Here we are once again looking at the last few days of a year. I don’t know about you, but 2025 seemed to fly by. I’ll get into more of those details in an upcoming Behind the Camera in a few more days. For this entry, I am wanting to stick with looking at some of the more significant images through the year. Now this is something that I have struggled with ever since I started with photography because I really like all of the images that I have shared throughout the years. I do have some favorites, but those change from mood to mood because each photo speaks to me on a different level at different times. Because of that, I stopped collecting my “favorite” images at the end of each year and decided to replace that concept with something a bit more…uh…significant. Yep, I stole the idea from Ansel Adams after really understanding what he meant by “12 significant images in a year is a pretty good crop.” Yes, he was shooting far less than most photographers these days, but I think that the same concept applies. Most of what we shoot as photographers is average at best. If we can manage to get a dozen images that stand out among the rest, that is something special. For me, this doesn’t equate to being the best images, but rather those that have something that elevates them. In many cases, this elevation is something that I learned from that image that has carried on to others. In some cases, it is a photograph that has been on my bucket list for quite some time and I finally was able to make it happen. In other cases, the photo started out as an experiment that I wasn’t sure would work and then turned out much better than I ever would have expected.
Significance comes in different flavors for me, but I’ve found that it doesn’t always correlate with my “favorite” images of the year. That is a completely subjective bar and one that changes all too often for me to accurately make a list that reflects the fuzzy concept of “favorite.” With that in mind, I am going to list out the 12 most significant images from 2025, which has been a year in the making. You see, I start a folder on January 1st and start dumping images in there as they strike me as significant for one reason or another. As I live with that list over time, I start to develop a running order for just how significant they are, or in a lot of cases just decide that they are good photographs, but not necessarily significant. By the time December rolls around, I usually have about 20-30 images in that folder and will start to really put together a list of them which will ultimately end up in this yearly feature.
I’ll be honest here and let you know that I was really going to have a much different list than what you are going to see. As I was looking back over the images that I had selected over the year, I couldn’t help but realize that the most significant images that I had produced in 2025 had come from the portrait end of my photography. As I’ll share more with you about in the official year-end review, the last quarter of the year was primarily focused on doing more people photography and really getting out of my comfort zone with techniques and even styles. So many of those photographs deserve to be on this list because of what I have learned and what I have been able to achieve with a camera. These are the images that are currently inspiring me, and I could easily see half of the list here being of people.
The struggle that I have had is that this blog has always been primarily about my landscape and decay photography which is why most of you are here. I get that, and this is still my primary focus in photography which makes it seem a little alienating for my core audience to put up portraiture when you are clearly expecting landscapes and rusty cars. While I have grown leaps and bounds in the realm of portraiture over the last few months, this has still been a stellar year for my core photography. After a long creative slump in 2024, I have come back stronger and more focused than ever which has yielded a larger collection of landscape and decay than I have seen in a single year. Across the board, these photos are better than ever, and it is hard for me to pick out significant ones among them because they all represent growth in some way or another. It is the portraiture that has been the most significant overall, and I feel that I need to address that here with at least an acknowledgement. The compiled list that you will see through this entry will be nothing but landscape and decay and those images that I feel are quite significant to my overall growth in this field. Of course, any growth in photography, regardless of genre, is still growth and will impact every subsequent button press going further.
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 most significant list was in 2019, and I kept it going through 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Here are some quick metrics for comparison’s sake as you are looking back over previous lists.
6 Vertical compositions
6 Horizontal compositions
4 Black and white photos
8 Color photos
3 Overall compositions
9 Detail oriented compositions
7 Decay photos
2 Landscape photos
7 Photos dealing with shape
2 Architectural photos
5 Abstract photos
8 Automotive photos
7 Shot with the 70-200mm
4 Shot with the 24-70mm
1 Shot with the 16-35mm
Taking a look back over the metrics from the year there are a few things that kind of stick out to me. First of all, I had really thought that my use of the telephoto lens had dropped off a bit after 2024. It seemed that I was reaching for my standard lens more and more during the year. When it comes to this list, the number of times those two lenses showed up is exactly the same as the previous year, so my effective use of the lenses is staying about the same. It was nice to see a return of the wide-angle to this list though. I would like to work with this lens some more through the next year, but it usually captures a view that my eyes are not as familiar with, which makes me less effective with a wide-angle lens. Second of all, is the comparison to the grand overall compositions versus the ones that are more detail oriented. This is something that has happened organically during the year and it seems that my focus has been on more of the details rather than the overall scene. This fits with how I view the world and I’m apparently starting to embrace it more and more as time goes on. On that subject, I’ve turned the detail shots into studies in lines and shapes more this year than in years past. I really like how that has happened because I’m starting to view those types of images more as an artform than the overall scene as a photo. To capture a full scene is kind of like documenting what you saw when you got there. It is the detail work and abstracts that follow which illustrate how that scene made you feel. This is something that I want to do more with in the future and get better at it since it really speaks to how I view the world that we live in.
