Image of the 2025

The first Image of the Year blog post was January 2018, so this is the 9th edition, if I've counted correctly. I've blogged about what goes into selecting the images that go on the yearly podium, but I don't propose to revisit all that here and now. I figure the interested can go back and find the posts easily enough. 

I still think the IotM and IotY are a good idea as long as I'm trying to become a better photographer, and thus will continue. Plus it sometimes sparks comments from my readers about their agreement (or not) with my choices. Plus plus, from a blogging perspective, it gives me 10% of the blog post production goal right there. Yes, I'm going to aim for 10 a month in 2026. 

As it turns out, I took fewer photos in 2025 than in any year since started using a real camera. Lots fewer. I'm not entirely sure why, but suspect that even when I took one of the cameras for a walk, I was a lot more picky about what made me click the shutter. I know I'm much more picky about what images get edited at all, and what gets a 4 or 5 star rating. Those have become more rare over the years. 

In one sense it's quite straightforward to capture a focussed, reasonably well exposed image of something. But is it an interesting something? I'd like to think my photography is getting better at producing interesting images, but also that my standards are getting higher.

It's a complicated world. In one sense creative people should only put their very best work out in the world. Yet, recognizing the best is difficult, and other people disagree. Part of learning how to do their best work, is to share work with other creative people, even if it isn't the best. Maybe it was the best you could do in those circumstances, and it's a learning experience to have someone else make suggestions. 

Another part is the whole social media "thing". I don't even know what to call it anymore. There are a huge number of creative (loosely defined and YMMV) people trying to capture eyeballs by putting out a near infinity of still images, video, text, and other art forms. In addition there are the AI bots and trolls flooding the zone with shit. Does an artist put out a steady stream of pretty good stuff with the occasional real winner, and (hopefully) maintain the attention of their audience, or put out an excellent work once in a while, only to find their audience isn't there anymore?

I don't have any real way of knowing how many images appear in my blog over a year. In 2025 there were 139 posts, which is more than the previous couple years, about the same as a couple years before that, and way less than before that. The main section might have only one photo, but there's usually several that I hope are topical, or (rarely) more than 20. The Of the Day section started off with 8 in January, and ended up with 11. If I wave my thumb in the breeze and assume an average of a dozen images per post, that works out to 1,668 images over the year, or 15 per post is 2,085 images. That's actually a lot of images, and if you've slogged through all of them, congratulations. Thank you for reading.

Were they all 'the best?' Certainly not, though I think they're all pretty good.  Well, mostly. A few I look back on and wonder what I was thinking. Best comes down to about a dozen, or two dozen at most images. I'm pretty sure that there's only a few that get lingered over or returned to, and it's something different for different people. I'm also pretty sure that some get scrolled past as you wonder why I'm still on about a topic. Maybe I'll revisit the whole Of the Day idea.

Oddly enough, much as I've gone on about dithering about the choice in previous years, this year I got from the first cut of 28 down to the final dozen quite quickly. There are several near repeats, like similar images of the same waterfall. Knowing I'll only pick one of those narrows the decision down to about 6 images, which is where I am just now, with the serious dithering starting.

Actually, the main dither for a couple weeks now is trying to define a self-assigned photo project for 2026. I'd like to expose a roll of film a week, aiming to end up with about 400 or so photos. The idea is to print at least some of these in the darkroom, and maybe produce a book of the best of said photos. As I commented to a buddy, I want the project to be detailed enough so I know what to go look for, but not so detailed it’s a straightjacket, and not so loose as my usual photo life of wandering around taking photos of whatever catches my eye. Here it is Jan 1, and I still have not achieved clarity. Well, later in the day I did, sort of. It's foggy out. More later.

I've also been dithering about books. Now I can start working on a 2025 book of photos because now I know which ones they are.  I'll probably work on it in January and hit the print button when there's a good Blurb sale. The harder one is New Brunswick. Still dithering, trying to figure it out.

I can hear you saying to yourselves, get on with it. Here's the final 12.

