Before starting this post, I thought it wise just to go back and take a look at my Twenty Nineteen post of yearly favorites just to get a sense of where I was then versus now. I complained like I usually do about not getting out enough or not writing enough as I had hoped. Geez, what a freakin’ whiner that guy can be. Maybe he should be slapped with a “Stay-At-Home” order or toilet paper shortages to really give him something to fret about?

As if that is all anyone had to worry about eh? The fact is, shut-downs and stay-at-home orders are pretty well-known to introverts. In fact, we even have a term for it. It’s called Tuesday. And for nature photography, a fairly solitary pursuit in itself, such external chaos that was 2020 shouldn’t really have a huge impact. But for creativity, at least for me, such external chaos can have an impact on the desire to create anything. Some are able to channel this into energy to create more, but I find it can have a paralyzing effect as well.

As such, some of these favorites from 2020 include exposures of past years but developed in such a new way within the last year to warrant labeling it a new work entirely. Some of these pieces came from moments of inspiration, others from serendipitous play.

Thank you again to those that continue to follow my work and engage in discussions here. I really appreciate you taking time from your day to visit.

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intersections.three

I remain fascinated by nature’s structures and similarities between them – within a leaf, a river, or animal tissue. This photograph was simply from a day just exploring a theme of intersecting leaves and other objects in my yard in January 2020.

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raster painting.three

By March 2020, “sheltering in place” became the term of the day, and I was wandering more in my archives trying to find something to do with images I call being in “stasis.” While these had their beginnings as photographs, they ended up as something more, something different. Instead of painting with a brush as the primary tool to create strokes, I experimented with painting using the rasterized image.

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eastern cottontail and dandelion

By May 2020, the weather is getting nice and we are already into months of pandemic lockdowns. Backyard chores pass the day, and this little one emerged to express thanks that we don’t use chemical controls for dandelions in our yard, contrary to what we see throughout our neighborhood. Home not only became a refuge from the absurd human behavior ongoing due to the pandemic and other nationwide issues in America but provides a safe spot for a snack for suburban wildlife.

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spring blooming trees

Spring can bring a colorful canopy as trees begin to bloom. K-2SO was anxious to get out to explore and fly, so I took him over a local nature preserve to see what spring blooms and vernal pools we could find. Again the structures of nature in the branches of a tree are observed to be so similar to within a single leaf.

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dandelion and forget-me-nots

What began as some experimentation with focus-stacking and depth mapping took a peculiar turn. Instead of resisting, I went where I felt the image wanted to take me, and seems I followed that little rabbit down a hole.

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raster painting “window view”

A large portion of my July was spent admitted to a hospital with a health condition that may remain with me for life. At least my second admission then had a “room with a view.” Time passed slowly then and was difficult at times, but I was still luckier than a lot of others I was sharing the hospital with. Rarely I felt well enough to do some playing around on my iPhone with photographs I made from staring out the window. But I had a few I liked.

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elementals VII “American Lotus”

In August 2020, I still wasn’t feeling well enough to go out and explore much, or had much of any motivation to create anything. However, on good days I would start playing around with an idea I had around creation vs. destruction. I found a space to play in and stayed there for a while, experimenting with a variety of images on this theme.

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elementals VIII: Planet Clinton

I knew I wanted to include at least one image from this project in my yearly favorites, but had a hard time deciding which one. While #VII embodies the concept in a well-developed way, this one strikes closer to home using a larger palette to work from. I live next to this forested area in my city. It is a good symbol for this project. For as much as my city government tries to push for tree planting, they also grant a lot of permits for removals, and some very large trees at that. So this dichotomy of creation and destruction is at play in our very own backyards. It is difficult to find out if you are reaching a net positive or not.

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roots and leaves

This photograph was sitting in my archives for a while. Sometimes I will work on photos soon after exposure and reach a point where I am just not “feeling it”, or what the photograph truly wants to be. I know something is there that attracted me to click the shutter, somehow was lost. So I file it away for a later day – in “stasis.” I woke this one up this past year and found what it wanted to be I think.

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Detroit Grit – Lost Religion 2020

Back in 2012, I was really itching to do something different than traditional nature and landscape photography. I did some “urban exploring” back then and largely kept the images in black and white. I brought some out to redevelop in a new way this year and began a different series, all developed with a similar character. Architectural photographs like this allow for more leeway than a natural landscape when it comes to exploring certain tonal themes. I’ve worked on about a half dozen of them so far, and the collection will be published at a later date.

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Thank you for spending some time here and sharing my look back on 2020. I am so very fortunate to have some positive aspects to look back upon for what was an absolutely terrible year for so many. I hope you have a healthy, creative 2021.