February Image of the Month

Here we are again. Another month has zoomed by, this one with more zoom than usual. I feel for my friends at home, this month has probably seemed to last forever and a day. Or more. I can't believe it's over already.

I took nearly 5,000 photos last month, with about 10% of them edited so far, and yes, I'm still behind. The first train trip was about 500 photos, I think. Parade day was over 1000. Neither touched so far. I had a hasty scroll through, and I don't think I'm missing a potential image of the month in either. Maybe once I finish editing I'll have to do a honourary New Zealand image of the trip, or something.

I admit to struggling with all the images. Without doing anything else, I could put up a photo a day for the rest of the year, and still have some left over. I could do sets of things, or by location, or kind of shot, or, or, or. The driftwood, for example. I'm quite taken by it, but my small and loyal readership don't seem to be much interested in it. Maybe that needs a different audience. I see lots of shots that by my standards are pretty good, and would normally be a shoo in for the blog, but haven't been included for whatever reason, usually because there are even better ones.

Today I was looking at these amazing landscapes in a gallery. Amazing is an understatement. It makes me re-evaluate all of my own work, but it also gave me ideas. Hint, Google Helmut Hirler. He's really nice. We chatted about photography, and he autographed his book I bought.

To be honest I don't even know where to start deciding. I went back and tweaked the star ratings (what was I thinking for some of them??!!) and am reasonably happy with the results. But as always, I'm having a problem getting it down to one.

I'm glad I kept notes along the way. Some things are beginning to run together on me. I can easily see that when I'm going over these on the desktop, I'll need to have my notebook open beside me so I know which beach, or city, or garden I'm looking at.

Second runner up
This panorama was shot from the balcony of our rental place in Cass Bay (near Christchurch) overlooking Lyttelton harbour. The rest of the sunset was nice, and I was there with camera in hand when this came and went.

First runner up
Shot near Wellington airport with the 14 mm lens. For those that missed that blog, this appears to be a sound I could run tours down, but really it's only a few inches across.

The winner!
This was during our stay just outside Napier, when I drove out north of Sherendon, hoping to find dark skies. There I was, driving along the ridge I had scouted earlier in the day, and was horrified to see the lights of Napier way down below. Going a little further got me in the lee of a hill, and once the moon set things were pretty dark.

January Image of the Month

So begins another year of photography! As it happens (it didn't just happen, there was deep planning and careful forethought put into it!) we are not home. This place is pretty darn photogenic even with unflattering light. Sunrise or sunset, and some of the interesting stuff and it becomes amazingly photogenic.

It's easy to take lots of photos here. 6319 this month, in case you were wondering. 515 have been edited, (and I'm way behind, still), with 30 ending up with 4 stars. That's pretty well one a day. Only one 5 star image though, so that makes it easy. No runner up or anything, just another look at the stars.

Which turns out to be a weird thing. I'd edited the photo, went wow, and posted it on various social media. When I came back to look at it earlier today, there was a huge mottled band across the middle, and I'm wondering how I could possibly have not noticed that. At first I thought I'd done something, or Lightroom was playing games with me, or it was a laptop screen thing. But no.

So I went back to the original and did the edit over again, and it came out slightly different, and I think better. Then I remembered that for complicated reasons I'd turned the graphic processor off. So I turned it back on and restarted. Nope. Must have been my miss-calibrated eyeballs or something. So I'm going with this version.

For the three of you that missed it first time round, this is on the beach behind our rented house in Queenstown. Kelvin Grove, if you know it. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw stars when I looked out. It had been cloudy when I went to bed.

I gathered my stuff and walked down to the beach. It was windy and warm, with a half moon off image to the left. There was some deep shadows and I set up there. Trying to get the horizon level was the hard part. The peaks off to the left are The Remarkables, and this photo does not do them justice at all.

The sky is pretty dark considering Queenstown is just on the other side of the peninsula not far away. For Calgary locals, you would have to drive out to about Bragg Creek to be that dark. I'd like to make the Milky way a bit brighter, but that brings up some of the back ground noise.

Image of 2018

When I first started doing Image of the Month, I wasn't sure how long I would keep doing it. How long I would able to find or create fresh images.

Here I am another year later, still at it. I think the practice is a good one. It makes me get out and look for images. Not just any image, but better ones. Not just randomly finding an image by accident, but doing the research to put myself in the path of possibly interesting, or doing extra work to figure out how to make something ordinary become interesting. When I get a nice one early in the month, I'm inspired to look for more. When I don't have one as the month gets on, I start getting itchy, and will plan something, hoping the weather cooperates.