It took a while to get down to the final three, and I'm still not sure I've got them in the right order. Will you forgive me if I say it was a photo finish? What these three all have in common is that I knew they were going to be good when I clicked the shutter. I saw the image in my head, and worked to capture it while  hoping I wouldn't mess anything up or the scene wouldn't change somehow. That's one of the reasons to work through lots of images that aren't the best, so when you find or create the good ones, you have the required skills. 

I have come back to these images again and again throughout the year.

2nd Runner Up

One of the photos I had hoped to get in New Brunswick was calm water reflecting trees in full colour. Yes, I know it's a bit of a cliche. On our last full day, we were crossing the one lane bridge in Shediac Bridge. I was paying attention to the road, and Linda exclaimed "look how calm the water is!" That was a first during our visit. I pulled into the parking lot for the busy lunch place, and walked back out on the one lane bridge that does not have a separate pedestrian walkway. I got some nice photos of the reflection of the trees looking one way, but when I turned around I nearly swooned as I saw this. A couple of clicks later I hustled off the bridge to avoid a truck.

1st Runner Up

From a walk in Carburn Park on a bitterly cold day. I'd stopped on the way home just to see if there was anything interesting happening along the river, even though I wasn't really dressed for the weather. On the way back I saw this, and was instantly captivated. I didn't see the image for nearly a week till I got a chance to develop the film.

Image of the Year

I was driving back to the AirBnB from exploring a New Brunswick beach when I saw this. A second later I was on a bridge looking for a place to turn around. Did that, with another driver wondering what the heck I was doing, then made a dodgy left to get into a little boat launch. I got set up and worked the scene hard, trying different exposures and slightly different compositions. There was a guy eating his lunch nearby, watching me, but he didn't say anything.

December Image of the Month

Happy New Year to all my readers!

I decided to go with just two photos from December, both taken on the same ramble. More from that ramble here. Yes, I'm working on Image of the Year.

Runner up

Image of the Month

The last blog of 2025

I started writing this on the 27th, not knowing for sure if I'd do another one between now and the 31st. I still don't want to do a summary of the year, or a year end top 10 list of something.

In fact, just at this very moment, I don't quite know what I'm going to write, or what photos might be included, but I suppose that's nothing new. (Goes away to drink more coffee and give the demanding mammal a fuzzy blanket lap.)

It was one of these bags of coffee. They're all amazing!

Just lately I've revisited Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's been 50 years since it came out, and before that it was a stage show. I'd heard of it, but didn't see it till sometime late in 1980 when I went to a midnight showing at one of the local movie theatres. It was quite the experience with people singing along or shouting at the screen. 

At the time I was a repressed white boy kind of down on sub-cultures, and no real awareness of how sub some of the cultures could be. Then again, recall that one of my high school teachers thought, and said out loud, that anybody 'found in' during one of the bath house raids then taking place in Toronto in the 70's should be shot in the street.

I've seen it any number of times since, of course. Usually in a midnight showing, and that could be fun depending on the theatre and the crowd. The wildest was during a showing where the theatre was going to be closing down for renovations, and they said have at it. The quietest happened at a science fiction convention, of all places, during a late night showing. I started singing along to the opening, and was shushed. I made some of the standard responses, and was asked to leave. Several of the audience wanted to actually watch the movie as is, and were taking notes. Imagine that. We have the DVD. I sing along. Without shame. The cats hide.

What got me going on all this was one of those reaction videos. The Charismatic Voice reviewed the whole thing, and it was more fun watching her face than anything else. She had no idea what to expect and was somewhat shocked.

In one sense the reaction videos are fun, watching young people 'discover' things that are familiar to me and nearly anyone else my age. Sometimes they're interesting, in that they are picking out things I hadn't noticed. But some of them are hard to believe, like the young-ish (he appears) music producer (he says) that has never listened to The Beatles (he says with a straight face). How is that possible? Some rapper kid who has never heard of Pink Floyd I'll give you.