Now that we have looked at the list by the numbers, let’s actually take a look at the photos and see why I have included them in this yearly list. I hope that some of your favorites have appeared here, but if not, you are not alone. Many of my favorites from the year aren’t on this list either. In fact, if we were just looking at this as a list of favorites, it would likely be a completely different list for me. All that aside, let’s get a look at that number 12 photo…
Number 12
Obviously, this was a late addition to the list of significant images as it was created less than a month ago. I try to avoid adding recent photos because they still have that new-photo smell to them and I haven’t had a chance to live with them for any length of time. It is easy to confuse a new photo with one that has significance, and that was pointed out to me many years ago by a fellow photographer when he rightly called me out for making a list comprised of mostly images from the last quarter of the year. This one might just fall into that category, but doggone it, I really like this image, and it is significant in its own right.
As a compromise for the reason behind this list, I am placing it in the bottom spot so as not to dilute earlier photos that probably are more deserving to be on this list. This old car does stand out for me though, and that started when I first pulled it into Lightroom. I had shot this just as I would have any other image and you can read all about it in the link above, but that wasn’t really what made this one stand out. When I saw it on the large computer screen, I could see just how delicate the snow was on the yellowing vegetation. That thin layer of snow on the car itself offered yet another dainty touch to an otherwise harsh scene. It was cold, and that was obvious in the photo, but the yellowing vegetation gave just the right amount of warmth to the scene to make it inviting, yet still give that sense of chill to the air. The missing windshield gave another type of contrast to the scene and helped to intensify the snow that was there, even though a large portion of snow was missing from a very visible area of the car. There is a sense of stillness to the scene that when matched with the blanket of snow, you can almost hear the nothing in the air.
Even though this photo was shot just a few days ago (starting this entry on the 14th), I have a hard time remembering what it felt like to be there. I was kind of rushed because I was in a gray area as far as being on the property, so I wasn’t really experiencing the moment like I would prefer doing. I can remember finding the car as it was based on a tip, but that is kind of it. Now looking back on this photo, I am not remembering the actual process of photographing it, or what I was feeling at the time. I’m just soaking in the mood and atmosphere that I was able to capture, not unlike you viewing this image for the first time. No matter how many times I look at this photo, I can’t make it be about the car or the snow. It is a purely emotional reaction, and it makes me react much deeper than if I was just seeing a photo of an old car.
This is the kind of reaction that I strive to create through my photography, and I think that I am typically pretty successful with those who view my work. However, it is very hard for me to separate the experience of shooting a scene and actually view the image as an outsider. For whatever reason, this photo actually falls into that category, and that alone makes it very significant in my collection from the year.
Number 11
Coming in at number 11, we have a very geometrical composition which is something that I tend to work with from time to time. It is kind of a natural thing for the angles and lines to work well with shadows which I’ve done here as well. It was just barely Spring at the time that I went out to Wilkes Community College for a bit of a photo walk, and that meant that the sun was still pretty low in the sky. This allowed more of the shadows to show up for longer into the day. I had very little expectations about what I was going to photograph on this trek but just wanted to react to what I saw. I photographed things that I normally would have walked by, but since I was on foot with no real destination, I had the opportunity to experiment.
This scene was at the entrance to a building that was just off of the parking area where I parked my truck. I had seen the stairs and the way that the light was hitting it, but wasn’t sure how I wanted to photograph it. After some walking around and looking at the angles, I started to dial in some different approaches. Now, my goal for these was to be black and white photographs to really take advantage of the shadows and highlights. That is kind of where the significance of this image really starts to come into view.
As I was working the angles and shapes, I ended up expanding the composition to include the entrance at the top. This gave all the leading lines a place to go, and the windows gave a bit more depth when combined with the nearer wall to the left. It was that set of windows that were reflecting the clear blue sky that prompted me to make this a color image even though I was thinking black and white to start with. This was kind of a trend through the year as I made many of my creative choices on images after I got home rather than getting it all figured out in the field. With the blue in the window, I knew that I had a great chance for a wonderful color balance in the scene for just another layer of contrast. Even the smoothness of the glass contrasted with the rough textures of the concrete walls.
Even though many months have passed, I still look at this photo and marvel at the structure of it. It is one of those photos that I just enjoy looking at to pick apart all the different shapes that are represented. it is one of those photos that I know my mom would have seen and told me that she never would have seen beauty in those steps, but she can’t deny that the photo makes them look beautiful. She always loved that my photography was teaching her to see things that she had never really paid attention to before. For me, that is, and always will be the definition of a significant image.
