We are well into 2025 and now that I have had a chance to take a look at all the images I shot in 2024, I thought I'd share some with you. These are not the technically best, or ones that were most engaged with over the year, these are the images I captured that felt closest to. It was a year of travel, reflection, loss, joy and so much more. Each year as I reflect back on the finished year, I'm thankful for my friends and family and those who I get to share these moments with. We've spent time under the stars, on the beach, in the forest and travled to distant lands... Each year is a new adventure wether it's close to home or far away. These are the moments I'm grateful and thankful for. I hope you enjoy them too.
As I started 2024, I was on the tail end of a 8 day roadtrip through New England that went horribly wrong due to rental car malfunction. The lack of logic the customer service people had was numbing to the brain. I ended up cutting my trip short by a couple days because mentally, I wasn't in a place to do photography after that. In my entire life I had never been as stressed out as I was during those couple days. Nonetheless, during my time in New Hampshire, on Jan 2, 2024 on a very cold morning as I hiked the short trail to "The Basin" I encountered this wonderful scene. I loved the way the light was coming through the trees as the water made an S curve as it flowed under the small footbridge I was standing on. A beautiful sunrise to start the year never hurts.
Each year I feel as those I tell myself or try and remind myself that when I see something I like, I had better take a photo of it... It may not be anything more than a snapshot and that's ok. Our world is always changing and from a brief moment in time when the light is just right to having your subject no longer there over time, things are changing. This image is a prime example of this. With a few friends on this chilly morning we captured the sun rising up creating the shadows through the trees. The snow you see here is actually a frozen lake with fresh snow on top. A few months ago they started cutting down these trees and now the view is across the lake to the new housing development. It's not my place to agree or disagree with what they are doing, it's just a constant reminder that things chnage and we need to appreciate the moments we have at the time we have them.
I feel as those each year I visit this beach several times. Not just for photography but for the memories it holds from when I was younger. In my late teens and early 20s, before there was a well groomed staircase leading to the beach, it was just a makeshift trail with exposed dirt and clay at the end. Sometimes getting down or back up was a huge challenge. At that time, not many people visited this section of the coast. Today, it's a common site to see several cars parked at the top simply because of the easy access down to the beach. The community has done a great job on the trail for sure! In my younger years we come down and explore all the tide pools and build some of the largest fires you could imagine out of the massive amounts of drift wood that seems to plie up here. The fires were so big that the large rocks you see here would get so hot they would explode. Sometimes you couldn't stand within 10-15ft of the fire because it was so hot... The creek you see here flows into the beach year round. The water amount varies with the seasons and or rainfall amounts. During the super low tides, this beach has massive amounts of starfish that become exposed as the water levels drop.
This old house on the eastern plains of Colorado is one I've been photographing for several years now, both in the day and at night. While I'll probably get out there again soon, i'm afraid this may be the last image I take of the old place. Last time I was there the entire porch overhang was almost to the ground and with the recent snow and additional weight, it may have completely fallen...I don't think the house will fall for a while but the porch is probably gone. I wanted to do something a little different with this one since I shot arrived to shoot the sunset and stayed for the stars. This is what I would loosly call a time blend where I used the image of the house and sunset glow and then blended in the night sky that I took later that night. I've never attempted to convince people it was a night image simply because it's too bright on the horizon. This old house had a lot of character in it's day and one I loved photographing.
Early season Milky Way at 11 Mile Reservoir near Lake George Colorado can be a bit of a crapshoot. You never know what the conditions will be when you get there. For me it's over a 2 hour drive which isn't long compared to some of the places I go but it's not a place I can go check out and plan for. I kind of have to take what I get when i'm there...I didn't know how much ice there would be or what percentage of the lake wouldn't be accessible. Being the adventourous type I believe the journey can sometimes be a better payoff than the destination. When I arrived I found a mostly thawed lake. You can see a little ice in the distance around the rocks on the right. The air was cold and calm and I decided to set up and do a timelapse as well. I've included both here so you can see what I saw as well as what the final image looked like. I'll admit I'm a little partial to more ice as it can really add to the foreground interest.
Sunrise along the Southern Oregon Coast is one of those special times. When you get out there before the other people and enjoy the sand footprint free is something to behold. This particular morning was during one of the 2 Bandon workshops I held last year. The tide was on it's way out and these fresh, still wet, ripples just begged to be used as leading lines for this sunrise shot. Sometimes is can be hard to line up the sand with your subject in a way that draws the viewer into your scene. I felt at ease when I noticed these and took my time to get the shot just right. When people ask, "how do you know what kind of print you want for each image", I'd say this is one that would work best as a print on metallic paper, a metal print or an acrylic. The shine of the sand and reflection could be lost in a canvas print or a print on a rag type paper. The quiet and calm of this image still lives inside me today.
I found this kelp an hour or so after sunrise when the sun was just high enough to really hit and give a wonderful golden blue brilliance to the golden kelp and bands of seaweed. I loved the large and small details of this image as you can see individual grains of sand as well as the reflection in the wet seaweed.
Arch Rock Moon - New Mexico. This image was shot during a trip to photograph another arch. This arch proved to be the better subject for the moonrise. I'll admit that the deep ruts in the road to get here were not much fun to drive. Most people would look at this image and easily realize that it was a blend of more than one image. Being fully transparent with how I saw the scene, captured it and finalized it, I've shared here with you the sequence of images I took to create the final image. I used my Sony A7r4 with my Sigma 14-24mm for the arch and foreground. I used my Sigma 100-400mm C lens to capture the moon. Our destination on this trip wasn't one we could all get to but we had a blast shooting this arch with the moon rising up over it.
