2020 Photographic Favorites (Part 4) Final Installment

Welcome to the 4th week of January and the final installment (Part 4) of my photographic favorites of 2020. Looking back, I realized I had a pretty good year and a lot of variety in my photography, and that is something I would like to continue into 2021. Ok, on with the show!. This first image happened pretty much by accident, in that, this is not what I was shooting a few minutes before. Like they say, don't forget to turn around when shooting sunrise/sunsets as the best show maybe behind you. In this case as I looked to the east at sunset, the stormy clouds began to take on a nice pastel glow, along with the white sands of the beach. A lone figure reading her book added an unexpected human element to the image, this simple subtle shot came away as one of my favorites.

Hurricane Sally roared through with a vengeance this year, taking most all of us by surprise. A sudden turn eastward and making landfall just 35 miles west of Navarre. There was lots of damage left in her path as you could imagine, but sometimes through destruction can come beauty. This sailboat for instance was heavily damaged along with several other boats moored at a marina just off camera. During the clean up, several boats were moved to this beach along the sound for removal, with this sailboat being one of the last. Sailboats are beautiful, sleek vessels and even while damaged, I wanted to capture this ones beauty at sunrise. The clouds were perfect this morning, a small slit opened up, letting the sun briefly peak through and allowing me to capture a nice Sunstar to finish off the shot.

A much simpler shot here. A cool, off season day, not a cloud in the sky and hardly a foot print in the sand. If you live near the beach, you know these special and infrequent moments are to be cherished. This also happened to be one of the few times I headed to the beach, camera in-hand, during a midday cloudless sky. As I walked along the beach, with hardly another person in sight, I came across this scene and instantly knew I had to capture it.  The simplicity of the image is what makes it one of my favorites for the year.

Capturing a Supermoon in an image is actually pretty easy, the hard part is getting your exposure correct for both the moon and surrounding landscape. The next difficult part is finding that certain landscape that enhances your moon shot. In this case, I was blessed with moonrise happening just after sunset with lots of leftover ambient light on the landscape, making the exposure much easier to deal with. Knowing where the moon was going to rise, I framed up this shot with the large sand dune to the right of the frame to help give it balance. The clouds were in the perfect position to add a little interest to the scene and so the shot was taken. 

For this image, we travel to the Atlanta, GA. area and the Roswell Mill Park. This park contains several interesting features, a covered bridge, old power station, waterfall and flowing river, so as you could imagine is quite a busy place. My goal here, was to capture something different from all the other photos I've seen, along with as few people as possible. While exploring and scouting the park, I ran across this scene and what I liked about it, other than being unique, is the Z pattern formed by the bridge, power station and flowing river. The golden hour sun hitting the trees above and the cascades below were an added bonus! 

Now being a landscape photographer kinda guy, portraits are well out of my wheel house, but when family comes to town, they love having pictures taken at the beach and who can blame them. These next few shots are just that and some of my favorites, well, because I think they turned out pretty good and are of course, family. 

My beautiful wife, taken during a scouting session to find the right backgrounds for the portraits.

Our grandson, who decided he was done with picture taking and having to pose.

Our other two grand kids. I love getting the impromptu shots, they show so much more personality.

Well that is it for my 2020 favorites, I hope you enjoyed the 4 part series and all the photos I chose. As 2021 rolls along, I hope to capture many more unique images. 

If you missed the first 3 installments, here are the links, if you would like to start from the beginning. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

I hope the new year goes well for you and yours, and we'll see you back here on the next blog post!
 

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