Number 10
Our number 10 photo is also our first black and white image of the list. At first glance, you might be thinking that this is a really good photo, but why is it significant? I’ve shot a bunch of old trucks, and a significant number of those trucks have been Fords. I’ve done black and white before and even worked specifically on that presentation for the better part of last year. Looking at those criteria, this really isn’t a significant photo at all. However, I put this one in the list of contenders for a reason and as the months passed by, the significance really started to show itself.
First of all, this image is an illustration of problem solving on a very high level for me. You see, this was behind a repair shop and it was parked in front of a later model SUV and beside spare parts from another vehicle. There was also another vehicle in front of the truck which made this a very hard subject to frame. Normally, I would have omitted the overall composition from what I wanted to shoot because of all the clutter around it, but there was this awesome sky above that was just begging to be shot. I had to go into problem solving mode and figure out how I could get the whole truck and the sky without getting all the distractions that were around the truck.
I used a tool that I usually don’t use for automotive subjects and that was my 16-35mm lens. This allowed me to get in really close to the truck and effectively mask the distractions for the most part either with the truck or the weeds beside it. I got down low which made the missing hood a non-issue from the perspective, while really emphasizing the brush that was around the truck. I was now able to use the chrome on the front of the truck as the visual anchor for the scene as it was the brightest and most contrasty part of the scene. It all just came together so well compositionally because I was forced to do something that I don’t usually do with lens choices in this type of photography. That prompted me to use this lens more and more through the year in situations where I might not have normally thought about it. By problem solving a composition, I taught myself the value of another tool at my disposal which has come in handy several more times since.
The other reason that this image is significant is in how I processed it. I decided to go black and white to really capitalize on the sky because this would allow me much more flexibility when it came to contrast. I really worked this image when it came to tones and their relationships. I used all the tricks that I had taught myself through 2024 to arrive at this end result. It is dramatic and over the top from what it was looking at the time, but the presentation through processing fits the composition and the subject. It tells more of the story and really creates an engaging scene.
Six months later, I am still looking at this image and saying under my breath…”WOW!” For a photo of an old truck that isn’t really all that unique in my collection to retain that kind of reaction, I have to place it in the list of most significant images for the year. While I appreciate all of the photos that I shoot, very few of them continue to wow me months after I have shot them. This one still has that power and feels like a slightly elevated version of what I have created in the past. If I am lucky, images like this one will become boring in 2026 as I create more and more at this level.
Number 9
Coming in at number 9, you knew that I would have to include something from Eastatoe Falls in this list. Part of being a significant image is being a bucket list image. Once upon a time, I referred to myself as a waterfall photographer and had grand plans to photograph all of the waterfalls in North Carolina. After a few years, reality hit and I realized that was a bit optimistic and I also realized that a good majority of the waterfalls didn’t really appeal to me visually for one reason or another. I started to be more selective about the waterfalls that I shot, and eventually moved on to subjects that didn’t require quite the travel, or wading in order to get to the spot to get the photo.
One of the waterfalls that I had always wanted to photograph was Eastatoe Falls in Rosman, NC, but by the time I was actually in the area to photograph it, the property had been bought by folks that closed it off to visitors. I’m not going to badmouth them at all as they did exactly what I would have done had it been my property. However, a deal was reached where members of the Waterfall Keepers of NC were able to visit there twice a year on scheduled days. A friend of mine, Bill, had signed us up for a visit in 2024, but a certain weather event had other plans for us. It was a full year later that another opportunity presented itself and we went.
Honestly, the fact that the entire trek that took place over about 24 hours and had four parts to the blog was significant. What made this one photo rise above the others was the reaction of Bill when he saw it. Now, Bill is probably a more experienced waterfall photographer than I am and has shot many more falls than I have. He has been to Eastatoe a number of times in the past, so I really pay attention to his views on waterfalls and the photos of those marvels. When he saw this photo, he said it brought tears to his eyes and he felt that it was one of the best photos of this waterfall that he had ever seen. While I doubt that is true, the sentiment stayed with me.
After years of trying to photograph this waterfall, it all came down to one day which was scheduled a month ahead of time during a pre-arranged, two-hour block of time. There was no chance to plan this around the weather or conditions of the waterfall. It was a matter of sign up and hope things work out. Well, luck and fortune were with us because after a long bout of drought conditions in the month leading up to the trek, there had been some significant rainfall a couple of days before our scheduled session and on the day of the shoot, the clouds were perfect. There was very little wind, and everything just lined up beautifully. This so rarely happens in situations where you can’t come back and try again later that I felt the conditions alone were significant. The fact that I produced an image that impressed Bill was what pushed this one over the top and it has become the representative image for the whole trek, although it is not the only one that will be found on this list.