Some of that gets driven by current events, like Brian Wilson dying. People dive in and listen to work they might only have heard in passing, and suddenly appreciate that one of the great musical geniuses of all time has passed away.

Us boomers are going to get a lot of that over the coming years. Brigette Bardot died yesterday at age 91. There's a lot of people who remember her frolicking around wearing not much in various 1960's movies.  Mick Jagger seems to be going strong at 82, and the same for Paul McCartney (speaking of one of the other musical geniuses of our time.) Dick Van Dyke just passed 100, still doing his thing. I remember him from the Disney movies of my childhood. Good for them and all the other creative people out there still doing their thing, whether anyone is paying attention or not. Don't get me started about attention seeking, and brands, and chasing the algorithm.

I sometimes envision a map in my head, sort of like the famous Tube map for the London Underground. My time line is of course a nice straight line. Along side it for a while are the time lines for people active in my life, colour coded for different roles, such as family, work colleagues, friends might be different shades of colour depending on if they are triathlon, or SCA, or photography buddies. Most of these veer in from left field, track with me for a while, and veer off again. They, of course, would say theirs is the straight line, and I'm the one the veered in and out. Fair enough.

Every now and then I wonder what happened to all those people. I might miss news of someone because I'm not on Facebook much anymore, and Facebook screwing with the algorithm to determine who sees what has nothing to do with it, oh no. Some of them have died, I know that, including a kid in my home room class in grade 9 who barely got out of high school. Some people I knew have almost certainly died, and I might never know it. I understand why some people read the obit page first. I could die and them not know, which is almost a certainty given that I'm such a low profile person leading a low profile life.

So you knew I had to. The Herald obit includes a Dick Argatoff, 1951 to 2025. I'm pretty sure he was a contractor I interacted with during my time at Amoco. There are a few people listed that are younger than me, including a child, which I'm sure is heartbreaking for their family.

If you've been following along you probably heard I had an MRI done on Halloween, and shortly after got told I DIDN'T have cancer. Reassuring news, though that could change next year, or next decade. After all, everything causes cancer. As an aside, sometime next month I send the radon testing thingie and my toenail clippings in and sometime later I'll find out if our house has radon in it. Which it probably does, though the actual level of exposure is unknown. After living here for 40 years I kind of wonder if it's worth mitigating the exposure for whatever time we have left. I'm trying not to think about the reaction of field staff during a gas plant turnaround being told they had to wait for benzene testing before they could start some kinds of work. They were unconcerned, thinking it was all a make work project for the health and safety people.

So I've let this germinate a couple days and it's time to send it.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

At least I didn't have to worry about dust spots on this one.

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Finding this one took a bit of doing, with Mrs Google once again telling us what is the shorter path, but longer drive. Parking for it is kind of tricky, involving a hill and a blind corner. Good thing there wasn't much traffic.

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

Probably because I'm dying of envy at the people living there. Can you imagine?

I think this is somewhere on the Coromandel peninsula, maybe Hahei beach. 

90 days, or so ago

Inside the Miscou lighthouse.

Flower

Landscape

One of the main roads in New Zealand.

Dino related

Latest reading, with lots of references

The library books on hold arrived the morning of the 24, meaning I had to brave the traffic if I wanted something to read over the holidays. We aren't much for going to the mall, any mall, pretty well any time, and even more so in December. I was not surprised to see that South Center was a gong show, but there was hardly anyone in the library. I got in, found my books, saw another interesting one along the way and escaped.

So unlike a trip earlier in the week where I am quite prepared to say I spent more time sitting at red lights than I did driving. So much traffic.

Yes, it was minus WTF out then, and it still is now. Plus it's snowing more. And it's getting windy. 

Yes, we put up our tree on schedule. Two photos for you. Yes, Celina loves it, and lurks under there almost as much as she does apricating.

Art Work by Sally Mann.

For whatever reason I thought this would be a picture book, but it's not. It's so much better than that.  I'd read one of her other books, and cannot for the life of me remember which one. Nor can I find it in the library, so maybe it was a chapter about Sally Mann in another book.

