As we close out another year, I find that it is time to compile my collection of significant images from the previous 12 or so months.  I started doing this many years ago with my nine favorite photographs because that was what was popular to do with the Instagram grid.  I quickly moved over to doing twelve photos and I made them more about significance than personal favorites.  Part of that was because my favorites change rather often, and part was because of the Ansel Adams quote that says, “12 significant images in a year is a pretty good crop”.  I guess I kind of ran with that and started to put this list together based on those images that redefined aspects of my photography or opened up new possibilities for me.

I used to go through the blog entries from the year and pick out those photos that struck me the most, but I got quickly called out for doing that when it was noticed that the majority of the picks had happened within the previous couple of months.  While there is some validity to the better images happening later in the year, he was right to make me realize that I was just picking the freshest examples and ones that I hadn’t really had the chance of living with long enough.  To avoid that pitfall in subsequent years, I started to keep a folder on my computer where I would dump those photos that really stood out to me after I had shot them.  These would just sit in that folder until I would open it up and review them periodically through the year.  Those that continued to hold a significance remained, the others were deleted.  By the time the end of the year rolled around, I would have about 24 or so photos in that folder which would then become the contenders for this list.

This year’s list was particularly difficult to work through, even though I had a large collection of photographs to choose from as we entered the closing months of the year.  You see, I have been struggling with a slump through the majority of the year, only having come out of it in the past month or so.  This has been one of those slumps where I questioned everything that I have ever shot and wondered if any of it was any good.  These are rough ones to go through, but in the end, I usually come out being a better photographer because I push myself to prove that I am good enough.  That has been the case this year, and because of that, I now look back over the standout photos from the first parts of the year when I was very active with a bit of a harsh opinion.  I really feel like what I am starting to create now is much stronger as a whole both in artistic and technical aspects.  That leaves about ten months’ worth of photos which I am still looking at with a disappointed eye.

My gut told me to embrace the change in my level of expectations and toss all of the older photos aside to fill this list with newer examples.  While that might be an accurate representation of my significant work, I didn’t want to fall into the trap of selecting recent work because it was still so fresh.  Even if I have raised the bar slightly in the closing months of the year, that really doesn’t detract from the significance of the earlier photos.  If anything, it adds to it.  I’m fully convinced that everything that I have shot, and even during the months when I didn’t shoot much at all, has brought me to the place where I am today.  That would certainly mean that there are significant photos to be found throughout the year.

I feel that this list is pretty accurate, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about how it should all come together.  It is by no means a perfect list and I’m sure that there are significant images which do not appear here, and undoubtedly the order might not be as correct as I would want it to be looking back on the list years later.  That being said, I do think that this is a very good comparison list when looking at what I have created in the past, as well as what will be created in the future.

Before we get rolling with the list, let’s take a minute to look at some stats from the year.  This is great for comparison and also shows trends in my photography.  If you are interested to how this year’s photos compare to previous ones, check out the other list entries that I have done starting with 2018.  That was still a year of favorites, but you will get the idea.  The year that I started the significant list was in 2019, and I kept it going through 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.  Here are some quick metrics for comparison’s sake as you are looking back over previous lists.

4 Vertical compositions

8 Horizontal compositions

7 Black and white photos

5 Color photos

9 Decay photos

3 Photos dealing with shape

1 Architectural photo

1 Abstract photo

1 Studio photo

1 Automotive magazine style photo

7 Shot with the 70-200mm

4 Shot with the 24-70mm

1 Shot with the 100mm macro

11 Shot with the 5DS R

1 Shot with the R5

This shows the reason that I keep track of these kinds of stats.  It becomes very easy to see the different changes that I go through during the course of time.  One of the most glaring changes is the fact that this is the first year that I haven’t had a single landscape photo on the list.  There were some that were up for consideration, but none really made the cut.  For someone that started out as a landscape photographer, this seems kind of strange.  However, as you look back over these lists, the decay subjects have taken over slowly and finally reached that point where most of my best work is in that field.  The next thing that is worth taking note of is the change in lens choice.  Specifically, I want to look at the telephoto lens which was used in half of the photos on the list last year, and only four times in the list of 2022.  The year before that, it only made an appearance in one of the photos.  This year, seven of the significant images were shot with the telephoto lens.  If you will remember over the past couple of years now, I have been saying that I have started to really rely on the 70-200mm for most of what I shoot.  It has become the main lens on the camera.  The other end of that is that I previously used the 24-70mm lens more than anything, but there were only four on this list shot with that zoom.  In 2021, that lens represented nine of the twelve photos in the collection.  Times have changed, and the tools that I enjoy using have certainly matured.  One last comparison that I want to draw attention to is in relation to something that I wanted to do in 2024 as kind of a New Year’s Resolution.  I set out to get better at my black and white photography and to do more of that.  In the recent years, black and white photos represent about three to four spots and while that is a good showing, this year, over half of the photos are in black and white which is the first time ever that they have held that percentage.  There were seven black and white photos selected to be on this list with another five in the folder to choose from.  I actually had twelve contenders for this list done in black and white which has never been the case.  Something that has stayed pretty constant is my preference for horizontal photographs with eight in this list situated in that manner.