Number 8
Coming in at number 8 for the year of significant images we have a photo of a…hood. Well, that isn’t impressive…so, why is it on the list and appearing kind of high in that list? Well, this is one of those experiments that I did during a trek that turned out to be much more than what I ever would have thought. By this point in the Summer, my creativity was in full swing, and I felt like I could go out and create a photo of just about anything and make it decent at the very least. I wasn’t looking for the safe views or the expected compositions. I was looking for something much deeper for my photography. I was looking for abstracts that would catch the eye. I wanted textures, shapes, colors, I wanted it all but didn’t want it to be obvious.
While I was shooting this Dodge out behind the shop, I was constantly looking at the details and trying to figure out what was motivating me to want to photograph the car itself. While the overall scene was great, there were certain qualities of the car that I found very engaging. One of those aspects was the hood which almost looked to be one that was still painted in the black primer from manufacturing. It had been on this car for some time though and the colors had all changed. What was once black, now had a green tone and lots of streaks from organic fallout over the years. Other areas were obviously covered in surface rust. It looked to be a hot mess, but it was an interesting mess to me. With the cutouts for the scoops creating some interesting shapes accentuated by the rusty color, I felt that there was something here.
I shot just a few frames of this, not knowing what I was going to do with it in post. I just felt that it was interesting and that if I explored my processing options with it there might just be something really special with this simple hood. The composition was based on the shapes and how everything came together geometrically, but that was only the start. When I culled the images, I kept this one because I wanted to see what I could do with it but honestly didn’t have much hope for it at all. When the time came to start the processing on it, I started to go through the color profiles to decide if I wanted to do this as color or in black and white. The green and yellow orange colors forced my hand that it needed to be in color, and I started to work it like that.
Just to see what would happen, I went a bit heavy handed on a few of the sliders and found that I really liked the effect. Since I was going for an abstract view, I wasn’t so much constrained by what looked “real” or not. I pushed the colors and the contrast. I pulled out the textures and deepened the shadowed areas. I actually processed it very much like I had done with a few Thunderbird images last year. Some of those images made the significant list that year for what I learned in the processing of them. This is why those images were significant. As you can see, I’ve now grown as a photographer and have used those techniques yet again for what has become another level of significance.
This image is a clue as to what will be coming later in the list as well. It is a surprise significance in my photography for the year that is starting to reveal itself in this list. Pay attention and see if you can figure out the trend to what I’m considering significant for the year as a whole.
Number 7
As we get to the top spot of the bottom half of the list at number 7, we are looking at another one of those images that might not really stand out from the crowd. I’ve shot plenty of photos like this over the years in both color and in black and white. The composition, while solid, is not among the best I’ve done. What makes this image significant? Well, the fact that it was originally culled in favor of another version of this composition that I did in color. I left the file in the discard stack, and I didn’t look back as I was happy with my choice for the color image which you can see in the blog entry linked above. Now, this was a very busy day with a lot of photos created which prompted me to do the blog entry as a three-part series. This happened a lot through 2025, but what I found was that doing these blogs over the course of several days gave me the chance to really consider my editing choices as I went through what I was actually thinking at each stage of the trek.
It was during this thinking as I was typing that I remembered what I had originally set the composition up for. I had wanted to take advantage of the subtle sky in black and white so that I could set the mood for the image. While the color photo looked fine, it didn’t have quite the result that I was looking for since the conditions had changed, and when I went back and looked at it in black and white it missed the mark there. I chose to leave the image in color, but wanted to see if my initial thoughts would have paid off in black and white. I looked back through the discarded images until I found one that I thought might actually work in black and white. This was a much earlier capture when the sky was much more subtle than the one that I had selected to work in color. It wasn’t all that impressive straight out of the camera, but I knew that was going to be the case since the clouds were just showing a small bit of texture and interest at the time. I knew when I had shot it what I would be able to do in post, and that was the whole point of the photo, which I had missed by selecting one that looked better on its face.
Here you see what I was looking at in Lightroom without any processing to it other than converting the image from RAW and assigning a default color profile to it. The sky did nothing for me and that was why I went with another that showed more interest and ultimately became a color image. Later on, I did start working through this one as a black and white and with just few adjustments was able to come up with the image that you see above. It actually turned into one of my favorite images from the day, but that was just the surprise of having it turn out as I had hoped when I had shot it. I had forgotten that initial intention when culling the images. Over time, the image kind of faded into obscurity with other photos that I had shot during the year.