Oddly enough, good photos come in bunches, I'm not sure why. It's like you get on a roll and they keep happening. I think part of is that if I'm out when the light is good, all sorts of things become interesting and photogenic.

It also makes me think about what makes a good image. I ruminated at length about 'best' in the blog for 2017 Image of the Year, and you might want to review that. I've thought about it more this year. I've taken just under 20K photos this year, down a bit from the almost 27K last year, but then, there wasn't a week long photo extravaganza in Yukon this year. That really racked up the count. Next year I'm going back.

Sometimes I see images and click quickly to capture the light. But more often now I'll walk through the scene thinking about what images are there to be had, and which of them I want to capture, and which lens I have with me.

One example is the three rocks in a frozen Fish Creek in this blog (Second last image. Spoiler, or you could scroll down.) I walked past it at first, then noticed some of the reflected light on the ice, and walked back and forth looking to see if there was a better image. I had the behemoth lens with me so I had lots of choices for composition. Did I pick the best one? I doubt it, since I'm still learning composition. It would have been really interesting to have another photographer there to discuss it. Even so, I took that one, and the more I looked at it the more I liked it, and even more after editing to bring up the colour a bit.

To that extent I've succeeded this year, photographically speaking. I've been looking for interesting, and figuring out how to capture it. I'm doing less of what I think of as technical photography, capturing images to get better at using my camera and lenses. Sometimes I'll walk past a photo I could take, but I have some like it already, so it's no longer as interesting. Maybe if the light was different I'd stop.

There was no obvious choice for image of the year, not even an obvious top three. I've got 23 images I've given 5 stars to over the year. Mostly that happens right away because the images stand out, and mostly I don't change my mind later. As I was reviewing to see if I'd overlooked any, I bumped a couple up to 5, and a few back to 4, and several from 3 to 4. To save you doing the math, that 23 is .117 percent. There are 158 images with 4 stars, that is .805 percent.

Linda says I'm getting pickier, and my photos are getting better. I hope that's true. Some of the 3 star photos from this year would be 4 or 5 if I'd taken them the year before. As may be. In any case, this talk of numbers has you thinking I'm blithering, or dithering. You want to know which ones make the podium. Here's the 23.

In trying to narrow them down I thought about how hard I had to work to get the shot, in terms of working on composition, settings, and degree of difficulty. In that sense, #5 the tulip was the easiest. I was walking past, looked down to see the shot, focussed the camera, tweaked settings, and took one shot. The remarkable thing is there was zero editing in Lightroom. I didn't want to touch it.

The hardest is #12 the Fish Creek reflection, mainly because I had lots of time to think about where to put the tree reflections and how to have it just touching the rock, and get everything just so. Next hardest is probably #17 the beaver dam flats reflection. I spent a bunch of time thinking about composition, and working on subtly different shots.

Any shot with a bee has probably involved lots of photos that aren't quite in focus. One day I shot well over a hundred photos and only got a couple I was willing to edit. So while there's a bit of luck in a good bee photo, there's also perseverance. The other difficult one is #3 the red tulip. I've talked about red being hard, and I've shot a great many photos where the red blossom goes purple, or magenta, or just plain garish.

Now I'm thinking of the photos in terms of personal style. There are several local photographers where I can recognize them from the shot. In that sense the downtown skyline shot loses some points because other people have very similar shots, and the library shot loses lots of points. It's an indoor space so lighting isn't an issue, and anyone else could look at my photo and duplicate it. The others are unique shots, in that the light will never again be quite like that again.

So which ones? After a lot of struggle I got it down to these 6 finalists and was stuck.

I haven't done this before, but this image gets honourable mention. The more I look at it, the more I like it, but I've only been looking at it a few days. It would be a pretty amazing image to top the others that I've been enjoying for months.

2nd runner up.
I've been coming back to this one ever since I took it. I love the subtle shades of colour, the shapes of the petals, and how the lines lead my eye around and around. Plus zero editing in Lightroom, did I mention that?

1st runner up
I scrambled a bit to get this shot before the light went. The orange and gold and yellows are a lovely backdrop for the silhouetted tree and bit of bush. It looks like it should be in the middle of nowhere, but it's in the middle of a busy park. I'm glad nobody was walking into the shot.

Image of 2018
I keep coming back to this one and finding more to look at. As I mentioned earlier, it's the one I put the most work into in terms of finding the composition and getting the camera in just the right spot.

