Best Photos of 2006: non-bird photos

While selecting my photos for the “best of” selections, I found myself drawn to story and time as much as technical quality. Obviously, they needed to be good photos — but the ones that I kept going back to had some kind of story, or subtext, attached to them.

Here, then, are my 23 photos I felt worthy of a second look, that I’m willing to say “this is the best I could do this year, and I’m proud of it”. It’ll be interesting to see how they stand up as I continue to work on all of this.

It probably goes without saying, but NONE of these photos are done justice in thumbnail form, and some will make no sense at all unless you click through and view them in a larger size.

Some notes on the photos.

I lead off with this photo because there is so much embedded in it. It is a red-tailed hawk on the hunt in the wetlands in Palo Alto; in the background is Moffett field and the WW II blimp barn some would like to define as the icon defining Silicon Valley (it is currently under argument with the Navy whether to clean it up and remove the toxics, or tear it down — you can guess which side the Navy is on). I took this shot during the time when I was working to restructure my life and my work at Apple to make it less stressful and healthier, during one of me “away from the office” days, before I found my schedule spiral back down into the “you can’t do that any more” time.

It also signifies to me the dichotomy of life in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, the juxasposition of civilization and technology with nature and the wild. It is, to me, the ideal of the new life balance I’m seeking — not to deny civilization or technology, but to live with it and with life in the larger scale, to be able to return to the simpler things as well as remain a citizen of the valley.

This was one of the shots I used as “thank you”’s to people at Apple when I left, printing them out and giving them to people as a way to let them know they mattered to me — and it was the one that garnered the most comments among those that got it.

And I’m very, very proud of the shot technically, but I even more so think it explains what this region is to me, and to people in the area, and why we value living here as much as we do.

Also shot in Palo Alto. you have to see the large size to catch the detail in the shadows. I think the composition is strong, but beyond that, I think technical aspects — that it’s not JUST a dark blob in front of a golden sunset sky — that really makes this photo for me.

Okay, so this is Yosemite from tunnel view. Like nobody’s ever shot a photo there before. This, however, was shot on Valentines day. I was returning from visiting family in LA, and gave myself one day vacation to visit Yosemite — and the only time I could find at work to squeeze it in was the 14th, so this meant it was the first Valentines day I’d spent away from Laurie. I was, at that time, really coming to grips with the need to make changes in my life, and Yosemite has always been an emotionally important place, and a place where I’ve committed to other important things in my life, so even an overnight touch of the park was important in helping me understand what I was trying to do and what I needed to become. The photo is, I think, pretty good. But that was one of the most important 24 hours in my life in the last decade, and so the photo goes beyond mere technical quality or location (if, in Yosemite, that’s possible). It is, in fact, the photo that represents “this is the first day of the rest of my life”, and not just another day of the old life.

My birding trip to Morro Bay. Really the first time I took time off work and made it clear I didn’t plan on being available, where I made a committment to just get away and decompress. Also the first time where I really tried to take my birdwatching seriously, and not as an excuse for a walk by the bay or to take photos. It ALSO was a beta test for the Outsider’s Guide project Laurie and I have been talking about, and which we plan to launch early in 2007….

Oh, and it was lots of fun.

The focus isn’t as good as it could be, but the story this photo tells makes it a winner. We were at the Portland Zoo, on our first vacation together for a while, on my “in between jobs” trip — first time in years I’ve really taken time off without a cel phone or a beeper (just in case). It’s september, and we’re clearly headed into fall, and in the farm area of the zoo, I see this butterfly land. It wasn’t until I took the shot that I realized that this butterfly was — old and tired. Part of a wing missing, faded, it is a perfect embodiment of what fall means, of the end of summer and the move into the great slumber of winter.

There are other photos, too, but these were the ones with stories that needed telling. I’d be curious about your thoughts and feedback on the shots, both positive and negative, and if you see personal favorites in my flickr pool that I didn’t mention. That is, of course, part of the learning process that this blog represents for me…

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