Now that we have looked at the comparisons to previous years, let’s get started with the list.  I hope that some of your favorites are a part of this list.  Let me know what you think.

Number 12

We start this list off with a photograph from July 13th in Roaring River, NC, which is pretty much the middle of the year.  This was also a time when I was struggling with my own creativity which became an obvious problem prior to this particular session.  You see, I had passed by this very scene several times and had convinced myself that there was nothing at all to shoot here because of the setting around the car.  Even when I was starting to find things about the scene that liked, I kept getting in my own way.  Almost against my better judgement, I went back out there and asked for permission to work with the car.  As I read through the blog entry, I can remember all the different points that I was making about why this wasn’t going to work, and the other side of the coin that made me want to give it a try.

It was a very slow start, but I did get into a rhythm as I got more and more familiar with the old Dodge.  I picked out a lot of isolations because I figured that was the best I was going to be able to deal with the surroundings.  I did manage to get a front quarter view of the car that I liked which I viewed as a bonus shot for the day.  The one that made this list happened at the very end of the shoot and represents one of the hardest fought compositions that I have done in recent memory.  I had power lines to contend with, a railroad crossing, and even a rail car sitting inside of the frame.  Just to the outside of the frame were other distractions.  With a careful choice of lens and position, however, I was able to get everything to line up very well in the photo.  It was the road off in the distance that I liked the most because it added a sense of motion to the frame.  The railroad crossing added a sense of urgency as well.

What secured this photo’s place on the list was the fact that after many times of passing this subject up, I finally gave it a try with very little expectations.  I was actually done before this photo was shot, but I thought it was worth a quick experiment to see if I could get something to work out here.  The photo looked great, but it was the processing that I did which elevated it by giving it a desaturated look with a little bit of nostalgia built in.  The different elements were all organized to bring back memories of the famous last scene in the original Fast and Furious movie which also featured a Dodge.  It was the way in which I included what I would normally consider clutter that makes this a significant photograph for the year.  I’m still impressed with how I constructed this one and considering that this was deep into my slump makes it that much more impressive.  One final aspect that makes this so significant is that the very next time I drove past this shop, the car was gone.  You can’t tell me that it wasn’t waiting for me to photograph it.  I’m just glad I listened and stopped on that day.

Number 11

Our next photo was shot on November 9th at Outlawed Restorations which has yielded quite a few significant images through the years.  It helps that I shoot here rather regularly which enables me to really know the subjects and the lay of the land.  I will say that this is the first time that I have shot this particular subject there, and honestly, it was the first time I had seen it at all.  To look at it, you will more than likely have no idea what you are looking at, and that is by design.  When I was looking around, I spotted a stack of fenders in a shed with this great repeating pattern.  Each one was a different color and had weathered differently as well.  I knew that I had to do something with that and got in closer so that I could pick out the shapes that I was interested in.

Why in the world is this stack of fenders on this list?  Well, I really see this as a significant improvement in my abstract photography when dealing with rust.  For the first time, it wasn’t so much the shape as it was the pattern that drew my attention, and even though there was color there, I chose to go with black and white so that I could treat each fender patina differently to really bring out the aspects that I liked.  I even rotated the photograph to throw more of the scene into question forcing that attention to be directed exactly on the texture, shape, and pattern only.

I remember being very excited about this photo while I was making it, and then that excitement grew by leaps and bounds when I was processing it.  At each step, I became more and more impressed with it.  I knew that it was going to be in the running for this list at every stage.  Now that I’ve lived with it for a little while, I think that it has the staying power that each of these photos should have over time.  It is not a photo that I think will gain a lot of traction with my audience, but at the same time, it is one of those pieces that I didn’t shoot for anyone else.  This is something that I had pop into my head when I saw the stack of fenders and I was able to create something beyond what I imagined which is always a wonderful feeling.

For me, a good litmus test for a significant image is one that builds new layers of excitement every time I look at it.  I see something new that I have accomplished, or something that I can include in other photos yet to be shot.  There are several things from the capture to the processing that I feel I can learn from and incorporate in other photos.  As a matter of fact, the breaking up of the different fenders in layers to be processed is something that one of the contenders to this list accomplished earlier in the year.  That was the first time I had done something quite like that, and I used that same technique here along with several other things like the repeating patterns.  It was that addition which secured this photo a place on the list.

Number 10

This photograph was shot in Charleston, SC on June 12th, and the fact that it was shot outside of NC might make it significant all by itself. That is not what prompted me to include it in this list though.  In a way, this photo really should be higher up on this list for the simple fact that I was struggling very hard during this time of the year as well as with the location itself.  Toni and I had planned this trip a few months earlier and neither of us really knew that much about Charleston even though both of us had been there before.  My one and only time there was one where I didn’t really pay much attention to the surroundings as I was concentrating on finishing up 252 miles across SC on a bicycle.  Toni also didn’t really remember much about the trip she took as it was a very long time ago.