Gem Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park is a gorgeous hike. My wife and I did this hike in early June. It's not a long hike but it'll get the blood pumpning for sure. Lots of places to stop along the way and take in the views of Longs Peak and other surrounding mountains. Once you get to the lake there's not much to see unless you climb up on the rocks for a better vantage point. This was a fun little scramble but well worth it for views like this. The lake is very small and very still as it's kind of tucked away from the wind.
Rough seas provided a nice opportunity for my workshop participants to capture some wave tops blowing. We tucked in behind another rock and watched the birds take off and land in the wind on this rock. Once we saw what the waves were doing it was just a matter of proper timing and getting a bird in flight for the shot. The clear skies gave way to a nice golden glow along the horizon. With the compression of the 400mm lens, the color of the sky filled the frame nicely. We were able to shoot here for about 30 min before it got to dark to shoot without camera movement. We had a great time watching the Pelicans and waves around this rock.
Norway is truly a beautiul country with friendly people and amazing waterfalls. I could do an entire blog on Norway but we only visited the Southeast/South central area. We based ourselves in Bergen and made day trips from there. We floated and drove up and down the fiords, we traveled by train on some parts and saw so many quaint villages/small towns along the way. This waterfall is in Voringsfossen, it's an area with several waterfalls with viewpoints atop a hillside. It was a grey overcast day when we arrived and for a brief moment the sun came out and gave us this little rainbow in the mist. It only lasted a few seconds but I thought it was a nice element in the scene. If you ever get the chance I highly recommend you put Norway on your list of places to visit. I know we will be going back.
Now that I live in Colorado, I plan my Oregon trips based on the tides and the various ideas I have floating around in my head... Sometimes I need low tides, sometimes I need strong incoming tides, it just depends. 2 of the trips I made to Oregon this year were for the lowest tides of the year. One was a personal trip (this photo) and the other was for a workshop. You may recognize the rock with the tree on it from an earlier image in this blog. These images are from the same location but at vastly different times of the year with different tides. I'll admit, I love a good sunrise or sunset, who doesn't? I also love the more somber mood of the grey overcast days that I'm accustomed to, having lived on the Oregon coast for my entire childhood.. I don't mind the rain, I don't mind the dark gloomy days...I love them. The low fog, low tide and colorful star fish all come together nicely for an image like this.
This image is focus stacked with 7 images for optimal sharpness front to back and side to side.
I didn't get out as much this year at night as I would have liked to but the times I did, were well worth it. This image was taken on a beautifully clear summer night in Kansas. Our workshop group was set up shooting this and very similar scenes. I like to just set my camera up and let it run while I walk around and talk to people. It's always fun to look at the back of others cameras and see what they are capturing and if there are any questions I can answer for them. This was captured during the Perseids Meteor Shower that peaks in August. The amazing thing about this image is that from the other side of the rock looking back towards where I am, there was a large thunderstorm behind me. We really had quite a lot going on in one locations on this night.
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) - Was the later summer party we all needed... Just like Comet Neowise in 2020, Comet C/2023 A3 brought us out under the stars together. I had the opportunity to shoot it several times. I couldn't just pick one image so I thought I'd share a few of them. The first image with the farm house was shot in Northern Colorado, The middle image of the Church was shot on the eastern plains and the last night was the Comet over Denver from Daniels Park near Highlands Ranch. The last image was also shot on the Eastern plains of Colorado. It was amazing to see the comet so well flying over the city. I love shooting the stars & milky way but there is sure something special about seeing a comet so bright in the sky. Because the comet was in the sky for so long we had opportunities to shoot it under dark skies as well as moonlit skies... I think these images show you the stark difference moonlight makes.
I am blessed to live so close to this lake. I can look out the window and see what the sky is doing and make my way over if I feel the conditions may be good. It's about a 3/4 mile walk from the parking area to this spot. I feel there is an importance to photographing around where you live. At times it may be boring because you see the same things over and over and you may feel like there's no creative areas to explore. Sometimes we need to let nature do it's thing and give us the show we are looking for. A sunset like this from this spot maybe happens only a handful of times each year. Getting the water to be calm is the real key. I like the challenge of finding the beauty in the areas around me. I visit this lake about 100 times a year, give or take a few days...I find it much more photogenic in the winter, but I'll take a nice summer sunset on the lake any day of the week!
Towards the end of the year people always start wondering and asking, "What was your favorite image of the year, or your best image you took this year"? That can mean so many different things to many different people. For me, personally, this was the image I was most proud of. It's an image I had wanted for almost 20 years. I lived in the Portland area for a long time and had always had this image in my head... Early on I knew how to caputre it but not with the techniques I use today... I had made my way up to Rowena Crest many times in hopes of getting this shot but never did...some nights there were no cars..other times it was too windy or cloudy... Lots of things can have an adverse effect on your photography.
As I was driving from Colorado to Oregon I realized that if I made good time I'd have a chance to get this shot. After a 20 hour drive from Dnever I arrived here to be greeted with clear skies and all the know how to capture this image as I had always wanted to. I had enough time to get set up and take my foreground shot after the sun went down. I then set up another camera for a timelapse - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19o89NfFk3/ - to document the actuality of the night. In the timelapse you can see the milky way moving across the sky as the cars go around the bend. Everhything came together perfectly. Because the images were all shot close together and at the right time for the foreground, it made putting the image together really simple and as a result I was able to create a super highly detailed image with no noise that I wouldn't have been able to do 20 years ago... This image is one I'm having printed large for our home an I'll share that with you once it's done.
I hope you all have a wonderful 2025 and all the best light and conditions to you, whatever it is you're out there shooting...
If you want to keep up on what I'm currently shooting, please feel free to visit and bookmark this new page on my site "2025 Photo Gallery" I'll be adding images several times a week with a bit more in the description about each one.
Thank you all for taking the time to read my yearly recap. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them!
All the best in 2025,
Darren
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