So why not the purple flower, the Beaver Dam flats, or the downtown skyline? We are talking subtle here. The purple flower has a bit too much going on on the left and not enough on the right, some sky drama and a bit of cropping might have made that a stronger image. A bit of sky colour would have taken the beaver dam flats one over the top, I think. I love the skyline shot, and would be happy to see it printed and framed on my wall. But it doesn't really say anything unique in the sense of personal style.

And yes, if I took a break from it, and came back with fresh eyes I might choose differently.

So, as the joke goes, enough of me talking about my images, why don't you talk about them, tell me which you liked, or how I'm an idiot for not choosing the one you think is best.

October Image of the Month

October was a good photo month for me, leading to another tough choice for Image of the Month. (I love these tough choices!) You may have seen all 16 of the contenders a couple days ago here. You get a rant there as well, if you missed it, so take a few minutes. I'll still be here.

I got it down to 4 photos as finalists kind of sort of easily. They stood out that extra little bit. Curtis is here, helping me choose and write it up.

Second Runner up
Normally I'm not big on sunrise or sunset shots in competition for the image of the month, but this one is a bit of an exception. It really did look like this, a giant spaceship or asteroid coming in to crush Calgary, pushing out streamers of clouds all around it. This is a 5 shot panorama looking north during sunrise.

First Runner up (the toughest choice)
Taken on Elbow Island with my buddy Amy. This is purely a reflection shot, no dry land at all. It is twin to another similar shot that I like just as much, 1769 in this post, if you're curious. All the reflection photos from that day are really good, and I've spent some time looking them over in detail. I'm particularly taken with reflection shots these days. You might recall the September Image of the Month was a reflection shot as well.

Image of the Month
Sean and I had just got to Beaver Dam flats, did a quick bit of scouting, and set up. I had a couple trial shots, then set up for this HDR image to try to get some detail along the water line on the other side of the pond since it was still fairly dark. As we were setting up the water was completely calm, but during these longer exposures the faintest breeze came up, giving the reflection a lovely shimmering quality. I'm pretty sure this one will be high on the list for Image of the Year.

September Image of the Month

Oh my goodness! I am spoiled for choice all of a sudden. I knew I had a few nice images along the way, but then the photo ramble last week put me over the top with room to spare. I got several images out of that could be photo of the month, but the rule is, there an be only one, and it's from within the month.

No matter that next month might not produce a photo as nice as the runner up this month. Otherwise I'd be doing a running version of image of the year, sort of like a yearly running average. Speaking of image of the year, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be looking at two of these for that.

Oddly enough, 2nd runner up was the most difficult choice. I knew the winner and runner up going into it, and mused for a while about which was which. Every now and then I publish something on Neil Zeller's photowalk page on Facebook, and the bridge was quite well received.

So that left just one spot to fill, and several images that had been contenders before my ramble on the 26th.

2nd runner up
I couldn't get over this hit of red, and I got lucky with the light. The whole hillside was catching the light perfectly.

First runner up
I knew when I took them that the reflection shot would be good, and I had several shots to choose from. I had the time to change vantage points, and work the camera settings. I wasn't so sure about the bridge landscape would turn out. The light was changing as I took the shot. Several shots, thinking I might do a panorama, but the others didn't work out.  A few seconds later the light was totally flat and the trees were dull.

A story goes with this shot. There are various trails closed in Fish Creek to allow vegetation to regrow. I started at the bottom of the gully, not far where I got the other shot of bridge 5, and took a right to scramble up a steep path. At least I thought it was a path. There were no signs. At the end of it I found a nice little stone scenic lookout spot, with a path closed sign. Oops. My bad.

The winner!
I can't stop looking at the shimmering reflections. My eyes want to follow the various lines and bask in the colour. I've been shooting reflection shots in Fish Creek since I started this hobby, and this is the best one yet. If you think it looks a little familiar, look at yesterday's bridge 4 photo.

August Image of the Month

Photographers are all about the light. Sad to say, much of August had crappy smokey light. There are some things that can be done, of course, but even the traditional sunrise or sunset shots often don't come out nice. Why? Because the murk is so thick you can't see the sun at all. One day I was driving along 14 St, closer to noon than dawn. The sun was just becoming visible over the construction desolation. It was a pity I didn't have my camera for that great dystopian shot I could have shopped around to the local authors for a book cover.

Still, I was out shooting almost every day and ended up with 1058 photos to choose from. Many were failed bee shots. I ended up editing 155 photos, and these 20 made me say wow to myself. Some have not made it to the blog yet.