It took me a very long time to really understand the area and to be able to see the beauty that it had.  In fact, after getting there on Sunday, it wasn’t until Wednesday that I was able to do anything with the camera at all.  Everything that I shot was a struggle and I was forcing myself to create images despite not really connecting with the place.  I remember being in our room and looking out the window at the neighboring hotel across the parking lot which had some of the best lines and angles that I have seen on a building in a while.  I kept coming back to that building when I would think about what I wanted to photograph which seemed awkward considering where we were.  I should have been focusing on old plantations, moss covered trees, and even the coast which wasn’t but a few miles away.  The fact is, none of that really resonated with me, and even though I spent a morning photographing moss covered trees, I never really liked those photos all that much.

After a full day of trying to find things to photograph while exploring with Toni, we ended up back at the room as the sun was setting.  There were some thin clouds in the sky, and I felt that there was a good chance that I was going to see some color.  That color would look great with the hotel, and I decided to try a few different compositions as the sun went down.  Again, it was a struggle to figure out the composition and part of that struggle was to get the perspective to not look strange.  This meant that I was going to have to be pretty far away from the building to decrease the up angle of the camera.  This forced my hand to include a teleconverter to increase the reach of my long lens.  Once I had that figured out, I had to look at textures.  With the building looking very smooth, and the lines very clean, I felt that showing the clouds with defined edges would not really go along with the photo.  I did what needed to be done to stretch out the exposure to a solid minute which blurred the clouds.  This softened the lines and textures in the sky while amplifying the spread of the color.

This was the only photo from the day that I was excited about which was an accomplishment considering how down on my own photography I was by this point in the year.  Here we are a half year later and this photo still speaks to me.  I love architectural photography and just don’t get enough chances to photograph angles like this in the areas that I am normally in.  That makes this concept a standout, but what makes it significant was how I built the image up over the course of a few days looking at things.  I found the right lighting, the right composition, and even the right exposure as the sun was fading to create something that turned out fantastic.  This was also a chance for me to let loose with the post processing to really make this appear the way that I saw it, not necessarily how it actually appeared.

It has been these little successes along the way that have helped to pull me through my creative slump.  Two out of the first three photos in this list were captured during that slump and helped show me that I could still make good images even though I wasn’t able to fully immerse myself into photography as I normally would have been able to.  Even though I feel like I have raised the bar since these photos were shot, they have had a very influential effect on all the photos that have come after.  Looking back on them now, especially this one, I’m very happy to see what I was able to create in some very difficult situations and mindsets.

Number 9

Our next pick was shot in Yadkin County on August 31 and comes at a time when I was finally able to start pulling myself out of the funk I had been in for much of the year.  I was still about six weeks from really seeing the other side, but it was nice to go out and actually feel like creating some imagery.  During my driving around looking for subjects, I had come across this old Chevy sitting behind a shop.  The setting wasn’t the best, although I did manage to get an overall composition of the car which ironically was also on the list of potential candidates for this list.  It didn’t make it because it felt very familiar to me and was something that I have done many times before.  It was this photo of the same car that seemed to elevate to a different level.

Yes, I realize that I have shot hood ornaments and the fronts of these old cars many times in the past.  I’ve done the symmetrical thing as well.  What makes this one so special?  Well, there are several small changes that I added in which come from my newfound urge to improve on my photography.  I used the symmetry that I have done before, but I chose to use the telephoto lens for some compression to the scene and then elevate the camera so that the ornament was the only element close to the camera.  To ensure that the badge would receive the most attention in the frame, I roughly centered it, and then used a very shallow depth of field which reduced the focus to the badge and a bit of the nameplate across the grill.

These little tricks that were done with the camera created a composition that had a very direct impact to the viewer.  The lack of color forced the attention on the brightwork of the car rather than the patina which was used as a background for the composition.  There was a certain attitude displayed here which I really liked, and the added contrast done in post just placed this photo well ahead of others that I had shot of similar vehicles.  This composition is certainly one that I will use again because it works quite well, and that is a key aspect that I have learned from this photo.  More importantly, this photo happened when I was looking for something to springboard my creativity even though I had set the expectations quite low for the day.  This is what makes it significant for the year.

Number 8

Our eighth spot photograph comes from mid-April and is of a subject that doesn’t quite fit into my normal subject matter, or for that matter, my typical compositions.  This was actually a test shoot in Elkin, as I was preparing for a client shoot in the very near future where I was going to be looking at two classic cars for a magazine styled photo shoot.  Since I don’t own any classics, I decided to take my little MX-5 Miata out for a bit of a photoshoot after a recent detail.  Sadly, the pollen got in the way of a lot of what I wanted to accomplish, but I was able to get the ideas worked out like I wanted.  Most of the shoot was pretty much for my own use and for practice, but this one shot seemed to be a little different even when setting it up.

