Best Photos 2009

Following on the idea of Justin Korn, I decided it was time to look at what I felt were my best shots of the year. I keep sets on Flickr for every year in two categories, one for birds, one for everything else,  but I also wanted to look at what I felt were my best few here.

By design (and because of work commitments) I actually spent a lot less time behind a camera this year than last, but I think I took better photos. Part of the plan was to really focus on improving my post processing and spend time and energy thinking about the business aspects and the creative aspects more than mashing shutter buttons, and I’m happy with the results. It was a pretty good year, I think.

So here are my ten favorite photos of the year, with a bit of commentary.

10: Orion over Morro Rock

After taking the night photography class (see below), I got up to do some dawn photography around the harbor. My first stop was near the rock, and I looked up and saw Orion getting ready to set behind the rock, so it turned into some “pre dawn” photography first. This was taken about 90 minutes before the photo that was my favorite of the year below; “dawn” being somewhat of a relative concept, I guess. I really loved how it came out and the night glow on the rocks.

9: Brown Pelican with an attitude

The brown pelicans in Morro Bay are very habituated to people, which isn’t a good thing, but it gives you some interesting photo opportunities. I just loved the composition of this one, it really presents the bird to me as having a bit of an attitude (which was true…)

8: Sea Otter at Dawn

Taken my second dawn shoot at Morro Bay during the expo, the color washing the water just as the sun was cracking the hills was glorious, and so I decided to do silhouette shooting. I also had some early morning equipment challenges, so by the time I actually got the cameras rolling most of the light had faded — but I was able to, ahem, put it back in post. It was literally of those situations where by the time got the camera on the tripod, the light had come and gone, but the image remained to be refound. Why practicing with your gear is essential, folks…

7: Black-Crowned Night Heron Mom and Chick

Mom and a fairly advanced chick sharing a nest, Night Herons always seem to have that “you’re not going to eat me, are you?” look to them? Working around nests you have to be careful not to push the birds too hard, because the chicks aren’t ready to leave and you can screw it up badly if the parent or chick panics. These two were clearly watching me watch them, but with the help of my hand-dandy 400mm lens, I stayed a good distance away and didn’t spend much time near them.

6: Common Loon

Shot during a boat outing on the harbor at Morro Photo Expo, it will become obvious looking at my photos that I have my favorites, and they include loons, pelicans, raptors, egrets and herons. This one was nice enough to sit up and show off for the boat of photographers, and the camera was nice enough to catch it nicely.

5: Flower Buds

Experimenting with really shallow depth of field and the Sigma 200mm macro, I was really happy with the almost abstract quality of this one. it was, believe it or not, handheld.

4: Sea Otters

I do love the sea otters down in Morro Bay. Surprisingly accessible. What you don’t see about this trio is the 45 minutes I spent watching them mostly sleep and do absolutely nothing, although the kid in the middle seemed a bit bored with hanging out doing nothing. Five minutes after this shot, the adult on the right was asleep again. Ah, the adventurous life of the nature photographer….

3: Lark Sparrow

Every so often the birds simply choose to cooperate. And I thank them. A gorgeous shot of a very pretty bird with very little work done on it other than darkening the background a bit more than it was to start, this one just sat up and waited for me to finish…

2: Say’s Phoebe

I traditionally don’t do a lot of “oomph” processing on photos, but I’ve been experimenting more with it to figure out how far I can push a photo I like while still being true to the image (where does improve end and manipulate begin? It depends…). This was a nice shot of a nice bird, but ultimately was a grey bird on a greyish background, so I dropped it into Viveza to try to darken the background and give th bird some better definition. As it turns out, I think it turned out quite well. The like flare behind the bird’s head was actually an accident where I pushed a knob the wrong direction and went “hmm. that looks pretty good!” — never be afraid to experiment.

1: Morro Rock at Dawn

I went to the Morro Photo Expo this fall, three days of seminars and photography that I thoroughly enjoyed. One class I took was the night photography class headed by Howard Ignatius, where we later went out and did some shooting around the rock. The next morning I decided to get up really early and try to do some dawn photography around the harbor, and everything came together just as the sun started hitting the rock. This may be one of my favorite shots — ever.

It’s interesting to me that seven of these photos were taken in Morro Bay, not local to home, and six come from the Photo Expo. Interesting, but not surprising, because the Expo was for me a time to drop everything and focus JUST on photography and to push myself into new areas and experiment as well as a time where I put some energy into locking in various things I’d been studying in post processing to be prepared for the trip; it all really came together well. I really need to write it up, but this kind of outing is something I strongly recommend to you.

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