There's a bit of everything, macro, people, landscapes, skyline, flowers, and cats. Decisions, decisions.

2nd runner up. One of the pink lilies in the back patio garden, perfectly back lit.

1st runner up. Lots of patience is needed to get a good bee shot, but this is what makes it worth it.

And the winner! One of the little waterfalls in Big Hill Springs park. At first I liked the ones numbered 17 and 18 more, but I kept coming back to this one.

Which was your favourite, and why?

July image of the month.

It's been a busy month. In addition to the work thing, I had several photoshoots, including a pancake breakfast, a triathlon, and a couple photo rambles of my own. By my own rules, the events someone has asked me to shoot don't count towards photo of the month. Well, maybe if it was extraordinary.

I've really been looking forward to this long long weekend. One of the top things on the list is to get the image of the month posted. Here's the contenders. I sometimes post it in advance to build the anticipation, but you get it all at once. Maybe don't scroll down instantly, and let the suspense build. Of course there's lots of flower shots, being busy with work and not being able to get out as much as I'd like.

Second runner up. I tried a bunch of shots shooting the light through the blossoms, and I think this is the one that turned out best, though some of the yellow lilies were right up there as well. For some reason the red of the day lilies comes out really well on screen, but the red of the peony doesn't. Plus the background in the evening light really pleased me. You'd never know there's a truck in it.

First runner up. These dark lilies are difficult to shoot, especially the shadowed side. The morning light just caught the tips of the blossom, and there was enough light to capture the texture of the blossom without washing out the dark colour. The yellow background for contrast worked out just like I hoped.

And the winner! It looks like a panorama but it's not. It's just the way I cropped it to get rid of an ugly sky. This was during a photo ramble with Sean, taken not far from Chain Lakes. I love how the morning sun has illuminated that patch of fog, and the gently rolling landscape. The power lines hinting at the curve of the shadowed road, and the patch of sun in the upper third adding interest to the shadows.

As always, it's a difficult choice. The flowers are mostly eager to please, trying to show off as best they can. Well, not the dread Alberta Rose, it swears at me when I try to photograph it. I try to get out every day and see what's new, to capture it before the next hail storm comes along. We've had two big ones now, and a few lighter sprinkles. The garden has taken a bit of a beating, but it mainly affects the flowers in full bloom. Most of the buds are ok, so we'll be getting more blooms soon. The dahlias are still on track. I'm sure the bees can't wait for them, and me neither.

Did I miss your favourite? Not all of the ones in contention have been blogged yet, so if there's one (or more) you particularly want to see bigger, be sure to mention it to me.

June Image of the Month

That was quite the month for photos. 3376 photos if I believe Lightroom, and 1300 of them were on the same day. The white peony was the main star of the month, putting on a great display of blossom. The red peony was trying hard as well. The roses are just getting their stride at the end of the month, and none of the big lilies have shown up yet.

Not counting the mass edit and export for the Wild Rose tri, I edited 163 photos. Those get 3 stars, just because. (1 star is during my initial pass to mark things to look at again to figure out what to edit. 2 stars is a no brainer to edit.)

4 stars are what I think are really good photos, and a 5 star one makes me go WOW! The problem is that my standards are going up all the time, and to some extent the ratings depend on what other shots happened about the same time or my history of similar shots.

An example here is the shot of Mr Travis Bee I got last August. (As a bonus you get a smoky sunset and a lovely red begonia.) That is a spectacular shot, and I might not get a better bee shot in the rest of my life as an active photographer. It affects the star rating of every bee shot now. There are lots of photos getting 3 stars now that would have been 4 or 5 stars a year or more ago.

This month has 34 photos with 4 stars, and 11 of them are the white peony. Again, there are some really nice shots, so that makes it hard to judge the rest. Here's a screen shot of the contenders. Some of them will be new to you because they haven't made it to my blog yet. If there's any in particular you want to see, let me know. (Oops, 7 MB image, if you're concerned about your data package usage.)

Number 13 has a blue background as a marking for something I did. Don't worry about it. Like, or don't like that image just like all the rest. There is no one stand out shot for me right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll look at these and wonder if I'd lost my mind, and the next day I might pick something else.

I always like it when I see the shot in my mind, then get it in the camera. The second big plant leaf with the blurred background is one of those, as is the blue geranium. The red tulip near the beginning of the month was a regular favourite. I'll stop now, I can say something nice about all these photos, they wouldn't have 4 stars if I couldn't.

So here we go.
2nd runner up, the red peony. It had rained overnight, and I was loving the raindrops and the red in the morning light.