In any case, this is great reading for someone just starting out in their career. Why? All the great advice. One of the great bits is, do the work. Keep doing it, and put only your best out in the world. That really resonates with me, since I was surrounded during much of my (so-called) career by people who couldn't or wouldn't do the work. I will cop to the accusation of putting less than my best out into the world, but the problem is that there is no general agreement on what is best. I look at earlier photos and wonder what I was thinking to take the photo, let alone publish it. And sometimes, the converse, finding an overlooked gem.

I told one summer student that if they wanted to get ahead of the majority of the job hunting crowd, all they had to do was reliably show up on time ready to work, and then do the work competently. At one time I had much advice about work life, but it is mercifully fading into a foggy haze. I blogged about it here, while it was still fairly fresh in mind. That is part 1 of a 5 part series, which I was told was amusing in places.

She was a prolific letter and journal writer and shares some of those. They're a fascinating insight into what's going on in her head during a very busy life. It tied back to a recent book, The Notebook, here. I've been doing a lot of writing in a notebook lately, trying to think about what I think of a particular project. No conclusions so far, except that big surprise, the initial concept is unworkable, and I'm unsure if the road from it to explore variations will bear any fruit.

It actually led me to another book, Borrowed Time by George Webber, (here), because that is a variation of what I was thinking about. That blog has several other books that are influencing my thoughts about a 2026 film project.

The Revenge of Analog by David Sax.

I thought I'd read this one before, but no. It's actually about 10 years old, catching just the beginning of the analog revival. It didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know. I checked out several of the situations mentioned and they're still around. 

I certainly think of myself as an analog kind of guy. I tried reading books on an iPad, and once on a borrowed Kindle, but I infinitely prefer paper books. For my own photography I prefer film, and black and white at that, over digital, though of course client work and some specific situations is digital, unless of course someone wants to pay me to shoot film, which nobody has done, and I don't expect anyone will. 

I prefer older cars that don't 'help' me drive, and I'd love to get a new 1984 Accord hatchback, just as it was made then. No infotainment screen. Although I will admit that having the map on a screen is handy when driving in some place you don't know, though I've never understood the vagaries of why the system behaves different ways at different times, which annoys the heck out of me. 

I don't much listen to music any more, and when I do it's through a computer, and yes I know the music snobs are looking down their nose at me because of course a wax record on a turntable played through a tube amplifier is better. Except with my hearing I can't hear the subtle stuff anyways. The hearing aids are good, but not that good. Even with my poor hearing, autotune grates.

 

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

After we finally got there. It was quite the adventure. 

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Part of the view from Miscou Lighthouse 

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

This is one of the ones I worked on during my Lightroom upgrade last month.

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Dino related

A Christmas time blog

Here we are. Christmas Eve again. I'm taking a break from decorating the tree while Linda adds the final touches and tweaks it so it looks nice. 

This is how cold it is out there. 

I can't believe how quick 2025 has gone. It's totally a cliche to say that, and the editor within wants to drop it. For us it went quick, and I suppose that's because we enjoyed ourselves. Time goes quick when that happens.

Facebook is an off and rarely on thing. Still. Mostly off. Generally whenever I get the itch to look at it, I ask myself what else I could do instead. Just about anything is enough to distract me from Facebook. Reading a book. Going for a walk, which I should do more. Washing dishes. Paying attention to the demanding cat. Whatever.

I don't intend to give a summary of what we did. If you've been following along the 130-some blogs this year, you already know. If you haven't been following along, and are interested, you can scroll back through my sometimes cryptic but enigmatic blog titles and read what catches your attention.

Yes, I'm working on Image of the Month, and have it picked out. Unless something better comes along in the next few days. The Image of the Year is down to fewer than a dozen candidates, and I think I know which three. Order is tricky. Also on the photo front I'm giving serious thought to a 2026 photo project. I'd like to do something on film, maybe trying to go through a roll of film a week and at the end of the year have 50 photos or so that would be the result of the project. 

We don't know what the coming year will bring. I hope you all have a happy Christmas and a wonderful new year!

