2024 Favorites

Looking back at my favorite photos from this past year, it is clear that I spent quite a bit of time standing around in the dark. Six of my ten favorites were taken at night and four of those included at least some amount of aurora. The photographic highlight of my year was my trip to the Lofoten Islands in Norway in February. This year’s collection also includes images from my usual haunts in Yosemite, Glacier and the Mendocino coast. Here are my favorite photos from 2024, presented in the order they were captured.

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Sierra Autumn 2024

I spent the last weekend of October in Yosemite and nearby parts of the Eastern Sierra in search of fall color. My usual goal at this time of year is to photograph autumn in the valley, but I was a week or two too early for that this year. Fortunately there are still plenty of photographic opportunities including reflections in the calm Merced River, night skies, and colorful aspens just east of the park.

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Waterton Lakes

Waterton Lakes National Park is the sister park to Glacier National Park, just across the border in Alberta, Canada. The park shares many similarities with Glacier, including impressive mountains, lakes, waterfalls and wildlife. It also has a nice town on the shore of the lake the provides many more choices for lodging and places to eat than you will find in most national parks in the U.S.

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Lofoten Islands Part One: Hamnøy

The Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway have become a popular location for hiking, boating and exploring in the summer and for viewing (or attempting to view) the northern lights in the winter. Even though there are some challenges traveling above the Arctic Circle in the winter, the reward is a beautiful array of islands, mountains, fjords, villages and beaches that provide a multitude of photographic opportunities. I spent about 10 days in Lofoten, splitting the time between Hamnøy for the first part of the trip and Leknes/Svolvær for the second. This post focuses on the first part of the trip and includes views around Hamnøy, Sakrisøy, and Reine as well as some nearby areas.

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One Day in Oslo

I made a trip to the Lofoten Islands in Norway in February, with the goal of photographing the northern lights over the beautiful landscapes in the area. I decided to spend a full day in Oslo on the way there since I needed a layover anyway and had never seen the city. I arrived at the Oslo airport late in the evening and learned my first lesson: take the train to the city and not a cab. The train costs less than half as much and makes the trip in half the time. Lesson learned, I made it to my hotel, got a good night’s sleep, and had a filling breakfast before spending the day walking. My plan was to walk from the hotel to the Oslo cathedral, up Karl Johans Gate passed the Royal Palace to Vigeland Park, and then along the waterfront to the Akershus Fortress and the Opera House.

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2023 Favorites

I look forward to this retrospective each year – both as a chance to look back at how I spent the year and as a chance to review some of my favorite images, often leading me to reprocess them or select different favorites from the same shoot. I won’t make any claims that these are the best images I created in 2023. I don’t believe that there is an objective “best” photograph. Selecting favorites allows me to tie them to my memories in a way that is more personal. This was a tough year for this exercise, as I have alternates for many of these photos that I like just as much. On another day I could easily have selected several different favorites. I’ll refer to some of those in my comments below.

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Dark Skies in the Eastern Sierra

I made a trip to the Eastern Sierra in late October (Halloween to be exact) with the primary goal of capturing the Milky Way over the Mobius Arch and Mount Whitney. This is a popular spot for sunrise photos, as the rising sun creates a glow on the mountains and I have been there to see this at sunrise several times. I wanted to get a similar effect at moonrise: I wanted a glow on the mountains while having the sky dark enough to clearly see the stars. Few people do Milky Way photography with a nearly full moon, but I guess I am one of the few. I used an app called PhotoPills to find the best date where the stars would be behind the arch at moonrise, with the sky already fully dark after sunset. October 31 was that day.

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Autumn in Montana

Sandee and I made a short trip to our home in Western Montana in October to visit family and help get the house ready for the winter. As it happened, we arrived the day before the Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier National Park would close for the season. That left me no choice but to go for a drive! I spent a day in Glacier and then the next day Sandee and I drove to Holland Lake for a hike (with some lunch along the way). The larches were bright yellow throughout the area and I enjoyed photographing Montana’s fall colors.

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Scouting in Grand Teton

I took the “long way” in July when I drove to my home in Montana so I could drive through Grand Teton and Yellowstone. I’ve been to Grand Teton a few times but never had a chance to photograph the mountains at sunrise – either because the weather was bad or because I wasn’t there first thing in the morning. On this trip I managed to get a campground reservation in the park which made it easy both to scout the area on the evening I arrived and get to my preferred location early the next day. I was also treated to some visitors while photographing the scene.

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Fly Geyser and Bonus Stars

I recently made a day trip from the Bay Area to Gerlach, Nevada which is famous for hosting Burning Man each year but is also the home of Fly Geyser. I had wanted to photograph in this area for a while, but it was on private property and permission to access was difficult or impossible to obtain. The property was eventually purchased by the Burning Man Project and tours are now available through the Friends of Black Rock High Rock. At this time, tours are offered on Saturday mornings and evenings and I booked an evening tour in the hopes of getting some good late afternoon light.

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