That doesn’t sound like the beginnings of a significant image story at all does it? Well, that is actually where the significance comes into play. You see, I’m always going back through the images a second or third time before I finally delete the ones that don’t get processed. I have found many great images that way which I had culled out initially. What makes this one stand out is the fact that while I was shooting, I had the idea of doing this scene in black and white because of the existing conditions. Those conditions changed while I was there and presented the opportunity for a stronger color image. That was what I ended up going with after the first culling completely dismissing the creative idea that I had come up with earlier in response to the conditions.
When considering what I was thinking during the trek, I realized that I was missing an opportunity that I had planned for and wanted to go back to see if I could seize that opportunity. It turned out successful and cemented the concept of going back through the images as I was writing the blog to make sure that I was true to myself and what I was creating in the field. Since I shot this photo in the early Spring, I have gone back through and added back photos that I had initially discarded many times on subsequent treks. Some of these “afterthoughts” have become the better images from the day because of how I chose to process them. This one started it all off and it showed me just what I could do with an image that seemed a bit flat because of how I had to capture it in order to retain all the detail in the highlights and shadows. It was a reminder that I need every so often about what I am capable of, and just what to expect between RAW and processed images. I’ve lost count of how many photos through the year that I’ve saved because of the experience with this one, so that is why it appears so high on the list.
Number 6
Starting the top half of this list, we have a rather odd-looking photo that doesn’t really scream Greg Kiser Photography. That might just be why this is on the list though. One of those skills that I have wanted to work on is my ability to see colors and shapes in a way that makes for an interesting composition. Most of the time, I find these types of photos with the panels of my old vehicles, but that is kind of cheating because the shapes are all there in a single plane. The graduate level of this technique is being able to spot these situations in a three-dimensional world where the shapes are not necessarily physically related to each other. That was the setup for this shot during a photo walk in North Wilkesboro.
The building had been painted a couple of years ago and they had done it in some very vibrant colors which worked well with each other. It was an old bank, complete with a drive through portion that provided some columns and barriers as well. The colors had drawn me in initially and I started to look for a composition. I knew that I was going to be making the colors the main subject, but was having a very hard time finding a composition that would work. By looking through the camera and walking around, I was able to see the relationships between the different areas of the building in a different way. All of a sudden, the colors and shapes began to dominate the scene, and I was no longer looking at a colorful bank. I was seeing patterns and shapes defined by color and light.
I carefully situated the camera so that the lines all lined up in the way that I needed them to while keeping the scaling of the different elements in a pleasing relationship. The edges of the frame were carefully placed so that the overall scene was less about the individual objects and just more about the lines. I used the depth of field to my advantage by simplifying the textures that were seen throughout in order to really focus on the colors and shapes more than anything else. It was one of those images that elevated well above the actual subject that I was photographing and turned into something quite unique. Some eight months later, this one still catches my eye, and I am amazed that I shot this one. That makes this a very significant image for the year, and I think that it is well deserving of a slot this high into the list.
Number 5
For our number 5 image, we go back to my time at Eastatoe Falls in Rosman, NC, though this photo is much less about the waterfall as it is about this branch. I’ve talked about the significance of this entire trek already, so I’ll bypass that part of the reason why that this photo is on the list. The part that stands out about this one in particular is all about vision and adaptation. When Bill and I first arrived at the falls, we were looking at the entire scene, and I think we both spotted the fallen branch at the very top around the same time. Bill made mention that it was a shame that the branch was there covering the flow of the water, and at first, I had agreed with him at first. It was only after a few seconds of letting the scene sink in that I started to see the potential with it. It wasn’t so dominant that it would really affect an overall shot of the falls, but there was something about the detail that it possessed which got me a little excited. We were still at the lower level of the falls and a fair distance from that branch, so I wasn’t sure if my idea would work or not.
The idea was to crop in very close to the branch and use the waterfall to create a silhouette of the branch. With the water mist flowing over the wood and the slight motion that the water was causing, I was seeing a very eerie photograph and one that would really catch the viewer’s attention. It was only a matter of whether or not I could actually make it work when we got closer to the falls. When we finished with the lower portion, we made our way up to the main falls and after a few establishing photos, I turned my attention to that branch well above our location. It was so far off that I had to use my teleconverter and increase the reach of my 70-200mm lens out to 400mm. It was just barely enough to fill the frame how I wanted it, but it was going to work.
I knew from the beginning that this was going to be a black and white shot because it was all about contrasts and the colors had nothing to do with it, and honestly, there were not many colors to be seen anyway. I had to be very careful with the camera so as not to introduce camera shake. This meant a remote release and about 15 seconds of not touching the camera after dialing in settings before releasing the shutter with the mirror locked up out of the way. I’ve done a good deal of photography with this camera and lens combination to know that the slightest vibration will soften the image, and since it was the fine detail that was making the image what it was, I couldn’t chance that. Also, at 400mm, the depth of field was very small, so I had to stop the lens down a good bit, but I also had to monitor the shutter speed to keep the water looking the way that I wanted with a slight bit of detail visible.