I had moved to another location and there was a bit more opportunity to get in and do some detail shots of the interior with the more open light that was hitting the car.  For those who have been with me for a while, you know that interior shots happen to be an area where I struggle a lot.  There is a lot going on that needs to be organized and if you include the steering wheel, the balance of the scene is put into question very early on.  I’ve tried different things over the years to deal with this, but on this particular day, I felt a little inspired because I knew that the driving gloves that I always wore in the car were important to the story.  I looked at different places that I could place them for balance and came up with the area right over the center console controls and the storage compartment.  The tight crop worked very well for capturing the different elements and I was excited to see how it turned out in the edit.

Now the original concept for this was to be in color to show off the red stitching in the gloves, but as I looked at it, there was just too much going on in the scene, and the stitching really got lost.  I wasn’t overly happy with the photo but stuck with it and tried to work it as a black and white presentation.  After getting the right profile assigned and then beginning to work on the contrast within the image, things started to change.  It became a very exciting image and one that captured the feel of driving this car, or at least the slight elevation in heart rate as you prepared to put the car on, I mean…sit in the car.

By the time the edit was done, I liked it on a level that was never intended.  Not only did it fit the theme that I was going for, but the execution also went beyond just a magazine photo and became something that I could see used in marketing or placed on display in any auto enthusiast’s home.  It was just that good, and I was surprised that I had shot it.  Many times, my significant images come from experimenting with new ideas and then being very pleasantly surprised by the outcomes.  This is one that still hits me every time I see it, and I stop to look at every aspect of it.  Honestly, for me, I wanted this one further up in the list, but I know that I have a connection to this scene that most won’t, and I didn’t want to let my personal feelings interfere with how this list was curated.  There is no denying that it is a very significant photograph for 2024 though, and I think that this is the right place to put it.

Number 7

Our number seven choice is actually a late in the game swap with another photo.  This one didn’t even make the list initially, and wasn’t in the collection to even be considered, but as I was recently posting it to social media, I started to see it in a different light.  I had actually shot it back on January 16th, which makes this the oldest photo in this collection I do believe.  To look at it, there isn’t much really to take note of because it is just another hood emblem shot from an old car.  I have hundreds of examples of this subject in my collections so what makes this one stand out.  Well, first of all, it happened to be a secondary location that I almost didn’t shoot that day.  I had started out photographing a location that I knew I was going to get some good photo from and did.  I had about froze myself in the process and upon my return home, the temperature had dropped even more.  However, I had spotted a trio of green cars off of the highway that I decided to take a closer look at.

After getting permission, I started to photograph these cars.  Well, I worked on the Mustang and the Fairlane because those were the interesting ones to me.  The third was a boat of a car which turned out to be a ’70’s Thunderbird which really had no interest for me.  However, after working the other two cars for a while, and getting numb in the fingers, I decided to see if there was anything at all that I could do with the Thunderbird.  I was just basically throwing noodles at the wall and seeing if anything would stick.  This was one of the compositions that I tried.

It is the composition here that makes this image significant, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time.  When I shot it, I wanted to capture the Thunderbird emblem, but even wanting to photograph it, I found it rather boring.  Something was drawing me to it though, and I started to work different compositional options with it.  Nothing that I had done before worked with this one.  Symmetry seemed to amplify the mundane aspects of the emblem which forced me to get creative.  It was the solution to the problem which elevated this photo to the level of significance.

At the time of this writing, eleven months have passed, and the photo still sticks in my head.  The other two cars yielded more photos, but I can’t really remember them without looking back at the day.  Right after shooting it, I was patting myself on the back for figuring out a way to incorporate the diagonals of the grill with the depth indicated by the blur of the background.  It was still impactful to look at, and I was now able to look at it well removed from the process of taking photos of what I felt was an “ugly” car.  This is what significance is all about, right?  I had created a photo that lives completely on its own outside of the experience or even the subject of the picture.  It was an example of me breaking away from what had become time tested compositional recipes which resulted in something that was more impressive than the subject really deserved.  It all just worked together beautifully, and when I posted it to social media a while back, it struck me as such, and I have been considering adding it to the list of possible candidates here ever since.

Number 6

As we approach the midpoint to this list, we have a photograph from October 27th which is a trek that I believe really marked the end to my creative slump.  It was a location in Wilkes County by the Speedway that had been suggested by a friend and one that I had shot once before many years ago.  The cars had changed since that point, and it was worth another visit.  After getting permission during a scouting trip one day in hopes of coming back on a Sunday when the weather was better, I arrived early to start what I felt would be a couple of hours of work.  It turned into a full morning with a lot of different photos.  How in the world did a photo of broken glass make it into this list with so many others from this one shoot with such a happy ending?  Well, in a word, it was the elegance of this composition which brought it in as our number six selection.  There was another from this session selected for the list, but it got bumped days before you are reading this in favor of a newer photo that accomplished the same goals.

