For year sixteen of posting yearly favorites, I can say I spent more time in my head (and the office) than out in the field. In fact, 2022 can also be designated as the year (perhaps the very first in a long time) when I didn’t go out to photograph a single sunrise or sunset. If there is some good in that – it means more sleep right?

Now, at the end of the year, I think I can say – I really didn’t miss it. Of course, the catch is that I didn’t know what I was missing – ha! Ignorance is truly bliss. I didn’t scramble over ice to photograph fleeting twilight at all, no lingering on the dunes in the summer waiting for the sun to color the landscape. Because of our abnormally dry summer & autumn, hardly any mosquito bites. I suppose my pursuits of light were more internal than external, and I didn’t always find it.

I mostly stuck to the simple pleasures of discovery in our own yard and exploring unfinished work (of which I have a lot). For all that is going on in the world, it seemed stronger than ever in 2022 that savoring the simple things at home under your control is a pretty good refuge. I contracted inward instead of reaching outward. If you can find some gems mining your archives, or playing with a new idea, it sometimes can be just as fulfilling as exposing something new.

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Lupine Impressions

Exposed in 2007, but I didn’t touch it until this past year for unknown reasons. It is a tricky lighting situation here, but I liked how the background sunlit area played off the positioning of the flower. Sometimes I will expose something like this, move on – but then later in development I’ll lose my train of thought of why I was attracted to a certain scene. It could very well be that I didn’t have the tools, knowledge, or insight into what to do with it in 2007. This is why I probably have too many unfinished exposures in my archives – hoping my “future self” will figure out what to do with it. 🙂

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Duality Series – Divestment

This image was born out of frustration in working on our city’s tree preservation ordinance where I sit on the Sustainability Commission in combination with discontent with a variety of environmental movements. I have a lot in my head about both, but it is hard to not get all worked up about it. Trying to codify the value of community natural assets in a legal framework of property rights and shortsightedness is a trying experience. I have a fairly hardline pragmatic side – simply that actions and choices have consequences. Maybe when those consequences begin to take place in timeframes shorter than self-interest, political careers, and personal fortune – we will see the need for balance that indigenous cultures recognized long before the advance of “progress.”

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Duality Series – Great Escape

I started playing with this image with themes of tension and turbulence – like being tossed around in the surf. But then a small portal opens a window into what may be a more calming environment. But the fact is – it isn’t so calm there either and you better just learn how to swim and deal with the environment you are in. (I suppose my blunt pragmatism is showing there also 😉 )

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Dune Grass, Lake Michigan

I previously developed this image many years ago from the dunes on Lake Michigan and was never quite satisfied with the mood. So in another dumpster dive of my archives, I changed the color grading significantly which ultimately changed the entire mood.

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Ostrich Fern Black and White

It’s interesting how observing a small detail can make or break an image. I am often just looking at things in our yard while our dogs are playing – exercising the ol’ biological camera between my ears. Apparently, I am less fun than rocks and sticks. If I see something interesting, it then becomes a question of “is it interesting enough for me to go inside and get my camera, tripod, etc?” More often than not, I am lazy enough to say —- nah! Spotting this little fern tip poking through another was enough to break through my lazy tendencies.

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Leaf Creature No. 30

I really wasn’t quite sure if the Leaf Creature project I started in 2021 would have a “Season 2.” But on another autumn morning of dogs-would-rather-play-with-rocks-than-me, I started looking around to see if I could find any interesting shapes. This year we had a very dry summer and autumn – so much so that one of the two maple trees that produce these leaves ultimately died from severe Verticillium Wilt. This disease clogs a tree’s vascular system hindering its uptake of water. So I believe the drought created the tipping point for its decline. I did manage to do a couple of sessions of photographing new leaf creatures for my collection, and this was one of my favorites.

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Autumn Fog and River Birch

Another small intimate landscape scenic from my yard. We had a couple of days of very dense fog this past Autumn. This was well past peak color, but fog always helps you isolate certain details that normally get mixed in with the normal visual clutter around us. There is a series on Apple TV+ called “Mosquito Coast.” In a recent episode, a father is walking through the jungle with his son and making observations on what they see. He makes mention of the apparent chaos of nature in the jungle – but then notes that there is order there also, even if we lack the ability to see it. That struck a chord with me because I find that is one of the most challenging aspects of photography in situations like this. Fog comes in like a filter to help you see the other details you normally mix into everything else.

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Old Red Oak

This just happens to be one of my favorite trees on a hike in a local park nearby. I took advantage of visiting it during the series of foggy days we had in late October. Quite frankly, I am surprised it is still standing. It is on the edge of a 3-4m drop to a floodplain area, with its major roots grabbing the side of the trail to hang on. It has various pockets and cavities, no doubt providing shelter for a lot of wildlife. Quite inspiring for its majesty and perseverance.

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Beyond Order

A theme is starting to form here. Dog plays with rock. Man looks at leaves. I am not sure if it should be a self-help book on insecurities or dog obsessions. The other theme being to what I mentioned from the TV show mentioned above – there is order there, even if you can’t see it. Sometimes I think I can see it, but can’t verbalize it. Sometimes it is just a feeling. But something caused me to press the shutter over this little spot of leaf debris in our yard. Some people see debris that needs cleaning up, I see an amazing variety of textures, nutrients, insect homes, habitats, and future elements of the soil that will be rerouted into the trees that dropped them. The trees know what they are doing – people don’t.

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Tick-Tock Palette

I picked up a few commercial aerial photography jobs last year that involved collecting assets for orthomosaic mapping projects. One of the uses of this technology involves measuring the volumes of bulk aggregate piles. Bulk aggregates may be just large piles of sand, limestone, crushed rock, etc that are brought in by cargo ships to be picked up from these storage sites by large aggregate-hauling trucks. After one job was finished, I used some personal time to refly some areas I found to be visually interesting. While the obvious is a similarity to a clock here, I also thought it looked like a giant artist’s palette – using bits of this element or that element to create something else. I am sure there are metaphors here for extractionist culture, social media, and a host of other things which I will leave to the viewer to formulate.

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That concludes my look back on 2022. Thank you for reading, your visit, and Happy New Year!