2008 Year in Review

If you are reading this on the 31st, I hope you will have a save and enjoyable new years eve. If it is after the new year I hope you new year plans will be fulfilled. The ball will drop and the fireworks will be shot off but no better time during the year do we have a chance to look back and erealize the blessings we have had in the past twelve months.

I thought I would take a moment to share with you twelve items that have been in our life this past year of 2008. At the end I will reveal my photograph of the year. So let's get going:

January

I decided on Janyary 3 to start this blog. It has been an enjoyable ride that I have been able to share my images, thoughts, and limited knowledge with you all.

February

Was a cold month but it was one where I was able to get some really killer images of Lake Michigan and the frozen ice flow.

March

A busy month it was. My wife Evelyn and I celebrated our thirtieth anniversary in New York with my daughter and husband who was celebrating their 2nd. Had a great time, went an saw Phantom of the Opera, and B&H Photo. Why those two stick out I can not imagine, we really did much more for the three days we were there. I will never forget looking out our 19th floor window overlooking the hole of ground zero though.

April

We got back out on the motorcycle. This is always a great time of year. Not much else gets done during that month. Towards the end we entertained all of Evelyn's sisters and her mother which really was a fun time.

May

Alway a good month when you last child comes home for summer break. Even though he was only home for two weeks before going back as a camp counselor, we enjoyed his time immensely.

June

Was a wonderful month. We trekked back out to Maryland to see our oldest son graduate from the police academy. Something he has wanted for a very long time and it was a proud moment for us to see the chief of police badge Tim on stage.

July

One of the sour notes of our June experience is that I dropped my Camera and it took a nap. The up side is I replaced it with a Canon 40D which I have enjoyed its more robust feel and feature rich options. We had a fun time doing some zoo shooting with my brothers-in-law in Chicago.

August

I had my 200th blog posting witch is more than once per business day, so I was pretty stoked ant my constancy. Also our annual attendance to the U.S. Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven was not missed either.

September

The big event of the year was out trip out to Portland Oregon with Evelyn's sisters. Three of us guys are photo geeks so we just had a blast shooting up the great northwest.

October

I started to really get into expanding my flash knowledge. Did some really low light flash work in a club atmosphere only it was at church. The Gathering is targeted at the 18 to 35 year old single person in search of wholesome connection with friends. I did a nice montage that is hanging in the church today.

November

I exceeded two thousand hits on the blog and had the most comments in any single month. I have had some people that I was unaware of tell me they liked the blog so that was really exciting to get some positive feedback that I am not just sending ones and zeros out into a cloud. 110001011, 001110011 Sorry, had a binary slip there.

December

What can I say I got a copy of the most talked about, most anticipated camera of 2008, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I was able to do some shooting with it just before Christmas and am looking forward to much more of this really incredible technology.

Well that is a quick summary of the year. Much of it was around photography but there were many more events that I have enjoyed this past year. MOst of which have been with my outstanding and precious wife Evelyn. Three cheers! Hip... Hip... Hurray!

* * * P H O T O G R A P H   O F   T H E    Y E A R * * *

And Now without further ado, I will present my photograph of the year. This is the Trillium Lake Oregon panoramic of Mt. Hood early in the morning. Why this photo? The elements are all there. On the left the tree line points to the central focal point of the mountain. The foreground objects give the photo some depth and reference. The fog presents a bit of mystery. This is one of the few times where the rule of thirds and no central horizon can be thrown out the window. What makes this photograph so amazing is there was very little touching done in Photoshop. After the pano assembly, some light color correction and a few distracting items removed and that was about it.

Have a very wonderful New Year and I will continue pressing forward with this blog.

Thanks for URL-ing in... Doug