Favorite 2024 Photos

Every year I go through all the photos that I made during the year and pick my favorites. Today I finished narrowing down my dozen

after much deliberation. Even now as I prepare to share them in this blog post I find myself questioning whether I’ve picked the best ones. Perhaps I might still want to change my mind.

After writing those words I did go back and re-look at everything again, removing 3 images from the group and adding 3 different images. There probably will never be a final pick as my tastes and impressions change from day to day, week to week, year to year.

I ask myself, “Why do I like this image?” Often it is a mix of the beauty I see in the image, the things that I really love to photograph, and the technical quality of the image. Someone else, looking through my photographs probably pick many different images as “best” based upon their tastes and experiences.

It’s a good practice for artists to review their work periodically and think about what they like, what they might change, and how to continue to grow as an artist.

Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

With winter setting in I am entering the most challenging time of year for me as a photographer. Getting out to photograph what I love means braving the cold and sometimes snow and ice as well. And with all of the bare trees and winter landscape I often find it difficult to find something I want to photograph. Still, I plan to continue to work and make photographs, possibly doing more indoor photography or portrait photography.

So I find myself looking for…

Divine Possibility

in this, my least favorite season of the year.

all eternity is in the moment

— Mary Oliver

For today I’m letting it all go and simply soaking up a quiet day with lots of open time to read and dream.

Where do you find beauty and divine possibility? How will you spend your winter months?

Changes Ahead

I am in the process of changing my blog posts from my WordPress site to Substack. There are advantages for me not needing to keep updating my website with this change. And also for subscribers, Substack subscriptions will include the entire post (including images) in the email rather than just the first part of the post. I encourage you to take a look at my Substack home and subscribe to receive blog posts from there. Although the Substack model includes the option of paid subscriptions I do not plan to ever charge to receive my blog posts. Here’s a link to Today’s post on Substack.

Thanks for reading my posts and I hope to see you on Substack soon. Note that I will continue to post the next 2-3 posts on this blog as well but hope to transition entirely to Substack by the beginning of 2025.

May you walk in beauty.

Note: My top 12 photos of 2024 (including image at top of this blog post)