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick This is one of the photos I tried to tweak with new Lightroom skillz. I wanted to get the power lines and pole out of there, leaving just the lighthouse and tree. Not.

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did. This is what photography can be like on some tours.

90 days, or so ago. This is the start of the 13 Km long beach.

Flower

Landscape

Dino related

Recent books and thoughts

This might get a little tangled and involve some scrolling up or down, and following some links that inform my thinking here.

The Notebook, A History of Thinking on Paper, by Roland Allen. I found this book from another blogger here. As an aside, a digression if you will, if you're a writer, a photographer, or thinking about making a book, you could do much worse than to navigate to the top of Dan's Shifter site and scroll to your heart's content. As he says, just one guy with one opinion, and you will be in no doubt of what those opinions are.

This was a fabulous read that came along at just the right time for me. The library had a hold list and it took a while for me to rise to the top of it, so the anticipation built up. One of the things that nearly all creative people have in common is they carry around a notebook and use it often. Really often. They might use it differently, but they use it. We think of paper and pencil or pen as being old fashioned now, but it was really quite revolutionary, and is still transformative. At the least it lets you think about what you thought, which is nearly impossible for most people without making notes. Going back through the notes, and connecting them up with other things can produce unexpected results.

One example is Both Sides Now by Ari Jaaksi. You can find a previous post about it  here, along other books and images and notes. The notes he took during his working career in the software industry are matched up with photographs from a variety of times and places. I'm quite sure such a project was the furthest thing from his mind when taking the notes. (You can read a review here, and buy it here. Or come visit and I'll let you browse my copy.) 

We think we'll remember, but we don't. I've often made notes tapping away like mad on a laptop, and the blogging could be considered a form of note taking or diary, but it's not the same as writing. There's lots of research that says taking notes by hand is much better for memory and comprehension than taking notes by typing. Part of it is that moving a pen slows us down, and makes us think. There's something about doing the actual handwriting that ties the memory to the words on the page.

I have periodically found old notebooks tucked away in a drawer. Mostly they are work related, capturing bits of SQL, or meeting notes, or deliverables. Some are random burble about what I was thinking at the time.

I had started taking photography related notes, especially for the film work, but let's just say I'm a bit erratic. Now I'm inspired to get more regular. See more below.

Who We Are, Four questions for a life and a nation by Murray Sinclair cc Mazina Giizhik. I've only read about half of it, and it's fascinating. A great read for Canadians, helping us understand how the story of Canada as taught to most of us in school is incomplete and misleading at best, and in many places has been racist and genocidal.

The Official Picture, by Carol Payne.

I've only browsed through this, not actually read it yet, but even what little I've seen totally intrigues me. There's burble about the National Film Board still photography division, but I'm interested in the actual photos. Ordinary people doing ordinary things that become extraordinary in telling a story of Canada. And yes, referencing Sinclair, there are blemishes on that story. I may blog more about this after reading.

The most recent page of my film notebook, for what it's worth. This illustrates one of the problems in keeping a notebook. I can barely read my own writing at it's neatest, and what you see below is extremely neat by my standards. I once worked with a young woman who had amazingly neat copperplate handwriting, and it was fast. She could take notes almost quicker than me typing, and I can type pretty quickly. I usually print if legibility is important. Still, I've been going back through it and a similar notebook to glean what learnings I can as I think about next year.

I'm thinking over something Sean applies to his work, that there are projects and practice. Now, in my mind practice is a complicated word and I think a discussion to explore that is best had over beer. But many photographers talk about intentional photographs, and I'm thinking seriously about what a project for next year might look like. An intentional project, where I assign myself something. Dan Milnor (see above) in some of his posts talks about being assigned to go get photos of some newsworthy event, and the consequences of failure. There are no consequences for me, other than spending some time and money to buy film, developer, and perhaps photo paper. I figure at worst I will not get the results I hope for, or nothing worth sharing. Mostly likely I'll have fun and learn something along the way. I doubt that it will bring me fame and fortune.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Dino related