Time flies when you’re having fun! I’ve been posting the door of the week competition for exactly 52 weeks; a full year. During that time, I’ve showcased 3 doors that I’ve personally photographed, usually aligned to a theme, every single week.
I’m a scientist by training and therefore love generating and analyzing data. I thought it would be cool (and a little nerdy!) to share some stats as we look back on the door of the week competition.
Door of the Week Stats
Let’s have some fun with numbers as we look back over the past year of competitions!
23 countries were represented including
- All 5 Nordic countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland
- 3 of the 4 countries that comprise the UK: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Why I was there?
- 43.5% of the countries featured, I visited for work (taking some walks and getting some door photography walks in during a business trip.
- 43.5% of the countries, I visited for a holiday or vacation.
- 13% of the countries (USA, Ireland, & Portugal) I’ve called home at some point in my life.
Door of the Week Theme Types
The weekly themes for the competition ranged from very niche to very open-ended.
- 33% covered a single city
- 15% covered a specific country
- 4% covered a cluster of related countries (e.g., UK or Nordics)
- 48% covered multiple countries
Which Countries Were Represented Most Often?
Let’s take a look at which countries were represented most often. Ireland and Portugal took the top 2 spots. Ireland was represented in 37% of the competitions and Portugal was represented 35% of the time. This isn’t surprising since I live in Lisbon and take lots of door photography walks here.
I also lived in Dublin for 12 years which is where my love of door photography began. I have a huge back catalog to draw from across nearly any theme you can imagine!
The U.S. was represented 17% of the time. I’m from the United States originally and I still go back with some frequency for work so again, not surprised to see the U.S. represented significantly.
If we look at the next tranche of countries, 5 were represented at least 10% of the time: Spain (12%), Netherlands (12%), Czech Republic (12%), Belgium (10%), England (10%).
At the other end of the spectrum, 7 countries were represented a single time: Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Brazil, Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden.
Which Countries are Most Popular for Door Photography?
Please bear in mind that this next analysis is pretty unscientific. We aren’t going to be able to draw statistically significant conclusions, for sure 😅, but hey, this is door photography, not a Ph.D. research project!
In the 48% of cases where the theme lent itself to challengers in multiple countries and the doors represented 3 different countries that week we can take a look at how often a given country was victorious which gives us directional information about which countries have the best doors.
Of the two most represented countries, Ireland was vastly more popular. An Irish door won door of the week honors 63% of the time they were in the mix for a multi-country theme. On the contrary, Portugal was represented with similar frequency but won only 7% of the time.
Greek doors were also very popular and Greece was 100% victorious across all 3 of the multi-country challenges it competed in. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Greece and I don’t have as many door pictures, but I’m hopeful I’ll have a chance to return this year and build my Greek door photography catalog so that we can see if this trend holds up at a higher N-count!
Northern Ireland and Slovenia also have a perfect record, but were each only represented during a single week so it remains to be seen if that trend holds in the future. I definitely have many pictures from Belfast, but not so many from Slovenia. I think I’ll try to include more Northern Irish doors in the upcoming competitions to see how they do!
At the other end of the spectrum, England was zero for five when English doors were represented in the competition. Sad trombone…
France, Germany, Scotland, Brazil, Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden also did not win a single time. However, they were each only represented once so the odds were not in their favor.
For the remaining countries represented during weeks with multi-country themes, what was their win percentage?
- Denmark (N=3): 67%
- Belgium (N=4): 50
- Italy (N=2): 50%
- Spain (N=5): 40%
- Iceland (N=3): 33%
- Norway (N=4): 25%
- USA (N=5): 20%
- Netherlands (N=5): 20%
The Czech Republic (Czechia) and Lithuania have been featured in the door of the week competition but only in weeks with a single-country or city theme so they were out of scope of this analysis.
Theme Recap
If you’re curious, here is the list of all the Door of the Week themes covered during the past year. Click on any of the themes to view the competitors that week. You can also visit the winners’ gallery to see the full gamut of door of the week winners!
Note: the first three are labeled “Photographer’s Choice”. That’s just a fancy way of saying that there was no theme that week. I realized after the first few weeks of the competition that I needed some way to guide the choice of doors for the competition and thus the weekly theme was born.
- Photographer’s Choice
- Photographer’s Choice
- Photographer’s Choice
- Nordic Doors
- Street Art Doors
- Tiles
- Neighbors
- Art Nouveau Doors
- Stones
- Shopfronts
- Art Deco Doors
- Lamps
- Stained Glass
- UK Doors
- Irish Doors
- Autumn Doors of Upstate New York
- Sculptures
- Red Doors
- Orange Doors
- The Pumpkins of New York
- Halloween Doors
- Green Doors
- Twins
- Blue Doors
- Pink Doors
- Porto Doors
- Columns / Pilasters
- Holiday Garlands
- Christmas Doors in Cologne
- Dublin Christmas Wreaths
- Purple Doors
- Yellow Doors
- Spanish Doors
- The Shapes and Patterns of Portugal
- Florentine Doors
- French Cafe Culture
- Doors of the Netherlands: The Hague
- Greek Doors
- Belgian Doors (Ghent Edition)
- German Doors
- The Tiled Doors of Lisbon Doors
- Irish Pub Doors (in Ireland)
- Wisteria Doors
- San Francisco Doors
- New York Doors
- Spring Vibes in Portugal
- Lithuanian Doors (Vilnius Edition)
- The Faces of Prague
- Historic Doors in Prague
- Art Nouveau Prague
- Art Deco Prague
- 20th Century Shapes of Prague
Door Photography Competition: Call for Photos
I’ve gotten a number of inquiries over the last year from people interested in submitting their own door pictures to the door of the week competition. In honor of the Doors, Glorious Doors by Sidewalk Safari door of the week one year anniversary, I’m planning a door photography competition that includes submissions from photographers around the world.
Are you interested in participating?
Here are all the details:
- Theme: Neighbors
- Deadline to Submit a Photo: Jun 30, 2025
- Where to submit your entry?: This Google Form or this thread on the Doors, Glorious Doors Subreddit
- Competition Duration: July 7th – July 20th
- Winner will be announced in August
- What’s in it for you? Bragging rights and a link back to the website and/or social media channel of your choosing.
How the competition works:
I will select the best entries and post them to a page on Doors, Glorious Doors by Sidewalk Safari. We all promote the heck out of the page featuring the challengers! The winner will be judged based on the highest number of unique users clicking through to the “vote counting” landing page for that door (as measured using Google Analytics).
Submit a photo using this Google Form or posting to this thread on the Doors, Glorious Doors Subreddit. I will select the best candidates (maybe 5, maybe 10) based on the number and quality of submissions. The photos should not include people, just doors!
The Fine Print
By entering the competition, you assert that the photo is your own (you own the copyright) and you grant Doors, Glorious Doors by Sidewalk Safari a non-exclusive license to post your photo on doors.sidewalksafari.com and use it for social media promotion in support of the competition.