In late September, Sapphire Coast landscape photographer David Rogers posted a photo on Instagram capturing a rare aggregation of bioluminescence algae in the Tathra area.
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The photo was immediately shared by numerous photography enthusiast groups and began to get noticed by a wider social audience, both within Australia and around the globe.
Four weeks after the initial post the photo had been shared by over 100 lifestyle and travel accounts with a combined audience of about 45 million followers.
Some of the main sites that have shared the photo include Tourism Australia (3.2 million followers), Wonderful Places (11.3m), Earth Focus (3.3m), Fantastic Earth (3.1m), Canon Photography Global (2.5m), The Globe Wanderer (2.4m), Our Planet Daily (2.4m), Tentree Clothing Brand (2.3m), Awesome Photographers (1.9m) and Science by Guff (1.3m).
“As a keen digital marketer it has been interesting to watch the photo get noticed and shared across different countries,” Mr Rogers said.
“It started in Australia, then appeared in the US and is now appearing in the UK, Turkey and parts of Europe.
“It been gaining momentum the more it gets shared...much like a snowball effect.”
The photo was also noticed in Hollywood, with Mr Rogers receiving a message from the social media manager who looks after James Cameron’s movie Avatar asking if they could share the photo.
They posted it asking their followers if they thought the photo was taken on Earth or Pandora. Many of whom said Pandora.
“The great benefit for tourism is that the photo is being shared across these major travel sites with the location data of ‘Tathra’ and ‘Sapphire Coast NSW’ attached to it...giving the region awareness on a global scale,” Mr Rogers said.
“I hope my photo brings more photographers and nature lovers to the area.”