This particular photograph was from the first subject that I started shooting when I arrived, which was an old Studebaker pickup.  That has absolutely no bearing on this image at all because there are really no clues at all as to what kind of vehicle this broken glass belongs to.  In fact, there are very little clues here at all.  We just know that we are looking at a broken glass on an old vehicle due to the rust.  That is where the elegance comes in.  There are no hidden stories here, just an exploration in texture and shape.  I’ve shot these before which begs the question “why this list, why now?”  It is the utter simplicity and the way that I chose to frame the broken glass with a diagonal pillar instead of going for the more straight on composition that would have made it a bit more vertical and stagnant.  This would not have worked without the cab behind the door appearing darker which made a beautiful triangle to the right that framed the rusted door pillar as well as the broken glass.  Even in simplicity, the focus is split between the glass and the metal, with both aspects being framed by a natural vignette provided by those same materials.

It was the final processing and choice to go with black and white that ultimately elevated this photograph to where it sits on this list.  The highlights in the broken glass contrast so wonderfully with the unbroken glass thanks to the polarizer, while the patina comes through in a way that you can feel within the photograph.  It is a photograph that you explore not for the story, but for the actual feeling that you experience through your fingertips.  Usually when I get photos that work on that level, the composition is much weaker, and it is just an abstract view of different materials.  This is the first time that I think I have achieved such a solid composition while making the subject a tactile rather than visual experience.  It is also yet another example of a time when I chose to use a limited depth of field to really force the attention on the cracks of the glass while making the interior of the truck unimportant.

Number 5

As we get started with the top half of the countdown, we look to a photograph that was shot in mid-February in Virginia.  To look at it, you might not see anything overly special about this, much less the significance of it over the course of a full year.  Sure, I’ve shot compositions focused on the lines of the cowl of cars many times over by this point.  What makes this a bit different is the fact that there is no real patina here to offer textures.  The colors of rust are not present, and in fact, there are no colors in the composition at all.  How I came about this particular photo is more significant than the composition, and that is why this one is on the list.

You see, Toni and I had taken a couple of trips up to Williamsburg, Va, during the first two months of the year.  The first time out, I didn’t take my camera because it was our anniversary, and I wanted to just concentrate on being with her.  On the second visit, I did take the camera because there was going to be some down time where I could work on finding things to photograph.  The problem was, I was never all that excited about the area when it came to photography.  I could just never relax and let my creative mind take over.  On this one particular evening, we went out exploring for the express purpose of photography but found that there just wasn’t anything around that I was interested in capturing.

After giving up and spending a few minutes checking out the new Nissan Z at a dealership, we started to make our way to dinner.  That was when I saw this ’56 (I believe) Thunderbird sitting in the parking lot of a restaurant.  It was marked for sale and appeared to be a decent example without any noticeable decay.  This is not one of my preferred body styles to shoot, and without any real rust, it wasn’t great for a decay subject.  The baby blue color on it was also kind of a bore since I would only be able to shoot isolations if I did anything because of the location.  We did end up stopping, and I grabbed the camera for a couple of quick frames.  I even left the truck running because I didn’t expect to be here more than 10 minutes or so.

In a short amount of time, I fully embraced the minimal concept with this car and went for body lines and shapes over everything else.  I shot with the intention of making them black and white which was a goal of mine for 2024 anyway.  In the middle of being completely uninspired to create, I found a subject that I normally would have passed on and shot a successful series of frames with this one being the last shot of that short session.

I love this image for the clean and minimal nature that it shows with a very pleasing balance thanks to the mirror and the bit of the windshield that was included.  The different shapes and lines are repeated in various ways through the frame which adds to the visual interest.  This is one of the few times that I have done a higher key approach to the black and white which usually has a lot more dark tones.  My first thought with this car was that there wasn’t much to look at, but in short order, I started to really relate to the details and created photographs that to this day are still relevant and enjoyable for me to look at.  The simplistic organization of this particular photograph has fueled concepts for other compositions where I might have overlooked the subject or area.  For me, that is the true test of an image’s significance.  If it gives me new creative tools or motivates me to shoot other subjects in a similar way, then it has made a difference in my photography.  Since this one photo has checked both of those boxes, I felt that it definitely deserved a place on this list, and I think that it belongs here in the top half as well.

Number 4

In full disclosure, our Number 4 spot is a late substitution.  I had originally selected a photograph from an October shoot where I was really starting to get my groove back.  This photo remained on the list until just days ago when I decided that one of my more recent photographs needed to be on this list, and it deserved to be kind of high up as well.  Logic should have dictated that the list should have shed the number 12 slot and then the new one enter somewhere in the list.  I was going to do that, but the significance of this photo from December 20th fit into the same rationale as the previous number 4 entry.  So, after quite a bit of deliberation, I decided to just make a straight swap at this spot.

At the risk of letting a new photograph tempt me into adding it to list prematurely, I really think that this photo represents some very strong work and some growth as a photographer.  You see, I had shot this same car about three years ago and had a very hard time figuring out compositions because of all the clutter that was present in the scene.  I ended up shooting two different isolations of it at that time and moved on to the next subject.  Having learned a lot more about incorporating portions of elements in the background for balance, I wanted to give this another try.  My thought was that I was going to be able to get it captured with my telephoto lens because I hadn’t really tried a full on composition with that lens the previous time.

