Yoga at the falls.
A year in photos. It’s often a difficult task to go back through the work you’ve photographed over the past year and choose your favorites but it’s also a rewarding and even necessary exercise. Images resonate differently for different reasons and your favorite photographs may not necessarily be the “best” photographs. Situations associated with different images make it a somewhat subjective effort and that’s probably for the best. It’d be pretty stupid to select an image as a favorite if it didn’t grab you emotionally in some way, no matter how well executed it was. As we approach the end of the year, spend a bit of time reviewing the past twelve months of your photography and make your own list. You may be surprised with what you choose, especially in regards to some of the earlier photos that you probably have a slightly more objective view towards now than the recent ones. After the jump you can see my 12 choices for the year, one for each month, with a few words about each.
Before we go there, have you signed up for Clarion Call 2011 hosted by Selina Maitreya yet? It starts with 5 short videos on building your photography business, and moves to a 2 day telesummit in February with some of the industry’s leading experts. Best of all – it’s free. Sign up here.
January
January’s choice comes from the Thaipusam festival at Batu Caves in Malaysia. This is an image that has grown on me throughout the year. I really like the interplay between highlights and shadows in this photograph.
February
The lantern festival is a traditional park of Chinese culture and at the small mountain town of Pingxi in Taiwan, they traditionally release sky lanterns to celebrate the occasion. It has become so popular that as well as individuals releasing their own, there are coordinated mass releases of 100 at a time. This is a long exposure capturing them as the soar skyward.
March
March’s photo comes from a studio shoot with a belly dancer. Some friends who run a video company had just moved into a new, large studio and were eager to open it up to photographers so a group of us got together and spent a few hours one Sunday afternoon in the studio with a few different setups.
April
This photo was also shot in the same studio but for a mixture of portfolio shoot for the model and marketing shoot for the studio. As everyone involved knew each other beforehand, it was a lot of fun trying a number of different setups and styles.
May
Back to the land of culture for May, with this photograph of a lion dance being taken at the Guandu Mazu temple on the outskirts of Taipei. The occasion was to mark the birthday of Mazu, the Chinese Goddess of the Sea.
June
June was probably the month I created the fewest photographs for show. Partly because I did a lot of private client work that the licensing agreements made don’t allow display of in this format, and partly because I did quite a bit of teaching so was just shooting for demonstration purposes to students in the workshops and lessons. This photo of Simon was from one of those workshops.
July
A chance purchase of a hiking guide to Yangmingshan National Park saw me set out for some exploration of some of the nature scenes close to home. The stream below is only about a 5 min hike from a road and very easy for anyone to get to, yet only once have I seen other people there. I was envisaging a strong Velvia style photograph with this one from the moment I first set eyes on the place.
August
Surprisingly, I stumbled across this scene on the edge of the city. A small area of rice fields that I’d seen from window as I headed downtown called me, and I set out ahead of an approaching storm one afternoon. This is a relatively small area that sits next to the main subway line and in sight of the tall buildings of the city, yet could be any rural Asian location.
September
Getting an assignment from the Jane Goodall Institute is hard to top, especially when Dr Goodall herself is going to be there. Enough said.
October
October saw the annual LGBT Pride Parade take place in Taipei. This is the largest pride parade in Asia and even the rain couldn’t stop the colorful celebration. All ages from the very young to the elderly took part in a celebration of diversity.
November
This photograph was taken at an environmental protest march against a planned chemical factory that promises to threaten the existence of Taiwan’s humpback dolphins as well as being a toxic risk to local faremrs and residents. I love this guy’s expression.
December
Wrapping up the year, this photograph is from a shoot a few days ago. I’ve had the idea to do something like this for a while and it finally got arranged last weekend. It has also spurred a few more creative ideas which I’ll look at in 2011.
So there we have it. 12 photographs for 12 months. It’s been a fun year of photography with lots of great locations, subjects, workshops, models and other photographers. I hope yours has been equally good. I’ll leave you with a slideshow of the entire year which I encourage you to embed in your own blog if you like.
That was the 357th Daily PhotoTip. If this post was useful to you, why don’t you subscribe to my feed, leave a comment and share it with your friends. You can also get access to exclusive content and special offers by subscribing to my newsletter. Sign up today. Thank you.
Pingback: Best Photos of 2010 by JMG-Galleries Blog Reader’s » JMG-Galleries – Jim M. Goldstein Photography
Pingback: 162 “Best of 2010″ Posts | News and Views from Dave Wilson
Pingback: Jim Goldstein's Best Photo Project | Central Florida Photo Ops
Pingback: 2010 Collection of Best Images Listing (via JMG Galleries) – Chuqui 3.0