2023 Favorites
It’s normal to spend the end of the year looking back on the highlights of the previous 12 months, whether it be favorite books (The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger), music (I still absolutely love listening to Jason Isbell’s Southeastern, though I have found myself listening to a lot of Nightwish and Alter Bridge when I workout, and Taylor, of course) or other things. Over on the ‘Gram (Instagram for those of you who prefer things spelled out) I’ve posted my 10 favorite images I’ve taken in 2023 and I’ve put those same ones here. It’s not easy to narrow it down, and if you asked me on a different day I could probably have replaced the 10 I chose with about 20 others, and certainly could have reordered them. Here they are, in order from 10 to 1, with a few words about each.
#10 - I discovered this location this year and went back a few times and got several shots I liked, but this is probably my favorite. I love the cold blue hour light and the warmth of the light on the bell.
#9. These kids were so cute and polite and listening to them playing in the woods and this goat prairie above downtown Dubuque brought back so many memories of when I was growing up and spending hours in the woods around our house. The beautiful late fall colors and morning light were just a bonus.
#8. Over Spring Break we went to Old San Juan, Puerto Rico for a few days. Most of our time was spent on the beach, or walking between gift shops with the kids, but I did get a few photos I liked. I liked the contrasts in this one between the old guard tower of El Morro and the new, incredibly-large cruise ship leaving San Juan behind. It’s the little bird on top of the tower that elevated this one in my mind, though.
#7. Whenever I travel for work I always scout around for possible photo opportunities in the area. From Google Maps I had seen this tree in Oshkosh (WI) and thought it looked like it might make a good subject. It did, especially with the sunrise that morning. Full confession: I did remove a few messy-looking bushes near the bench and now that I look at the picture again, it’s pretty obvious, but it’s still pretty. I don’t remove things from photos very often, but sometimes it just seems appropriate.
#6. I really enjoy getting out in my kayak on the Mississippi and usually bring a camera along. Shooting from a kayak presents its own set of challenges, but the thing that frustrates me the most is how I invariably see a scene and think, “Dang, that would look really good with a paddler in it.” Often I will go through the effort of packing a tripod and landing, setting up the tripod and camera, getting back in the kayak, trying to paddle to the place where I think the kayak would look best in the composition and then hoping that the intervalometer on the camera will work and I’ll get the shot I want. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve gotten better at it over the years and this one is one of my favorite selfies.
#5. I take shots of the Julien Dubuque Bridge a lot. It’s a good looking bridge and I can get to locations within just a couple minutes, so it’s very convenient. On this morning I just loved watching the fog roll up the river from the south and completely obscuring the Iowa side of the river, but still letting the golden light hit the bridge. A riverboat in the scene would have been nice… maybe in 2024?
#4. I’m cheating a bit with this one by including two shots featuring the Julien Dubuque Bridge, but they work together to show the contrasts between the near-record water levels on the Mississippi we had in late April and drought conditions that had set in just six weeks later.
#3. This great blue heron was just standing near the Dubuque Ice Harbor flood gates for a while, and I channeled my inner wildlife photographer patience and hoped that it would do something interesting and that I’d have all the camera settings right when it did. Fortunately it did, and I did, and this is the result. It’s not hard for me to make the argument that this is my favorite picture of the year.
#2. The barges, light, fall colors, lifting fog, train tracks, and serenity all came together for this one. I remember drinking some hot coffee and enjoying the scene and feeling very much at peace.
#1. I’m not sure if many people would pick this out as their favorite, but it’s mine. I blogged about my trip to Minnesota’s North Shore previously, and this is the time and place that I keep coming back to when I think about some of my favorite, and most memorable, moments of 2024. I just love the mood and the power demonstrated by the raging Cascade River, pushing into Lake Superior and knowing that 24 hours later a blizzard will have transformed the scene.
So, that’s it. My favorite 10 (okay, 11!) pictures of 2023. It’s now January 1, 2024 and I look forward to seeing what adventures, and images, will be had this year.