Top 56 Shots of 2013

Top 56 Shots of 2013

I’ll keep this short and sweet:

Here are my personal top 56 photos from 2013.

Presented in no particular order…

 

 

 

 

This was an early morning shot of climbers hiking up to Thorong La Pass in Nepal. Altitude was approx. 16,500 feet.

 

This shot was included because I think it says a lot about India in one frame: trash on the streets, a lone cow at night, and an autorickshaw passing by. Evidence of a chaotic day in the midst of a peaceful night.

 

 

 

 

This was picked because I love the way the colors turned out from shooting these buildings during dusk.

 

Basically no Photoshop on this shot; it’s all natural light in Brussels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of my absolute favorites from this year because I feel it says so much about rural Nepalese life.

 

 

 

 

An HDR shot of Ice on the great Lake Baikal. Although I’ve generally shied away from it this year, HDR was the only way to bring out the brights and darks in this high contrast scene.

 

Really happy with this one. I laid prone on the ice for this shot.

 

Istanbul. It’s a bit of a retro look, edited in a film style which I’ve become really attracted to this year.

 

I feel relaxed when I look at this image. Perhaps it’s because film was used to shoot it (?) and it therefore gains all the vibrant feelings inherent to shooting with film (as opposed to digital’s generally flat tendencies).

 

 

 

Shot on a -30 degree night in Siberia. It was cold, but Khabarovsk turned out to be one of my favorite cities.

 

 

 

 

 

The negative space makes this shot one of this year’s personal favorites.

 

 

I sadly dropped my 50mm f1.2 lens on the way to shoot this sunrise picture. Oh well.

 

 

 

 

This spot is rumored to host the best sunrise view on Earth. Obviously, it did not disappoint.

 

 

 

The video tutorial for this shot can be found here: Sunset on Koh Samui

 

 

One of my weakest areas in photography is taking pictures of people. I need to work on this in 2014.

 

This is probably my single best shot of 2013. At the very least, it’s the one that required the most effort. I hiked up to Poon Hill and stayed up there all night freezing while shooting the stars over the Himalayas.

Worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I rented a Canon 50mm f1.0L lens and experimented with some triple exposures for fun. The results were pleasantly surprising.

 

 

 

 

 

What’s Next in 2014

In the coming year I want to continue to get back to basics. I want my pictures to evoke the memories of being there in that place and in that time. I’d love to take pictures that work as pictures on their own without the need for excess amounts of photo editing. While digital is here to stay, I think shooting film can help accomplish that task.

Film provides inspiration to take the most evocative pictures possible; capturing scenes that only exist for a fleeting moment, shooting them via a finite medium that requires the photographer to make decisions, rather than the “throw enough shit at the wall and something will come out” style inherent to the digital format. Not to say I’m giving up my nice digicam any time soon; just that I’m trying to take hold of the lessons learned through nearly two centuries worth of film photography.

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