My Best Photos of 2020 - Landscapes and non-family

 

This is the second 'best photos of 2020' post.  These are the best landscapes and 'non-family' pictures from 2020.  I noticed that quite a few of them I took as part of the Alutiiq Museum's Community Archive project.  And now on to 2021!

Patrick

Tankie IS family but I put this one here to even out the posts!

My best photos of 2020 - Family and skiing

 

2020 is down to its last few days.  So it is time for my annual 'best photos of 2020' blog posts.  At the end of every year I go through all my photos and edit them down to just the best.  I have found it a very useful exercise - it both helps me understand what is working when I take photos (makes me a better photographer) and I also end up with a folder of the best photos.  An edited file of photos is so much more useful than a HUGE morass of photos. 

This year over the course of a few days I went through all the images I have stored in iPhoto.  My iPhoto images had already been culled of the worst photos.  As I went through them I threw any likely photo into a file on the desktop. I ended up with about 650 images.  It was easy to then cull this down to the best 420 images of 2020.  That's still way too many photos for a 'best of 2020' post!  And that's when the hard editing work began.  I did a lot of picking and choosing and got it down to 60 photos, and then when back and forth on those and picked out what I think are the absolute best pictures I took in 2020.  But that's just what I think today - all of the final 420 are pretty good.  I find that my choices change daily - it's sort of like picking out a favorite song and seems to change depending on my mood.

In any case, I've noticed that in 2020 I seem to have taken relatively few landscapes.  More and more of my 'best' photos have people in them.  I'm wondering if that's because I have already 'seen' most of the good views to be had near town.  There are a lot of great landscapes that I have captured with my camera too many times.  In this regard, Sharatin Mountain as seen from Pyramid Mountain comes to mind.  As does the snow-covered summit of Pyramid silhouetted against the blue sky.  I've taken those photos so many times. ... 

Funnily enough I also noticed that none of my close ups of flowers, plants or animals made the final 20.  I did take a lot of good bird and flower pictures but they all just seem a little cliche to make the final 'best' of the best.  I actually think taking a good bird or plant up close photo is all about technique - find a bear, flower or bird and use your telephoto or macro lens.  Done! and you got an exciting photo.  But it is not, by any means, a unique photo either.

This year I divided the final 20 photos into 2 general themes for the end of year 'best of' blogposts.  This post contains the photos of family and friends and skiing photos while the next post has all the landscape and 'non' family people pictures.  I did do some photography for the Alutiiq Museum's BIA funded photo documentation project and I notice that quite a few of the 'non' family photos were taken as a part of that project.  Patrick

I heart winter

This is my Solstice post.  I'm always a little sad when the days start to get longer because it means winter has started to die, and Winter is my favorite season.  I know it will continue to get colder and that winter reaches maximum goodness sometime in February.  But I also know that daylight is what eventually warms things up and kills winter.

Last summer at the other Solstice Nora cheered me up when she pointed out that winter was on the way because the 'days are getting shorter'. So just as in the summer I cheer the beginning of the shorter days so in winter I'm a little sad the days are getting longer.

The seeds of winter's death have been planted.  But in the meanwhile nothing has sprouted and Winter has hardly begun.  There is still most of winter left to enjoy!

Patrick

Christmas 2020

 

Some pictures from Bode's first Christmas.  We had a low key Christmas.  I was not even going to put up a tree because I was worried about Bode doing the puppy thing and chewing on ornaments, electrocuting himself, tipping it over etc.  But Stuey declared that we needed a tree.  So after my ski on Wednesday I cut one on the way home.  

So we got a tree and lightly decorated it.  And Bode did not chew anything (so far anyway).  Only thing he did do was drink water from the base.  He also likes to sleep under the tree on the soft Christmas tree base cover. I must admit that in the evening the Christmas lights and tree make for a far cheerier living room.

For Christmas dinner it was just Stuey and I - but I cooked a turkey anyway.  I deboned it and stuffed it full of stuffing.  I also made gravy and wild rice.  We got to eat all we wanted and did not have to share the breast meat.  Needless to say, but we got plenty of leftovers.  But turkey leftovers are the best.  

In the evening the kids and I took Bode for a post Christmas hike at White Sands beach.  Dogs ran around every which away.  Back home the dogs got some turkey leftovers for their Christmas dinner. 

Patrick

Christmas Day evening hike at White Sands

Nora wearing her great aunt Lucy's Cunningham plaid kilt

Passing Snow Squall

 

I took this pictures yesterday with the rapid fire 'paparazzi' shutter on my camera.  The conditions were actually not all that bad, but big gusts were blowing through and lifting off the new snow.  I wanted to get a picture of the blowing snow so I picked a spot and waited.  Earlier when I tried to get the blowing snow - I'd see it blowing but by the time I got my camera out to take the picture it was over.  So this time I composed the picture and waited.  I did not have to wait long!  The last of the pictures with the snow blowing away into the distance is the best one.  Patrick

Windblown

 While Saturday was a spectacular ski day of sunny skies, low wind and deep powder, Sunday was awe inspiring for its wind and blowing snow.  Mother Nature has some teeth.  When we started our climb up the mountain it actually was not all that bad.  Sure it was windy, but nothing worse than we have experienced before.  

It got SUPER windy suddenly just when we were turning around to ski back down.  So windy that there was a ground blizzard and you could barely see the horizon.  We huddled up in the lee of a small spruce tree and took off our climbing skins and got ready to ski down.  The lee of the tree was a little oasis of shelter.  We saw some snowboarders coming down from higher up on the mountain and they joined us in our oasis.  One of the snowboarders took her snowboard off and put it on her pack so that she could walk down.  It was that bad.

Stuey got the one pair of snow goggles and then down we went.  It was blowing up hill and blowing so hard that it was hard to move downhill.  And I had to keep my hand over my eyes.  It was like skiing blind and I understood why the snowboarder decided to walk down.

But by moving in between the worst of the blinding blown snow squalls and heading across the slope over into the lee of some other trees we made it down to the less windy sections of the mountain.  Phweeeew.  We had had our Mount Everest experience!  And I did not even take any photos when the blowing snow was at its worst - I was afraid the snow would blow inside of the camera and wreak it.

Funnily enough after we got back to the car and were driving home the kids told me that they had had a great time.  'That was fun', they declared.  And it was fun in a very different way than Saturday had been fun.  We got to see Mother Nature's Teeth.

Patrick