2022
Caption: @Theatreperson's Star Photo of Rutherford uploaded onto Google Maps on 2017-01-15 and showing star views of 4,402,864 as at 2024-01-28
Rutherford Jewellers, Melbourne, Australia
This is a photo of a well-known jeweller in the Melbourne CBD on Collins Street. I think it's just a really functional photo. I certainly do have far more interesting photos with less views.
I believe this may have been taken on a Nokia Windows Phone.
Table Six Kitchen + Bistro North Canton, Ohio
I took this photo in 2022. I made numerous attempts at getting my photo selected for the Feature position and finally achieved that goal in October 2022. I believe that the cloudy blue sky, floral arrangements and centering the signage in the frame were what led to this photo being Featured and becoming my Star Photo.
El Farol Mexican Mexican Restaurant Seattle, WA USA
This is one of my earliest photos that I posted on Maps. I always try to take a few minutes and crop and adjust the color of my photos before posting. It was taken with one of the original Pixel phones.
On about 2023-06-23 it was replaced by another photo as the 1st photo in the Maps gallery
Star photo by @Dunclair of Kent, England uploaded to Google Maps in March 2023 and showing star views of 6,482,058 as at 28th January 2024. Kingston Lacy was built in about 1666 by Ralph Banks, Lord Chancellor of England. Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of King Henry VII grew up on this estate, but not in the current house. Every monarch of England since the end of the Wars of the Roses has her as a direct line ancestor
Walmart Supercentre Newmarket Ont. Canada
This is my Star Photo taken back in Oct, 2018. This is my 3rd star photo and longest surviving one. It was taken before the pandemic hit and became extremely important and valuable during the Pandemic because it was open and sold everything, When people searched they found this store. The photo is nothing special but Walmart has been good to me, 9 of my top 25 photos are Walmart stores. Taken then with my Samsung 8
Tacos Michoacan American Canyon United States
This photo has a very huge lesson behind it. Let me explain. Since joining the Local Guides Connect group I decided to start capturing more photos of buildings during the first quarter of 2024. Until this point, I had skipped over this building because of a previous negative experience here. I decided to put any innate biases aside and just capture the buildings particularly if they have handicap-accessible parking in front. So my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra set off capturing center, left-side, and right-side views of buildings without judging or biases. Imagine my surprise watching as this photo began to rise, run, and leap over others. It has left my first steak fries star photo and second round table pizza star photo in the dust.
Date Star Views
February 2024 108,442
March 2024 175,448
April 2024 189,729
Los Cocuyos, Historic Center, Mexico City
This taco shop is quite popular in the city and it was included in the Netflix´s series "Taco´s Chronicles" that portraits the most popular varieties of tacos and the spots where you can enjoy it. This "taquería" is very antique and inhabitants and tourists form lanes to try the tacos. At the end of 2022 Los Cocuyos opened a new space with tables, opposite to a long tradition where customers ate the tacos just standing up in the street. So, this photo of the new internat seat area was a novelty for this place, an up to now is the feature photo of Los Cocuyos.
II Runner II Traveler II 
ITIS Giuseppe Armellini, Rome, Italy
This is my "star photo", which depicts a technical high school (ITIS Giuseppe Armellini) in Rome, Italy, and the public garden in front of it, which is located near the ancient Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura. The church dates back 17 centuries, and is where the Apostle Paul is buried.
Clock Tower, University of California Riverside
My star photo is of the clock tower at the University of California Riverside, in southern California. I captured it using a Nikon D750, during a college tour. I had to capture this in portrait mode due to the height of the clock tower and the lens I had on my camera. It has been the cover photo of UC Riverside till June of 2022. After that not getting much views!
Pink Garlic Indian Restaurant, Taunton, United Kingdom
This was one of the first images I uploaded for Google Maps after I joined 11th January 2020. I took the majority of my initial photos when I was out walking - usually with my dog, a small Cavachon, called Bertie. I took this with the iPhone 10 Pro Max. He has gotten so used to me stopping to take pictures he just sits and waits patiently for me to finish! I find restaurant/food provider images often do better than most of the other pictures I take. The count has not changed in the last two months - this may be because it is no longer the featured image or it maybe to do with the ongoing count issues with Google Maps. I can only see count changes in 2 of my top 25 images in the last two months.
This is not the best photo I have taken. This has now been replaced as the featured picture after 3 years. So it is likely to be overtaken as my star photo by a storefront picture of Argos in Taunton - another really dull image which is currently sitting on 2.58 million views - so it seems likely to overtake it in the next three months. It's weird, looking back a few months, that this seemed like a reasonable prediction. With Google Maps in its current state, there doesn't appear to be a clear path or timeframe for things to get back to normal.
I have recently taken a new version of this picture as the business has been updated and makes for a more vibrant image. However, after 7 months it is not the first image (4th), and has only achieved 16,000 views. The theme of the images Google Maps has chosen to feature are more group/vibe centric. In my opinion these don't successfully provide information which helps to accurately promote what the restaurant does.
