(Update 1/13/11: I have also posted a video version of the 2010 Favorites for those who might prefer to sit back and watch rather than scroll down the page. Hint: the image quality is better here.)

Since it is the evening of December 30… I guess it is time to finalize my page of 2010 Favorites, a selection of some of my favorite photographs from the past year.

I produce such a page each year as part of my year-end process of reviewing all of my raw files from the year – a huge task but one that always turns up a few photographs that somehow escaped my notice at the time I made them. It is also an opportunity to reflect on all of the places I’ve visited and the subjects I’ve photographed and people I’ve met. (For those of you with way too much time on your hands, you can also see my favorites from 2009 and 2008.)

As enjoyable as the retrospection is, actually selecting a manageable number of “favorites” turns out to be a very difficult task. After a first pass that I thought was fairly brutal… I found myself with nearly 60 favorites! In order to narrow them down at least a bit – but only a bit, as it turns out – I tried something new this year. About a week ago I put together a draft of the list and invited readers to tell me what they thought of the photos. Lots of folks chimed in, and I’m very grateful for your kind words and for your hard work! (In the end, I still probably posted too many. Ah, well!)

With that in mind, I have listed this year’s favorites in an order based on reader feedback. In order to make things a bit more organized I have divided the collection into two sub-groups, one for landscape and nature photographs and one for what I call human world photographs. Every photograph has a story, and regular readers know that I post a story with every photograph. I haven’t included that text here, but if you copy titles and use the search box you can go straight to any photograph about which you want more information.

Enjoy!