My Favorite Unpublished Photos of 2019

Happy New Year! Patti of Pilotfish has presented us with a delightful yet difficult challenge this week -Favorite Photos of 2019. How do you choose? It isn’t easy.

I got distracted a lot as I browsed through thousands of photos, with an image catching my eye and sending me into a memory. Focus, Di, focus! Don’t go down that rabbit hole! Is it really one of your 10 best of the year?

In the end, I couldn’t do it. I could narrow it down to 40 or so, but 10? Impossible!

So I took a page from NatGeo’s book. I COULD narrow it down to my favorite 10 unpublished photos of the year, ones that for one reason or another had not made it onto a blog post.

I’ll do this directionally. I’ll start in the northwest and make my way down towards the southeast.

Matanuska Valley, Alaska

I had an early morning doctor’s appointment. However, it was a 7-hour drive from my home in remote rural Alaska to the doctor’s office. So I left after work, drove part way, slept in the back of my truck, and continued on my way just before the crack of dawn. My reward was a beautiful sunrise over the Matanuska River, one of the most spectacular sunrises I’ve ever seen. My photos don’t do it justice, but here’s my best shot at it.

 

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

We have some really big mountains in the Wrangells. In fact, Wrangell-St. Elias has more mountains over 14,500 feet than anywhere else in North America. Furthermore, unlike Colorado’s 14-ers, Alaska’s mountains start from a lot closer to sea level!  They are REALLY big mountains. I like this image because you get an impression of just how big they really are.

 

Stone Mountain Provincial Park, British Columbia

My favorite day when I drive the Al-Can Highway is the day I drive through Stone Mountain and Muncho Lake Provincial Parks. They are both home to the somewhat rare and beautiful Stone Sheep, and if I’m lucky I might see one. This year I was able to shoot this environmental portrait of a ram doing what Stone Sheep do best, climbing cliffs.

 

Electra Road near Jackson, CA

Although I’m usually raving about the wildflowers in the desert, by the time April rolls around you’ll find fantastic wildflowers in the Sierra foothills, too. That’s where I captured this image of a swallowtail butterfly sipping nectar from a flower.

 

Point Pinos, California

I think this is my new favorite photo of 2019. I don’t know why I never noticed it before. I was trying to capture the power and fury of a winter storm on the Pacific coast. Big waves. I can watch them all day.

 

Piedras Blancas, California

One of my favorite photographic experiences of 2019 was watching the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas. It was a true wildlife drama, with hundreds of seals birthing, mating and fighting just yards away from their human voyeurs. As I watched, the seals struck me as some of the most ill-tempered animals I’d ever seen, always fighting and arguing – all of them, not just the bulls. Mating, in most cases, seemed exceptionally harsh and brutal. This couple was the exception. They seemed, dare I say it, actually content and peaceful with each other! I tried to capture that feeling.

 

Joshua Tree National Park

If you follow my blog at all, you know that no roundup of my favorite photos of 2019  would be complete without at least one closeup of a desert wildflower. I love getting up all close and personal with cactus blossoms. They’re exquisite. I found this one in Joshua Tree National Park.

 

Anza Borrego State Park, California

Because my little Toyota truck is only 2 wheel drive, sometimes my dispersed camping options are somewhat limited. I find myself returning to one particular campsite in Anza Borrego again and again. But even though flowers are going crazy in the rest of the park, there are usually very few or no flowers in my favorite canyon. This year was different. This year, my camping canyon was one of the park’s wildflower hotspots. I took this photo from the hill behind my camp.

 

Tucson, Arizona

There’s a reason Arizona is famous for its sunsets. Just sayin’.

Well, I had a hard time picking my favorite. And I find it hard to be objective. Each image is colored by the experience that accompanied it.

How about you? Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments.

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