My plans were all put to rest when I got there and realized that it wasn’t going to work the way I had hoped.  I swapped lenses and tried to salvage the idea.  With my standard zoom attached, I found the right composition, with the right balance, and the right perspective to really make the image pop.  This was the first hurdle that I had to go through.  The second was the exposure problem now that I was including the sky.  I tried with two different grad filters and even shot an HDR series so that I had plenty of options when I got home.  Fortunately, I was able to really pull the detail out of one of the single captures because the HDR blend had too many anomalies to satisfy me.

Why this photo deserves to be on this list, and in the top half at that, is that it represents a lot of problem solving on a subject that I had largely dismissed after my first attempt at photographing it.  I had been telling myself that there was just no way to capture it in a full composition.  Keep in mind that this scene is about five miles from the house, so I have had plenty of opportunity to consider it.  I had returned on a hunch, just trying to go out for a couple of photos to prompt a better attitude towards photography after a morning of working on my yearly review that will be out in a couple of days.  This would be the only photo that resulted from the day, but it is one that made me very happy and I thought captured the scene in a remarkable way.  Everything works together here, even the clutter that normally I would have complained loudly about.  Instead, I embraced it and made it a part of the story that added to the photo immensely.  Sure, there is a possibility that I am still swayed with this being a new photo, but I really do feel in my bones that this is a significant photograph for the year.  I think it truly defines what decay photography should be about.  In the terms of Wabi-sabi, there is beauty in the decline.

Number 3

I’ve talked quite a bit through the year about my want to get better with black and white photography.  You have seen a pretty high number of black and white images in this list so far to back that up.  I think that it is evident that I spent a lot of time thinking in black and white during the first part of the year to get myself in the right mindset to create those images.  However, by February 27th, I found myself needing some color in my life.  Not only was I focusing on capturing black and white images, but it was also still wintertime which has a very muted color palette to begin with.  In response to that need for some bright and saturated colors, I went into the studio for another try and some smoke photography.

Now, these smoke photos have started appearing in my significant image lists kind of regularly.  It seems that every time I do them, I go to another level with my vision.  Originally, I would capture some very simple compositions, and they would be edited either in high key or low key using a form of color negative.  Then I started blending complimenting colors with the smoke which added another level to how these images turned out.  The next step was to start to see recognizable shapes in the smoke and start to color them accordingly.  That has been where I have found the most joy in doing this kind of photography.

When I started this session, I was just wanting to play with colors and knew that I would have a blank canvas as the smoke rendered as light gray and white to the camera on a black background.  I did all the things that I would normally do for the shoot and even processed the images in the same ways as I have done in the recent past.  It was this one file that I found interesting to look at but to see it in the natural color of gray on black, it mainly just looked like a bunch of random smoke.  There was something else there though, and it wasn’t until I started putting some color to it that I realized what I was seeing.

I could see two birds clear as day.  A large bird in the upper left in a dominating position over the lower bird which appeared much smaller.  The size disparity reminded me of a scolding, and this was amplified by the way that the colors were working out.  I had already chosen a reddish hue for the larger bird which left blue as the complimenting color.  The more I worked on this, the more I started to see symbolisms with the colors.  It appeared to be patriotic in a way, but in a more aggressive sense.  The scolding that was going on really looked like the large bird which was ultimately colored like an Eagle was talking down to the smaller bird.

At the time that this photo was made, I had some pretty negative thoughts going on in my head about how the government was being handled, and the future of this country.  Now, I don’t want to get into any discussions on this part and certainly don’t want to provide a springboard for what is a very polarizing discussion.  However, I am a Republican and started to see the red and blue for the two primary parties.  This might have been totally subconscious or even just chance that the colors ended up like this, but I liked what I was seeing on a political level.  Fast forward to the recent election, and this photograph again seemed symbolic on a much larger scale.

Even though this photo was added to the list of images that would possibly be considered for this list, I had no idea how significant it would be by this point in the year as a visual statement of current events.  I’m very proud of this photograph and how it turned out.  For me, it has grown well beyond what I ever would have intended for it to do as a photograph.  I do understand that not everyone will see and appreciate it for the same reasons, but hopefully as with all of my smoke photos, the viewer can create their own story around what they see.  It was created completely by chance through the randomness of smoke and then how I interpreted those patterns through color.

Number 2

As we get closer to the number one spot, we have the runner up for this honor which comes from the same session as our number 5 pick in February.  In fact, it is the same car and was shot during the same 10-15 minutes that I had pulled off the road.  The car wasn’t quite my normal subject because of the lack of rust, and the pale powder blue paint wasn’t all that interesting, especially in the light at the end of the day when everything appeared blue.  The whole session was really just an attempt at salvaging a trip and trying to get something photographed.

There was nothing at all going for this subject when I started photographing it, but the photos that came from it taught me a lot and have remained impressive to me since that day.  All the reasons that I cited for the other photo from this Thunderbird apply here as to why it is significant but there is one more aspect that really pushes this one to the top of the list, or at least closer to that top.  Ironically, this reason didn’t happen until days later when I got the photos home and started to edit and process them.