1st runner up, a rose. I was working on putting the blossom between the camera and the sun, and many of them turned out well. It was this or the geranium from the regretted post.

And the winner! I knew it would be the peony, the question was which shot? Another morning shot after an overnight rain.

Happy Canada Day everyone!

May Image of the Month

Oh my goodness! May was such a treat for me, colour starved after the never ending winter. The tulips exploded out of the ground and started showing off. I'd been curious about the difference between my new full frame camera and the first APSC camera when it came to flowers. I certainly believe that the colours are richer, and a bit more of the delicate texture is being captured.

One of my thoughts was to use the same lens (100 mm) swapped between both cameras, and take as nearly as possible the same shot of the same flower. You can't just mount the cameras on a tripod because of complicated camera stuff I won't get into, mainly fallout from the one camera having to be 1.6 times further away, but I'm curious to see the image quality differences. This working full time has put a bit of a cramp on some of my photo projects.

In any case, you may have seen this screen shot of my initial choices. Most of those star ratings were done along the way, on a limited data set, in variable frames of mind. Several people commented, thank you very much! Photos 4, 5, 11 twice, 12, 17 twice, 20 twice, 22 twice, were mentioned.

I've gone through the 145 edited photos (out of 1678 photos taken) and eliminated the ones taken for the community association. Here is the revised list of 4 and 5 star shots for me to choose from for IOTM. Just to save you flipping back and forth, the 4 and 5 mentioned above are the same below, the 11 above is now 13, 12 is 14, 17 is now 19, 20 is 22, and 22 is 25.

First of all, honourable mention to what is perhaps the bleakest of the bunch. Dead plants left over from last year. What gives? The full story is here. The summary is this is the first time I'd 'seen' the photo I wanted before I ever clicked the shutter, and had the camera capture it. Normally chromatic aberration is something photographers remove, but in this case, the slight tinge of it in places adds to the image.

Another honourable mention to the first time I've really been happy with a red and the texture at the same time.

Here we go into full scale dither. I love all the photos. I think most of them would look great printed out large. After the success of last year's white peony that was first runner up for image of the year, I've been working on shooting flowers backlit by the sun. This is a bit tricky, finding a compelling narrative of lines and shapes, colours and textures lit up but not blown out, and most importantly, not blinding myself or the camera by looking directly at the sun.

There have been several times I've been gobsmacked by the purity and quality of the colour. 19 (see first runner up below) was amazing for this, and I ran out of light before I finished trying different settings, I'd have loved to get both the texture of the petal, and that ring of yellow into perfect focus. And 27! I nearly burned the BBQ trying to capture that yellow in the evening sun. The photo shows a tinge of orange that I don't remember being there.

Here's the second  runner up. The first backlit photo of the month that I was really happy with.

First runner up. I've already talked about the colour for this one. I can just see some person who suffers from SAD wanting to get this printed big to help get them through the winter.

And the winner! It isn't quite as spectacular as some of the others, but I keep coming back to it. If you missed it the first time around, this shot has zero editing in Lightroom. Zero.

April Image of the month

I'd spoken before about being in a bit of a funk waiting for winter to be over. I think it shows in the photos. Almost all of them are just photos of something. I'd like to think they are well enough done, but there isn't the artistic touch I'm aiming for. I'm getting out a bit more often and enjoying it more.

You might remember this from the Amaryllis extravaganza early in the month. There are a number of photos of the bloom at it's most brilliant red, with the delicate tracery just visible. This bloom is just past the prime and beginning to fade. I like the slightly crumpled texture and darker colour.

In other news I've taken a 6 month contract at AltaGas. This has been discussed on and off since before I left Penn West. I'm working with my buddy Andrea again, and if you go up the hierarchy a little, there's a guy from my team at BP all these many years ago. There's a few other people I know, or know of there, and I'm sure I'll run into them sooner or later.

One of the things I like about working downtown is the serendipity of running into people you know. Today I ran into someone at lunch time that I'd worked with at Nova (anyone remember them), and BP. We didn't work directly together, but saw each other periodically.

The gig is working with data destined to live in a new instance of Maximo 7.6. There's some data from new facilities, and then some migration of older versions of Maximo. There will be lots of subtle database stuff that would put most of you to sleep if I were to say any more about it than this. There's a bit of process work and it should all be lots of fun.

March Image of the Month

That was a tough month on the photography front. I am getting darned sick and tired of winter. We had lots of snowy and generally cold and crappy weather so I wasn't out as much as I'd have liked. Still there are a few nice photos. The winner was fairly easy, but I'm having trouble picking out the runners up. There are 5 that I like, each for different reasons.

