ND grad filters for landscapes
Best tilt-shift lenses
Best spotting scopes
How to capture city landmarks at night
How to capture landmarks lit with artificial light
15 must-shoot British landmarks and where to photograph them from