It all worked out, and I could tell on the image review that I had what I was after. The photo captured the vibe that I felt when I had seen it from the lower level and the photo had the perfectly creepy look that I was hoping for. The success of this image makes it a significant photo for the year because I was able to quite literally turn lemons into lemonade. What had looked like a distraction at first sight had been restructured into a compelling main element for a photograph. I’m not sure if any of the other photographers that day shot this same scene or not, but I would wager that I was probably the only one that saw this little detail as a worthwhile photograph. If I had to bet, I would say that after one more good rainfall, this branch would have been washed away from the top of the falls which makes this a very opportunistic photo which I was lucky enough to get. For that reason alone, this photo belongs on this list of significant images.
Number 4
Coming in at number 4, we have what can only be described as a rusty, abstract image. The subject in this photograph is an old Plymouth in Yadkin County that I have photographed several times over the years. It never moves, but more and more parts are turning up missing as the years march on. I had been seeing the missing chrome trim as a hinderance to good isolation compositions, but as I was looking around the car on this Spring Day, I started to see it differently. It was the lines and contours that started to speak to me, and I found a point of interest in what was left of the fuel filler on the rear fender. I started to move the camera around to see how the different shapes would relate to each other with different crops and found that there was one very interesting composition that was with the camera held vertically.
I spent some time fine tuning the edges of the frame and worked out the scaling of the different shapes within the frame. By the time I had it all figured out, I really loved the composition for how the panel lines all worked together and still supported an empty hole in the metal. The second phase of this was later when I pulled it into Lightroom. It was here that I really started to work the textures in the photo as well as the color contrasts. I wanted this to a be gritty scene with lots of micro contrast so that you could feel it with your eyes. I wasn’t all that concerned with depth because I wanted it to feel like a two-dimensional image rather than the norm of trying to reproduce a three-dimensional world in a photograph. By using the lens’ compression, I was able to keep it all very compact so the shapes were the only form to the photo.
As we are going to see here at the top of the list, abstraction kind of became a big thing for me over the year and there are several of those abstract images that just really impressed me. This is one of them, and one that I still look at and feel very impressed that I was able to see this in spite of the fact that it was a pretty bland part of the car to just look at it. I mean it all really came together because I saw the lack of a part as a strong visual anchor and wanted to figure out a composition to go around it. This one worked so well and has shaped a lot of the techniques that I will use going forward when faced with this kind of scene.
Number 3
In our number three slot, we have yet another rusty, abstract photo. This one was shot two months after the previous photo but shares a lot of what I learned on that composition. I was actually out photographing the ugly duckling Mustang II on a day where the light wasn’t ideal. It was a day that I just felt like getting out and doing some photography, so I wasn’t feeling overly pressured beyond just wanting to create. It took me a little while to really understand the design language of the car and honestly, to get over the fact that this Pinto-stang was just not a popular design for Ford. The patina and the overall setting of the car had created a great opportunity for some decay photography, so I looked past all the preconceived notions of this car and started to see it as one of my decay subjects which it now was.
I got the typical overall shots of the car and then started to work the isolations as I tend to do. I was actually getting quite a bit more photos than I had suspected from this car. I was actually starting to enjoy this car and appreciate parts of it. I had kind of fallen in love with my subject which is always a good thing when creating photographs of something. As I was working around the car, I spotted an area on the hood with some interesting lighting as well as some wonderful patina. I tried my usual compositions that included the grill or headlights, but they weren’t quite working the way that I wanted. I remembered how I had shot the Plymouth a couple of months before and began to look at the body lines differently. With some creative camera placement to get the angles right and working with a bit of compression from the telephoto lens, I was able to create a two-dimensional composition based on lines and shapes. I could tell that I had something really great looking at the image review, but it wasn’t until I got home and played with the textures in processing that the full effect was revealed.
This image was as effective as the one from the Plymouth but somehow seemed to elevate the Mustang II into something much beyond what it was in reality. There are very few out there that would say that the Mustang II was a design success and most despise all of the lines on it. Yet, in this photo, we are no longer looking at the red-headed stepchild in the Ford lineup, we are looking at decay on an abstract level that is now much more interesting than the car as a whole.
Abstract images like this have become some of my favorites from the year. While I didn’t set out to work on abstracts in 2025, after putting this list together I am starting to see that most of my growth has been in that area of photography. I have learned to recognize more patterns and rely less on depth in an image. These are simple compositions, but to see them and frame them is a talent that I’m obviously just starting to really explore. These are some of the most profound images that I have made through the years as we are starting to see. Is this where my photography is headed in the future? That could very well be, and I look forward to 2026, to see just how this realization affects what and how I photograph.