I'd looked at them this morning, but couldn't make up my mind. Then we were off to brunch with some friends at Blackfoot Inn. As I digested I considered more, and wrote a bit while thinking.  In the end I thought of which I'd most like to see printed.

For second runner up, a bridge of wine diamonds in the neck of a wine bottle. I'd never seen that before. I've no idea what I did to get the surrounding blues, and tracery of blue in the diamonds. I'd like to tell you I cleverly added a blue laser to the setup, but no. Once I was done the wine, the bottle went downstairs to meet the macro camera.

First runner up. Some might think this prosaic. A coffee mug. Meh. This is one of my favourite mugs, thrown by Connie Pike in High River. I was sitting inside about to take a sip when the morning light caught the mug just right and I started noticing some of the detail in the glaze. A few minutes later I was outside with the mug and camera. The shot actually took a bit of doing to get just right, so I was in and out several times looking at images on the computer rather than the camera. Afterward I took it downstairs to the macro camera setup for a closer look at the glaze.

And our winner! I was out hunting for some specific dusk images for a writer buddy of mine. Along the way I crested a hill and saw this. You can bet I got the car stopped as soon as possible. Some of you might recognize those old combines in the bottom corner.

January Image of the Month

A new year has started; I'm looking forward to working on continuous improvement in my photography. This month has been a bit quiet, both in terms of number of outings and photos taken. In some ways this is a deliberate choice; trying to be more thoughtful about my intentions, rather than shooting anything that I come across. That said, I still want to be open to serendipity. I've done some macro work I'm quite pleased with, though they aren't as popular as other work.

There's really only 5 photos in contention this month. So there are the two runners up, and you can decide for yourself which is first and second. I'm pretty sure that most people will like the landscape more than the abstract macro, but some will love the burst of colours. Abstracts are difficult for some people; if they don't know what they are looking at, they don't know if they like it or not. This is a bubble in a glass paperweight, if you missed the explanation first time around.

Landscapes and cats are safe subjects for popularity, but that's not why I'm doing this whole photography thing. I'm looking for images that call to me. Sometimes the multiple layers in a landscape, or the colours, or shapes, textures, or lines. I'm big on reflections and haven't done much of that lately.

And the winner! This is in east Fish Creek. I had wondered if that lonely tree would make a good photographic subject, and was in almost the right place at the right time. That sky! I'm standing on a path, and really, I should have trudged through the knee deep snow to move in a few yards and over to the right a bit. That would have got the telephone poles out of the photo. I played with cropping them out of this image, and didn't like that composition.

Image of 2017

So many photos! I've been thinking about this for a while, toying with the ideas of categories. Best macro, best landscape, best Curtis photo, best photo of a sunrise taken on even numbered Tuesdays, whatever. That way I could put up any number of 'best' photos, limited only by my imagination in coming up with categories. My regular readers know exactly how limited my imagination is, which is to say hardly at all.

No. There can be only one. The flat out luckiest photo is easy, capturing the bee showing off it's wings, between the sunflowers. I didn't even know it was there till afterward. The macro shot of Mr Travis Bee is right up here, him holding still, and me timing the shutter button as I slowly swayed back and forth with the macro lens extended half way.

Here are the choices. I'm proud of all these shots, and would show them to any photographer or visual artist.

Best typically doesn't happen by accident. Best normally implies a strong element of skill, which leads to the thought that it's repeatable. In that sense, no sunrise or sunset shot can be best since the clouds and how the sun affects them are different all the time. Even a skyline shot can be different every day, or even minute to minute, depending on the light. Although skill still applies to some extent to get the right camera settings for the conditions, and it might be an incredible photo.

Consider a photo of a flower. Most flowers are pretty, but a photo of a flower doesn't make it a pretty photo. There are all the elements of catching the light just so, making sure the background is right, considering if there is dew or water drops on the flower, the composition of all the elements of the photo, and so on. A better photographer will usually take a  better, more interesting shot, and be able to do so again and again.

What makes a shot interesting? The answer is different for everyone. A photo of a child might be enormously interesting for the family, and ho-hum for me. A photo of a flower might be boring to a gardener who has seen a zillion roses, but an artist might be captivated by composition of the shot and the quality of the light. There are people photos that I was ready to delete rather than show them, and then it turns out they love it! (The Resting Bitch Face photo helped open my mind, and keeps it open. I often think of that when I'm working on photos.) I've had lots of compliments on photos that I think are so-so, and the opposite.

