This picture of a curve in some ice on a pond ended up being my favorite image of 2011 for a few reasons. One is that it’s a very simple composition and simple is always good. Plus I like curves.

It was made on a very cold January morning while Bailey (the labradoodle) and I were on a morning walk. I spotted this on our walk the day before but didn’t have a camera with me. What I liked about the scene, besides the graphics, was the light coming through the trees and adding a touch of glowing color to the ice. So we returned the next morning and I made several pictures of ice. But it was this composition that I liked the best.

Another reason that this ended up being my favorite is because of the process used to create the image. I shot this with my 80-200. and because it’s ice, I couldn’t get above it to photograph or I would have broken the ice and ruined everything. So this was shot on an angle. Which, if you know a little about photography,  means that the bottom of the frame is closer to the camera than the top, meaning that I needed some depth of field to get the whole thing sharp. Well, even at my smallest aperture opening, f/22, this was impossible. There was just not enough depth of field to make the whole thing sharp. It’s a physics thing.

So what to do, what to do? Well, I don’t have a tilt lens to change the plane of focus like a view camera user would have. But I do have some options in the digital darkroom. My solution was to take several pictures, all focused at different points and to blend them together in Photoshop. Of course, you have to make sure the camera doesn’t move during all this so my camera was mounted on my trusty tripod.

As you can see, it worked like a charm. After the blending process I finished the image using Nik’s ColorEfex Pro 4. Using the Warmth and Brilliance filter I was able to bring in the same warmth of the morning light playing across the ice that drew me to this shot in the first place. It brought back the feeling I had while I was there.

While the ice shot was my most favorite of the year, I had other favorites too. Many of them came while I was photographing for my upcoming book, Oregon Coast Memories. These are images that I don’t normally make, but that this book project pretty much demanded.

This first one is just something that I happened to come across while heading back to the car after photographing at the Seaside Volleyball Tournament. I see a guy walking in front of me using a cane to find his way. Then I noticed the camera strapped to his back. Perfect!

This one of the three friends silhouetted after sunset on Cannon Beach is also another favorite. I’m not much of a people photographer. My people images usually consist of telephoto shots. Or waiting until someone just happens into the scene where I need them. But in this instance I needed help to get the shot I wanted of human figures silhouetted with Haystack Rock. I was already kicking myself for letting a couple walk by without asking them to pose. I was reduced to using my camera’s self timer and stepping out there myself. But I wanted more than one person in the shot. So when these three twenty-somethings walked past I asked them if they would pose for the shot. They were happy too and we all had a great time getting the image. I believe this picture will be included in the new book.

So I know this one is kind of clichéd but I really like it. Another one of those shots I might not have gotten if it wasn’t for the book project. This was taken at Boiler Bay State Park. There are two areas with picnic tables. One is inside the U-shaped road that leads to and from the highway. The others are outside of the U. For some reason, the seagulls believe that all the picnic tables inside the U belong to them. And they’ve decorated those tables as only seagulls can. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to sit down to eat at a seagull table.

And finally, I just love these colorful, back-lit Pinot noir grape leaves from Willakenzie Estate in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. This year’s harvest was one of the latest on record, and though this was nerve wracking for the vineyard owners, it was a gift for photographers. Lots of grapes on the vine to photograph as well as some bright red leaves. The rest of the fall color was a little late but we still had some great opportunities at this year’s winery photo tour.

So there you have it, a few of my favorite pictures of the year.