Number 2
In the runner-up slot, we have yet another abstract image. Now the story behind this one is quite a bit different than the rest of the list to this point. Each of the preceding photos were photos that I had shot during a normal trek with some sort of intention, even if that intention was to experiment to see if something would work. This photo was completely different in that regard. It happened during a workshop which you can read about in the link above. Now, during workshops, I don’t usually get my camera out because I want the time to be dedicated to helping the participants. However, on this particular workshop, my two clients were veterans from many other workshops and had both expressed interest in seeing more about how I work and see things in practice. Because of that, I had been getting a few photos here and there to demonstrate my process but hadn’t really been out to capture anything necessarily portfolio worthy.
Toward the end of the workshop, we found ourselves in an area of the property where I had recently discovered a really neat composition with a stack of fenders in a shelter. Since this kind of shot pertained to what we were learning in this workshop, I took them both over to the fenders and started to explain what I saw and how I had photographed it. I don’t think that what I was saying was registering quite as effectively as I wanted it to, so I pulled the camera out and started to work out a composition with the fenders. Now the light was different this time as compared to the previous November, so I ended up getting a different type of composition put together, but it illustrated what I was talking about just the same. After I showed what was there on the back of the camera, I still wasn’t having the impact that I thought I would with them. Since there wasn’t much interest in shooting this composition, I stuck with it while they worked their own ideas in the area.
The more I worked with it, the more I started to see this as a color image rather than the black and white that I had shot previously. I knew that the black and white image was really strong and you might recognize it from my 2024 significant images list where it made the number 11 slot. Here we are again, a year later, and the same subject is appearing on this list, but quite a bit higher. While I loved the black and white image for the textures and shapes, this color version has a very different language to it. I love the progression of the colors from cool to warm. The visual anchor is also quite a bit different and is based on a void. You might see a pattern here that started a few days before with the photo of the Plymouth from the number 4 slot. Yes, that one composition shaped so many of my significant images for the rest of the year.
This image had so much more visual punch to it compared to the black and white and I think has a stronger composition because of the headlight opening on the one fender. The processing takes it to another level with the attention given to the textures and the individual colors. I stop in my tracks every time I pass this photo, and each time I look through the collection of images that are in line for this list, I always mention to myself that this one has to be on that list. From the moment I shot it until this very second, this is a standout image from the year. It is one that I’m still impressed with, and I think that it takes what was already a successful concept as proven in last year’s list and brings it up several notches. I will never get tired of looking at this photograph, and because of that, it has ranked as nearly the most significant image of 2025. But with all of those accolades, could there be an image that should be higher on this list?
Yep…
Before we get to that top image of 2025, there are some things that I’ve learned while putting this list together. This is a big part of why I do this list actually. I like to see what trends are going on with my photography. I like to see how my view of the world changes from year to year. I like to see what I have worked on and how I’ve improved. It is also a chance to see what lenses I’ve had the most success with and sometimes I get to see a glimpse of what the following year might look like.
Once upon a time, these lists were pretty much nothing but landscape images. That was what I shot pretty much all the time. That transitioned into more of a rural and then decay theme which follows with what I have been spending the time photographing. We have seen mostly the expected images that turned out really well, and now we are seeing a transition to more detail work and abstract images. It hasn’t been a conscious shift in attention so much as I am trying to really highlight my own creative voice and visual language. I’ve used the term low hanging fruit from time to time in my blogs speaking to the “easy” and “expected” compositions. While I still shoot these, they never really come across as unique to me. Anyone can walk up to a sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains and get a photograph. You see beauty, you photograph beauty, and you post beauty. Everyone does it, and it is getting boring to see over and over. In my constant struggle to make my photography matter in a world where everyone is a photographer, I have started to look at the details more and more. Maybe it is my history in building plastic models as a kid, or maybe it is all the time that I have spent doing detailing on cars where I’m constantly looking at small areas at a time. Whatever the case, I’ve known for a while that I see more in terms of details than I do in overall grand views. As we have seen in this very list, it is those details that are starting to really form the core of the best of my work.
In addition to seeing the change in subject and scope of my images over the years, I’m starting to really see a change in my black and white photography. I used to use it as something different for my photos and there were just some scenes that felt right in black and white. These days, you can tell that I am using black and white as a very integral part of the storytelling process in my images. I am making much more conscious choices, and in many cases the use of black and white adds to the abstract nature of a photograph because we are just not used to seeing the world without color. Now, there aren’t as many black and white images on this list as there were last year, and that is understandable because my focus last year was on getting better with black and white. I’ve achieved that goal, and have gone back to shooting more color, but the quality of my black and white images has increased more than I can measure.