Let's think about interesting, though. Something has to catch your eye and brain. Colour, line, shape, something has to get your attention. Then it has to engage your brain just the right amount. Our brains have evolved to work on pattern recognition, and to do so extremely quickly. Is that the face of a friend or foe? Is it a snake or a fallen tree branch? Do I have a minute or is that a predator sneaking up on me?

That photo has to be interesting enough that the answer isn't instantly obvious (a pretty flower and nothing more), yet not so cryptic or busy the viewer gives up on it. That's a tough gate to hit. There are theories about leading lines, and patterns of threes, and rule of thirds, and colour wheel, and I don't know what else all.

Some photographers say that every photo has to tell a story. I'm not so sure about that one. Some of the most memorable photos ever shot tell a story that sears into your brain. They are so compelling that once seen they can never be forgotten. Most photographers only dream of taking such a shot, yet how many people can name the photographer? But is this the goal for every photo taken? I think not.

You have to give the viewer a reason to continue looking, or to come back again in the face of a near infinity of other photos and other distractions. Maybe it's further detail deeper in the photo. Maybe it's something they have never seen before, such as a macro shot of a bee's eye. Maybe to properly appreciate the interplay of light and texture. Maybe there are several elements that need to be appreciated individually and then as a group. Maybe there is a relationship to other work of the photographer, or to other art. A certain je ne sais quoi.

But then just like I think some novels are the literary equivalent of paint by numbers (looking at YOU Dan Brown!) or stories that slavishly follow the Hero's Journey (looking at YOU George Lucas) I think some photos are the same. Follow these rules when you see this situation, and you'll get a winner photograph. Not so fast. Odds are that winner photo has been done already. I think it's fine to take such a photo to hone your technical skills, but then you need go further and develop your own style, your own body of original work.

Then there's the light. Photographs are all about the light. Some software programs can manipulate the light, and well done it can enhance an already good photo. Poorly done, as it so often is, it can ruin any photo. There are no rules about it.

Yes, I hear you saying, and you've probably already scrolled down, stop blithering and cut to the chase. Which photo did you pick?

I got it down to the final three, and decided a winner and two runners up was reasonable, so I know which three to put below. Needless to say, I love all these shots a lot. But in which order? This has been a major league dither for me.

Second runner up, Mr Travis Bee! Everybody says wow when they see it. The shot isn't cropped, isn't focus stacked, and is nearly perfectly in focus. There is detail in the big version I look at that does not appear in this web version. I'll be taking this to the print shop.

First runner up. I know there are people in love with this peony, with the delicate gradations of brilliant white to the yellowy whites, with the little hit of red, all buried in the sun backlighting the peony, and the black and green in the background. I want to find out how big I can print this.

And the winner! I keep coming back to this, and finding more things to look at. Just today I was wondering why one art print is perfectly visible in the background, but not the other, and it took a few minutes to figure out what was obscuring it. I love, LOVE the subtle yellows, and the textures given to the room by the kettle, to say nothing of the flame curling around the kettle, and especially all the reflections. The thought of the shot was an accident, wondering if the camera would capture the flame. But I moved things around a little too for the composition, so it isn't a complete fluke.

And there we have it, my first full year of photography. As you might recall, 2016 was the red combine landscape. Now I start working on getting an even better photo for 2018.

December Image of the Month

This time it was easy. Only 1500 or so to choose between, and only a few of them really rang my chimes. Without further fuss and bother, here it is. I'd like to tell you I spent hours sculpting the smear of ink.

There were a few Fish Creek landscapes that were pretty nice, but they were so recent you'd probably be bored if you saw them again.

So, going forward in 2018, what can you expect from this blog? In short, pretty much more of the same, if all goes well. When I got the good camera, I set a goal of posting at least one photo every day, and I've more than exceeded that. I can just imagine some of my readers saying, 'what, MORE of that??' I'd still like to be sharing my photos, but there might be some changes.

I used to go out, take photos, and post whichever ones appeared good. Now I'd like to be a bit more focused. I'm thinking of putting a 'recent' tab on my photo blog for the good shots as they happen. The ones I think of as being artistic. This blog will have what I think of as documentary shots, (me/buddies were here and had fun), shots that either illustrate the point of a blog or drove the creation of a post, (like the 2 shots in Nowheresville). Shots of the cats, because I know that's the main reason many people come here. I'll still do photo of the month here and on the photo blog. Macro Monday will happen periodically.

