Well, it’s that time of year when we all look back at the prior year and for most, take some inventory of the year and for me that means curating a collection of my 2021 favorite images.  At first glance, I sort of feel it’s a bit cliche to produce and publish my favorite images, a bit self-serving and tooting my own horn.  But when I pause and reflect on the body of work across the year, themes start to emerge and I can start to see the creative paths I followed.  I make a point to give myself credit where it is due, as well as identify areas where I could improve my photography.  I am one of those “constant learners” and I can typically find learning examples in most of my photographs and when I’m doing a retrospective type of work, this is a great time to reflect on what I learned and where I still see need for growth and development.

Do you have a collection of 2021 favorite images?  Have you put them together in to a format to share with family or friends?  Doing this exercise is a great way to connect with others as well as feel a sense of pride for work you’ve done.  Knowing you might share your collection, does it change how you might curate your images to include?  Things you like, but think that maybe others might not like…does that change the answer if it is included or not?   For me, this is a project that is about what I like without any regard for what others may think of it.  I am the artist and I’m doing this for myself.

The task of curating images into a manageable collection..that is probably the hardest part in putting together my 2021 favorite images.  I shot over 10,000 frames this year and am still going through folders of images from my travels to find worthy shots.  Typically during the year, when I’m most busiest, I just quickly grab the most obvious good images for processing and sharing.  Then I’m off on the next trip.  It’s not until months later, when I have time to contemplate and consider each image, that I find many of the real “diamonds in the rough”.  As the calendar turns to the new year, I’m just starting this process.

I typically prefer to let my images rest for a while after a shoot before I begin to evaluate them critically.  Oftentimes I have emotional or experiential baggage associated to the images from the experience I had in the field.  That baggage can cloud my evaluation, giving more weight to images that were captured during an enjoyable outing, or less weight if I wasn’t having that much fun.  I prefer to give enough time that most of that baggage has dissipated, at least from the surface, so I can look at my images on their creative and technical merit alone, without “rose colored glasses” skewing my opinion.  I still have the fond memories of an enjoyable experience, but it is in my longer term memory, not right on the surface acting as a filter.

So, here is a short video of where I am with my 2021 favorite images (so far).  I suspect that there will be more added to the list as time goes on, as well as several dropping off.  I won’t know for a few months more, but by then the relevance (and possibly learning opportunity) of my 2021 favorite images may be diluted.  With that, check out the video below.  Or, you can view it on my YouTube channel HERE

 

If you have a collection of your 2021 favorite images and would like to share, I would love to see them!  Please share in the comments or drop me a note.

Happy New Year to you all!!!!