That brings us to the top spot on this list of significant images for 2025. It is a black and white image, it is kind of abstract, or at least much of the context has been removed from the photo. It is kind of decay and is one that really focuses on shapes and stories. If this sounds interesting, I’m just about ready to announce this year’s most significant image. Are you ready? Any guesses before I unveil it?
Drum roll please….
In the top slot for 2025, I would like to present….
N U M B E R O N E ! ! ! !
And we have made it to the top spot of significant images for 2025!! Some things that you will immediately notice are that the photo is in black and white and is composed in a completely different way than anything I’ve ever shot before. What you are looking at is the result of really working a scene that was rather difficult to get photographed. I shot it on a day when I wasn’t sure if anything I was wanting to shoot would actually turn out or not. The weather was questionable and uncomfortably warm. I was just wanting to get out and get some photos and decided to try several locations close to home that I had been batting around for a while. This AMC AMX which was parked on the sidewalk in front of a business was a very interesting car because of the rarity. However, there was not much decay to it other than evidence of use over the years with scratches and a few little dents here and there. It would have made a great overall composition, but the location just wouldn’t support that at all. I ended up doing a bunch of different isolations on the car getting the details and finding abstract views.
While this is not technically an abstract because there are plenty of clues as to the identification of the subject as well as scale, I do feel that the way I have cropped into the scene by framing lends itself to an abstract feel. The photo is less about the car and more about the shapes that I saw, primarily the large hood scoop and grill surround. It was the racing heritage of this car that I so wanted to capture in a photo, and it was this composition that did it. That alone isn’t nearly enough to make for a significant image though, so why is this one here?
Well, the way that I composed this photo is different from anything that I have done in the past. I’ve done plenty of straight on shots, especially when it comes to emblems and abstract lines on a car. These straight on shots typically don’t offer much depth to the scene though which can be by design, but other times creates a lack of interest. Usually, when including depth, capturing a scene at an angle works much better, but for the design of this car, going with an angle just felt boring. It was the straight down your throat approach that added in immediacy and impact that I felt the car needed. Once again, by including the entire front of the car, the scene got overly complicated with the surroundings as well as boring at the same time. This car didn’t have the same personality as the image I had shot in 2024 which ended up being the top image of that year. The exposed wheels on that hot rod had given me the opportunity to shoot a half view of the front of the car from straight on with a tree in the background. Nothing about that composition would work with the AMX.
After looking at the details for a bit, I saw a similarity between the grill opening and the intake on the scoop. They were very similar, and I felt that I could use that as a repeating pattern while keeping the crops very close. The badge on the grill turned into the visual anchor for the whole photo and drove just a bit of attention to the performance decal behind the grill. The lanyard for the hood pin gave this random diagonal curve that broke up the otherwise very horizontal composition which when paired with the vertical framing, became another very important element to the frame. The shapes on the hood created some great contrasts that formed other shapes in an area that would have been negative space. The overall balance of the image was looking fantastic in the field, and it was one that I was kind of interested to see how it would turn out.
Once again, it was the choices made during processing that elevated this one well beyond what I would have hoped for. Since color wasn’t all that important here with the black hood and chrome, I knew it was going to be done in black and white. I just needed to find the right profile to use and then dial in the best contrast levels that I could work out. Every tone in this photo was considered during the processing phase, and I created an image that had a series of light and dark sections that drove the eyes through the image. There is depth to the scene thanks to the limited depth of field that I used, but yet it also feels like it is all compressed on a single plane. The more you look, the more you think the opposite is happening. It is one of those visual tricks that I think keeps the viewer engaged with the image, and part of why I find this one so interesting all these months later.
Working out this composition and the processing has created yet another level to how I can photograph subjects in difficult locations. It shares many of the same lessons as that image that was the most significant from 2024 yet builds on those key points. For that reason, I feel that this image should be ranked at roughly the same level of significance as the springboard from where it came. I also feel that the image here has the staying power to remain relevant for years to come which makes me very certain that this one deserves the top slot for 2025.
Thank you so much for joining me on this recap of the most significant images for the year. It feels strange to have all of these put together finally after working on the list for an entire year. It is also strange to look and see that folder completely empty on the computer. Although, there is a chance that on the first day of 2026, I might capture something that just might be significant and that folder will have the first contender. As I’ve said, I want to work on my details and abstract shots in 2026 and also get a little more versed with using the wide-angles lenses at my disposal. Those are two very different approaches to a scene and should make for some interesting treks where we will see a lot of compositional variation. The main thing is that I keep moving forward and getting better at my craft. I’ll never be as good as I want to be, but I strive to get to those points where I have to raise my own bar to keep it challenging. Here’s to a very productive 2026 for both me, and for you.
