An End of Year Retrospective for 2009Posted by drfl on December 29th, 2009

At the end of every year there is a deluge of “Best of” lists.  Wholly subjective and different for every person, these lists hopefully celebrate the successes and identify the failures so that the next year can be even better.  It is during the cold wintry months I sit down in a warm location and review my previous year. I look at my work, look at how I grew and changed artistically and ask myself a few key questions (summarized):

1. Did I accomplish my artistic goals that I set last year?
2. Were my business efforts met with success?
3. What images did I fail to capture the mood/scene/emotion that I wanted? 
4. Did I surprise myself?
5. Do I still enjoy what I am doing? (Most Important)

 
If #5 is a Yes! (and it has been year after year), I look to next year and ask myself a few more key questions:

1. What artistic goals do I have for this year?
2. What locations should I focus on photographing?
3. What types of lenses/filters/techniques should I try?
4. What business ideas should I implement or push this year?
5. What hasn’t been successful and what should discontinue?

 
So what have I found by asking myself all these questions?  To follow the lead of others, here is my ”Best Of” list to illustrate my triumphs and to help answer those questions.  This is a collection of my favorite images, perhaps not the most profitable, but the ones that I feel exemplify my artistic growth.

#5 (Tie) Glorious Sandhills Sunrise and Toadstool Dawn

One of my ongoing projects is to photograph Nebraska, especially the not often seen places. I want to show the diversity of the state and the beauty that exists. These two photographs each show a different region of the state and places that many would overlook.

#4 Welcome to Wonderland

I choose this photograph because although I saw more spectacular sunrises and sunsets in the Badlands, I felt that this photograph was more dynamic and illustrated a better sense of the desolate landscape that encompasses this area.

# 3 Tommy

I included this photo of my nephew as an example of some of the portraiture that I worked on through the year. Before this time I rarely took photographs of anyone but my immediate family. My philosophy was to strictly photograph nature and architecture. An elm tree will never tell you that you made it look fat! I have since continued to expand my experience in this area and have been fairly pleased with the results. It seems to please my nephew, right?

#2 (Tie) Prairie Dog Pups and An Autumn Friend

These two photographs were my favorite wildlife images of the year. In both cases I was able to photograph these critters with minimal intrusion. I captured their image as they exist in their natural environments.

#1 Small World

This photograph was serendipitous to say the least. To achieve this composition many factors came together of which I was able to take advantage. Nebraska received an unusual amount of moisture in the spring. This caused me to venture out to photograph the many mushrooms that had formed. After I had setup for this shot, a little snail came through the scene and I was able to incorporate him. The mushroom alone would have been a fine shot, but the snail really made it come together.

An an added bonus, below are three images that I captured in previous years, but finally either processed them this year, or processed them in a way that I felt really made them shine.

#3 Storms Passing - Originally captured in 2008

#2 Spiral of Solitude - Originally captured in 2008

#1 Mistaya Oxbow Sunrise - Originally captured in 2007

Tomorrow I am going to present my top blog picks from 2009.