2012 Favorite Photographs – Final Candidates Gallery

These are my current forty (!) final candidates for my “2012 Favorite Photographs” post that I hope to share later this week. This is still way too many, and my target is to try to get the number down to about half of this. I’m happy to hear your feedback in whatever form works best for you: identifying one or a few favorites, suggesting your “top X number” of them from within the group, your favorites of each of the various types, or even suggestions of photographs of mine that are not included in this list.

If you didn’t already know, this is a tough job!

Some of my criteria for the final selection include:

  • representing a range of genres – landscape (both large and small), night photography, wildlife, urban landscape, nature, and so forth.
  • incorporating both color and monochrome work.
  • balancing representational work with photographs that are a bit more conceptual, atmospheric, and so forth.
  • recognizing work that others tell me they like.
  • sharing photographs that are personal favorite of mine.

The gallery thumbnails show below are small and may omit portions of images, so click on an image to see a larger version. Once you click on that first image you can use the right/left arrows to navigate through the larger versions of the photographs throughout the entire gallery.

Thanks for looking and for whatever feedback you are willing to share. (Leaving a comment below is a great way to do this.)

Dan

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

6 thoughts on “2012 Favorite Photographs – Final Candidates Gallery”

  1. Craig, thanks for taking the time to look at them so carefully! (You picked a number that are my personal favorites – especially the Two Islands image and some of the “three” you picked from the “eight.”

    I only have a few new images from Mare Island this year, including the black and white with the stairway. Need to get back there!

    Dan

  2. Among the conceptual images Snow Goose Maelstrom is outstanding. The B-W landscape that is my favorite is Two Islands, Fog. A tough choice for me between that and Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn. Among the intimate rockscapes, I really like Clearing Storm, Morning Light. My favorite wildlife image is Ross’s Geese, Sunset. So many color landscapes here–it gets tough to narrow down. I wrote eight down on a list as I clicked through the images. So here are three that really spoke to me: Aspen Grove, Old road (love the beckoning road leading me into the grove), Rain Squall, Monument Valley (a composition that combines many subtle visual elements), and Broken Bow Arch, Morning (such beautiful light on an iconic landform of the southwest). I miss some of your color work from Mare Island, but among the urban images presented, I favor Embarcadero Plaza Tower. This has been a fun exercise, as it demands focus on what I’m drawn to, and why. Thanks for the opportunity to interact.

  3. Hi Dan, I would like to say I appreciate the natural processing you apply to your photographs and I try to remember that when my finger is on the saturation slider in my own work.

    My somewhat balanced top three are:

    Aspen Grove, Old Road
    Clearing Storm, Morning Light
    Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

    You certainly had an outstanding year and the body of work makes for some difficult choices.

    Dale

  4. Dan,

    It certainly is tough to choose favourites. I’ll pick three that really stir me, in no particular order:

    Ross’s Geese, Sunset, Central Valley – beautiful colours and soothing atmosphere

    Broken Bow Arch, Morning – lovely soft morning light and excellent rock detail

    Aspen Trees, Shoreline of North Lake – again, lovely soft light kissing the trees. Beautiful reflection too.

    Of course, it goes without saying that any of these forty shots, if they were mine, would be in my top three!

    Good luck in whittling them down further.

    David

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