To be completely honest, this was a nothing photo when I shot it, and when I selected it to be processed my opinion didn’t really change.  The composition was strong with the hood scoop playing the part of the visual anchor while the fender gave a much-needed line in the upper right to keep the eyes in.  There was a bit of dirt in the lower right which filled that negative space, but there was really nothing at all going on with the photo because there was really no contrast to be seen, and therefore no visual excitement.

When the time came to work this one, I decided to go with black and white, not so much because it was a goal for the new year, but because the color absolutely didn’t do anything for this image.  Even by eliminating the colors I wasn’t really liking the photo that much.  There was just nothing going on within the frame, but there was something that was pulling me into the idea of finishing the post processing.  I started to really play with the contrasts, which I did locally and globally using different tools and techniques.  Bit by bit, I was starting to see contrast coming out of the photo and the patterns that developed really amped up the composition.

With the streaks of dirt now fully visible, everything was pointing to the scoop, and even the negative space served a compositional purpose.  The newfound contrast was that last missing bit to make this photo something truly special.  It was one that I had to stop and stare at every time I came across it.  I’ve used it in tutorials and have apply the lessons that I have learned from it to other photographs.  It was this one photo that I think opened up a lot of doors for me when it comes to black and white photography because there is so much that can be done with contrast without worrying about how the colors are affected.  Had I not been in the mindset to really learn more about black and white photography, I likely would have missed out on this photo, and likely would have skipped most, if not all of the photos from this very car which has yielded two significant photos from the year.

When we look back over this list, you can really see how my work has changed from previous years.  I’m working more with a telephoto lens which was one that I rarely used unless I needed the actual visual reach to get to something in the distance.  I am now using it up close to manipulate scaling between elements in the frame.  I’ve shot more black and white this year than any other, and because of that they are having a stronger showing on the list of significant images.  If for no other reason, I like doing these lists to see what directions my photography is tending to go in year after year.  It helps me to identify where I am growing and where I am stagnating.  For instance, I started long ago as a landscape photographer and most of my favorite images were landscapes throughout the years.  When I started to do these significant image lists, the landscapes took most of the slots.  They have started to have fewer and fewer appearances in these lists and finally, this is the first year where landscapes just don’t show up at all.  This is not to say that I’m not into landscapes anymore, as it is quite the contrary.  If you look back through all of the photos that I have shot in the decay arena, you will see elements of my landscape photography seeping into those photos.

I really think that is one of the things that sets me apart from other photographers that focus on decay subjects.  I still use the photographic techniques of a landscape photographer when it comes to my decay work.  This means taking the weather into consideration and looking at the sky either being a part of the composition, or something to be avoided depending on how it is looking.  A blank white sky is usually not something that I want to capture even if the subject is wonderful.  I’m looking for that proper exposure throughout the image, not just the subject, and I take the colors into consideration through the entire frame to make sure that the scene is a harmonious one.  It is a lot to think about, but after years of photographing the landscape, these are all concepts that I am quite comfortable with.

The blending of the two genres of photography brings with it some frustrations because I’m just looking at more than what a typical object photographer might be.  In landscape photography, the photographer has to pay very close attention to what is creeping into the frame and also look at what is exiting the frame.  Careful choices have to be made considering where the edges of the frame are going to go.  Typically, with object photographers, those that photograph cars, houses, barns, and the like, they are more interested in getting the object and if there are some distractions that enter from the sides, it is no big deal because they are wanting to document that object.

One of my biggest hurdles in being a decay photographer is that most of the time, my subjects are placed in locations that are filled with distractions and things that spoil the frame as a whole.  From my landscape background, I want to remove all the distractions that I can or minimize those that can’t be removed.  There are times when this is easier than others, but there are times when I have to pass up on a photograph because of the distractions.  I get into this idea because it is relevant to our number one photograph for 2024 in terms of significance for the year.

This photograph is one that jumps out at me because it breaks so many different rules yet fits perfectly in others.  It was a compromise of sorts based on creative necessity where the end result was an absolute showstopper of an image.  I’m excited to introduce you to that top pick for 2024, and hope that you haven’t already skimmed down to see what it was.

Without any further ado, allow me to introduce you to my most significant photograph of 2024!

Number ONE

This top image happens to be from the same trek as our number 11 photo which happened at one of my favorite places to photograph rust in East Bend, NC.  Because it is one of my favorite places, I have worked the subjects there many times over and am constantly trying to figure out new ways of capturing them.  The subject of this photograph happens to be an old hotrod that has been sitting out in front of the relocated family home for many years.  With the addition of a Hudson Hornet to the collection, the old shell of a hotrod has been relocated behind that house and behind one of my favorite rat rods on the property.  There are some other vehicles, including a later model Ford pickup just to the right along with a barn with several other cars parked out front.  It is a very cluttered space and to add insult to injury, there are power lines and light poles in the background.

