Are you going to compile a collection of the “best of 2024” images that you’ve taken this year? I hope that you do because I think there can be a lot of value in the exercise. Plus, it’s very easy to do this in Lightroom if that is your tool of choice.

A red fox in the snow in Grand Teton National Park

Over the years my opinion on “best of” lists has evolved and circled back and spun around, partly as I evolved as a photographer and partly as I evolved my artistic thinking. Early on I was excited to compile my best images from the year and show them to folks. My hope was that I could share some of the natural beauty that I was fortunate to see and in a roundabout way, make their lives a little bit happier. And, lets be honest, I was proud of my work and wanted to be proud to others and maybe get some recognition for my efforts.

Eventually I grew tired of “best of” lists. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I saw what was driving my efforts (recognition) and didn’t want to be seen as superficial or part of the “me too” that many photographers engage in at the end of the year. Plus, it seemed like a lot of effort at the time and I’m not sure why I felt this way. Perhaps my image workflow and storage was not conducive to easy retrieval. This period lasted for several years for me though I’m not exactly sure when I slipped in to it or when I came out of it.

But come out of it I did to where I’m at today. I am a believer in compiling “best of” images at the end of the year. I’m not after recognition or being prideful or boastful. Yes I am proud of the work I do but I don’t need to show it off and I kind of expect of myself to produce good work. I’ve been photographing long enough that I should be doing good or great work consistently. These days I believe in doing this lists for internal rewards, things I can give myself by examining my best of for the year.

  • I can reflect on the amazing year I had, all that I saw and experienced and be thankful that I am able to see and do so much in my life. The older I get, the more I believe that “he who dies with the most experiences wins”….not money, fame or whatever. The richness of life is an amazing reward!

  • I can use my best of list as a LEARNING OPPORTUNITY for myself heading in to the new photographic year. By compiling many of my best photographs of the year and then studying them, I can see how I’ve progressed as an artist. I look for ways that my creative vision has changed over the year, or year over year and note the trend. It may be something I want to continue or make a slight course correction. As an example, I used to shoot many “grand landscapes” but over the years my vision and creative energy started to gravitate towards smaller scenes, nuances and subtleties in the landscape. I also noticed a trend over the years that my “best of” lists involved more storytelling aspects which led me along a path to learn how to convey more compelling stories through my images. In a nutshell, by examining my favorite photos of the year I can spot trends, growth and development of my photography and artistry. As a “continual learner”, I enjoy personal growth and doing “best of” lists helps me spot macro trends in my photography.

You might be wondering what is the process I go through to distill my photographic year in to a few chosen images. Looking in Lightroom at 2024, I have over 16,000 images still in my 2024 catalog. Some I’ve processed, some I never will process, but still, there are a lot of images that I take during the year and it can be a daunting task to cull all of your images down to a select few. Here are a couple of steps that I take in my process to create a “best of the year” list.

  • Before I start, I need to know that I’ve processed all the sure “winners” from each shoot that I’ve been on. Usually within a couple of months of a workshop or shoot, I’ve mined enough of the 5-star winners to be a good finished representation of the shoot. Of course there can still be some hidden gems in there, but I do have a reasonable level of confidence I’ve gotten the big hitters processed.
  • I have one folder that I save images for to post on the Web. These are sized and sharpened for the web and are not location/shoot specific. Just web pics to post on social media. This makes it really easy for me to find images over the years without having to poke around in different folders of finished images. Once I find the image I’m looking for, I can get the file name and then go find the original .psd file in I need to process it further or want a full-res version
  • In Lightroom, I will go in to my Web folder and the use a filter to select 2024 as a date filter so only my images from 2024 will show up in the grid.
  • I will then create a Collection in Lightroom called Best of 2024. These collections don’t disturb the original files when you add an image to it. It merely “points” to where the selected image is and displays it in the Collection or Group.
  • Looking at my 2024 images I then move through those and gradually add images I think are the”best” from the year. Initially I don’t set a limit on how many images I add, I am working intuitively and reactively and not overthinking the process. Images that I think are possibly some of my best of the year I add to the Collection. I just did this exercise for 2024 and I came up with 37 images so far in the folder. I need to make another pass through my Web folder and see if I have any different reactions to the images, maybe adding a few more.
  • Once I have my Best Of Collection, I will then start examining the images in this folder. Over several days I will make several passes through the folder, casually or critically looking at the images and judging them against each other as well as my ill-defined concept of “best of”.
  • Eventually my hope is to get down to 10-15 images that are the “best of the best” of my work from the year.

Sunset along the Oregon Coast

To give you a little insight in to my criteria for what I think might be “best”, it’s not an exact science at all for me. It’s a combination of many factors that come together to form my opinion as a worthy image

  • Technically proficient – It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it better be pretty dang good technical execution.
  • Emotional Connection – There is an emotional connection with the image, either the color palette evokes an emotion, the subject evokes an emotion or the story I’m trying to convey in the image conveys an emotion. If I don’t feel a tug of emotion with an image, there might not be a good chance it would end up in my “best of” list.
  • Images that demonstrate my creative or artistic skills in a way that makes me proud of the image.
  • Memories – I can’t deny that my experiences while taking the photographs can influence some of my best of selections. The experiences we all have while out in nature can be very moving and we develop emotional connections with the experience and in seeing images from that experience we re-trigger those emotions. For example, my trip to Greenland this year was so emotionally powerful that I had to resist adding tons of images from there in my initial best of list.

 

Once I finish distilling my “best of” to the “best of the best” I can then do different things with them if I feel so moved. I can post on my social media. I can create a small video to share with friends/family or post on YouTube. I can even create a wonderful slideshow in Lightroom with the built-in slideshow functionality. I’m less invested in what I do with them in the end. Instead, I’m more interested in the process and the LEARNINGS about my art through the process of examining my images. This is the best reason to do a “best of” collection of images…self-improvement and growth as a photographer and artist.

Polar bears in Greenland