There have been a few rants along the way, and those will continue as the inspiration strikes me. There might be a few more thoughtful essays about whatever topics take my mind. A couple people have asked about novel publication, and I have to admit I suspect that isn't going to happen, as such. I am considering creating a separate blog specifically for extracts. I'm thinking of publishing chapters, or short story sized chunks and the readers, if any, can put them together as they will. I need to think about ensuring my rights are secure, so don't hold your breath waiting.

I love comments and want to hear from my readers, but there are a few things to know. I turned off allowing anonymous comments because the spam-bots found me. Blogger is pissy about people trying to comment from a mobile platform. I'm sorry about that, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. All comments are moderated, but I'm usually pretty quick about seeing them coming and approving them. If you want to comment, feel free to say it on Facebook, Instagram, or text me, or email me, and I'll copy it to blog.

Other social media. Tweeting won't work, I've turned Twitter off and don't miss it. I'm still figuring out Instagram. I hate that it trims my panorama shots, so I won't post them there. It isn't the best platform for displaying nice photos, where I want to embiggen them and appreciate the detail. I'm happy to read any advice you might have about Instagram.

Image of 2017 is going to be tough. I'm still working on it, and want to reflect on it a bit. Like image of the month, the criteria for the choice drives the decision. Not a decision to be made hastily. Whichever it is, I'm likely to get it printed.

Lastly, welcome to the new year! Hope it's everything you dream it will be. Now go kick ass and make it happen.

November Image of the Month

Here we are again. Time to review the November photos and decide which is the image of the month. This is going to be tough, again. I took 2055 photos, gave 272 one star to look at more carefully, actually edited 130 of them, and marked 16 of them with four stars meaning they met my criteria for being my best work of the month. Two of them get five stars, meaning they make me go 'wow!'

Yes, the five star images go to the top of the selection heap, but there's more to it. I've ranted about people who say a photographer got lucky to get a shot. It isn't luck if a photographer is consistently getting good shots. It's planning, it's research, it's getting up at all hours to get to the right place early enough to set up, and being patient. Plus having the skills to set up the camera properly for the shot you want.

There is an element of luck, to be sure. That photo of mine in the August Image of the Month, where I caught a bee flying between some sunflowers. That was a fluke. I didn't even see the bee while shooting. Without the bee it's an ok shot, but it probably wouldn't have made runner up. What's important is that I was out there setting up a shot in the back garden, thinking about the bokeh and the placement of the sunflowers in the sunlight. When you put in the work preparing, you're far more likely to get lucky with the light, or some element happening just right to push the shot into star territory.

So where does that leave me this month? All of the shots are repeatable, in that I know where I was standing, and could go back there again to get a similar shot. The weather is the variable. Even the blur of the headlights crossing the track is just a matter of patience, or having a buddy willing to drive. Even the sunrise shot is repeatable, not that specific shot because the clouds are never the same, but getting great sunrise or sunset photos. How do I know this? I've got 11 sunrise/sunset shots with 3 stars this month alone. So I can't eliminate any of them for being a fluke.

There's my personal preferences, of course, but just like someone might like what is technically a bad movie or a poor novel, I might like a photo for personal reasons quite aside from the technical merits of it. Then again, I might get a photo that is technically good according to all the photo "rules", and lots of people might like it, but it leaves me cold for whatever reason.

Enough burble.

One of the so-call photography rules is that you're not supposed to run the horizon down the middle of the photo. You're supposed to put the interesting things at the intersection of the thirds grid. If you're into the Fibonacci sequence, the leading lines should end up at the centre of the spiral. This photo breaks those rules, yet I like the sense of space and height and serenity this composition brings, even though the clouds are nothing special.

Here's a version of the same photo that is cropped to follow 'the rules' more closely. It's still nice, and maybe technically it's a better photo, but it feels more cramped. What do you think?

Driving along during a night shoot I glanced off to my right, and nearly had a spasm. The blue light on the rail cars instantly caught my attention. Good thing there weren't any other vehicles around. I walked around for a few minutes to figure out the best place to capture that glow and the leading lines, and all the other goodness in the shot. I didn't even have to crop it, or tweak it much.

This one didn't get much comment, but for some reason I keep coming back to it. I'd like to tell you it's a swamp in the boonies, but I'd be lying. It's an engineered wetland in downtown Calgary, on Prince's Island.

And the winner this month! This is bridge 2 in Fish Creek. I think this is the most photogenic of the bridges, mainly because of the nice arch, and the amazing setting. Here's a slightly different view of the same bridge, times 3.