The car itself is missing an engine and hood which means that there is basically a grill attached to a frame which goes back to the firewall where the body of the car can again be seen.  This void is interesting for a photo yet causes a bit of negative space that interrupts the lines of the car if you aren’t careful.  On this particular day, the lighting was really good on the old car, and I decided that I was going to look at different ways of photographing it to see if I could get something that was better than what I had done before.  I did things like shooting straight down on the grill to isolate it, and I shot from the extreme side using the wheels to compliment the grill.  Both of these ideas worked fine, but it was this off the wall idea that I had which I think worked the best.

I wanted to get a straight on front shot of the car to center the attention on the grill and the low stance of the car.  Because of the rat rod parked in front of the hotrod, I wasn’t able to use a telephoto which would have helped to simplify the background and hopefully eliminate the distractions of the nearby vehicles and old house.  To get the angle that I wanted, I was going to have to get in much closer to the car which meant a wider angle lens and more of the background included in the shot.

No matter what I did, there was no way around having the corner of the red pickup sneaking into the right side of the frame.  This red was a huge distraction, and something that I didn’t feel comfortable removing in post because of how much space it occupied.  Almost as if by pure luck, I was moving the camera around and caught a glimpse of the front end of the car cropped oddly through the grill which was what I wanted to focus on in the first place.  It seemed to work, and I started to play with the camera position to get just the right angle.  What I found was that I could crop the grill to the right of the brightwork in the center while keeping the shape of the cabin intact.  I would lose the driver’s side wheel, which would leave the car hovering on a single wheel.  That wasn’t a problem because of the low stance which grounded the car with the grill making contact with the ground.  That one aspect forgave the omission of the other wheel and left the viewer understanding why the car wasn’t falling over.  Think about photographing somebody, but cropping out a leg, they would look terribly off balance in the photo.  Thanks to that secondary point of interest, the low stance, I had the proper grounding for the subject.

With the right side of the frame established, I went with a vertical orientation to omit the house to the left which was just outside of the frame.  This allowed me to pull in a tree that helped to bring even more visual balance to the scene.  By limiting the depth of field, I forced the attention onto the grill and that emblem,  I was also able to blur the power line into insignificance as it traveled through the tree.  The focus on the grill added to the visual tension because the viewer knows that is important, but it is cropped with a portion missing.  This forces the viewer to complete the photograph to the right in their mind, not knowing about all the distractions that are there.  It is easy to imagine the symmetry based on what you can see though.

While the viewer is imagining the rest of the image, the brightest part of the image is that emblem on the grill which keeps your eyes focused there, again cementing what is truly important to the image.  The next brightest thing is the sky which pulls your eyes to the background to understand the depth and you see just a slit of the rear window that includes more of the sky.  This amplifies the idea that the car has been chopped at some point which adds more to the hotrod story.

The significance here was based on how well the photograph turned out considering all of the hurdles that I went through to get it.  Of all the photos that I have shot of this car, this might be my absolute favorite one.  It is one that I liked when I shot it, and that feeling improved as I processed it, and now that a while has passed, I’m liking it more and more.  The memories of the distractions have left my memory, and I am only looking at the photograph which is what any viewer would be seeing.  For me, this is an impressive photograph that takes an old rusty subject and makes it a really artful composition that breaks so many rules while capitalizing on those aspects that improve the image overall.  Therein lies another bit of significance to this photograph.  The longer that I go as a photographer, the less that rules really impress me.  Because I understand those rules, I know when and how to break them to arrive at the composition that I feel is right.  This composition just works, and it works very well.  Even the processing of the photograph works towards the ultimate goal of this piece very well.  It is truly a standout photograph from 2024, and one that happened on the end of a very long creative slump where I wondered if I would ever create a photograph that I was inspired by.  This one inspires me to keep moving forward because I can see improvement in my photography with this one photo of a subject that I have photographed repeatedly for coming up on ten years now.

Thank you for joining me for a look back on the significant images of 2024.  I hope that I have picked some of your favorites but know that I have left a lot of strong images on the table which easily could have made this list.  In fact, keep in mind that this list isn’t even a list of my favorite images from the year, but rather those that symbolize some sort of significance to my photography as a whole.  A theme with this list has been times when I have stretched myself creatively with either bland subjects, subjects that were in difficult positions, or compositions that were not readily visible without being able to see in a creative way.  2024 has been a very tough year for me creatively as well as motivationally.  It was so bad that I gave serious thought to skipping this list for the year because there was a long time that I looked at the file folder on my desktop and felt that every photograph that had been dropped in there for consideration was junk and was nothing at all special.  I went through this list of photos many times and tried to make myself realize that there was a lot of significance in that list, I just had to remember what prompted me to drop the photo there in the first place.

Keep your eyes open for the first Behind the Camera of 2025 when I take a look back at 2024 as a whole.  We will see the ups and downs of the year and hopefully you will have a better understanding of just how rough of a year I have had.  I am happy to report that I have made it and am looking forward to more adventures in the new year.

Until next time….