The Top 10 Unsplash Photos of 2016

Since Unsplash was created three years ago as a simple Tumblr blog, it has certainly come a long way.

You only have to take a single look at our real-time activity map to see that photos are constantly being uploaded and downloaded at an incredible rate. We wanted to take a look back at the ten most popular photos of the year, to see what they captured and what we can learn from them. Here they are:

1. Greg Rakozy reminded us to look out at the stars (110,193 downloads)

2. Sylvain Guiheneuc showed us that there can be light in the midst of darkness (108,562 downloads)

3. Helloquence reminded us that work can be beautiful (105,033 downloads)

4. Dustin Lee reflected on the beauty of the materials we surround ourselves with (102,387 downloads)

5. Patrick Tomasso showed us that a wall of text can be a work of art (88,383 downloads)

6. Matthew Henry reminded us of the beauty in looking up (87,908 downloads)

7. NASA revealed that the galaxy is both infinitely large and amazingly beautiful (87,440 downloads)

8. Jeremy Thomas captured the fact while we sit still, the entire universe is in motion (83,985 downloads)

9. Jonathon Bean showed us the beauty of gazing into the horizon (82,354 downloads)

10. Will van Wingerden reminded us to look out into the world, and remember that there’s a bright future ahead (82,349 downloads)

There’s something special about the fact that two different people, in two different parts of the world, captured photos which were, in a sense, two sides of the same coin. Unsplash lets us see into each other’s worlds, and wonder at the beautiful harmony of this community of artists.

Here’s to 2017.