“G Dan Mitchell’s 2025 (Almost) Favorite Photographs” — 16 photographs that almost made it into G Dan Mitchell’s 2025 Favorite Photographs.
Each winter I go review the year’s work and select a set of “annual favorites.”I enjoy reviewing all of my photographs each year, but it is difficult to winnow them down to a manageable 12 to 16 images. As I created my 2025 Favorite Photographs I had to make hard decisions near the end of the process, and inevitably some photographs I liked were left out.
So this year I’m trying something new: I have assembled this set of 2025 (Almost) Favorite Photographs, selected from those I like that did not quite make the cut for my the 2025 Favorite Photographs.
Why didn’t they make it? I photograph a variety of subjects — from landscapes to travel to street photography. Since I want to include multiple genres I must eliminate photographs of one type to make room for others. Sometimes the issue is that I have a lot of photographs of certain subjects. For example, this year I had many photographs of trees and desert landscapes, and I couldn’t include them all.
With this in mind, here’s a set of 2025 (Almost) Favorite Photographs that didn’t quite make it into the final set. Continue reading to view them individually below and then in a gallery at the end of the article, where you can click on an image to view the set as a slideshow.)
Here is a collection of some of my favorite photographs from 2025. Assembling annual collections gives me a opportunity to get a better overview of my work over the longer term. The project also jogs my memory and gives me a chance to relive memorable experiences from the past year.
Here is a set of thumbnails of the selected photographs. You can pick the image for a better view of the set, but continue reading to see larger versions of the photographs read more about each image.
A set of G Dan Mitchell’s favorite photographs from 2025.
I prefer the term “favorites” over “best” since I’m not really able to know which are best — that’s a subjective thing, its not entirely my decision, and it changes over time. But right now, I can say for sure that these are among my favorites.
Choosing the set is challenging! Near the end of the process I must eliminate photographs that are also favorites in order to keep the collection to a reasonable size. (Perhaps I’ll share some of the “(Almost) Favorite Photographs” in a separate post!)
I choose the final set from among all of the photographs that I shared on this website during 2025. The majority were also photographed during 2025, but a few are photographs “captured” earlier that I finished working on this year.
The final set includes diverse photographs since I photograph a wide range of subjects. Some of you who follow my landscape photography may not know that I also do travel and street photography, that I sometimes include people in my landscape work, or that I do some macro photography. So I select a set of favorites that includes examples from various genres. They also come from throughout the year and from many different places — the mountains, the desert, wildlife refuges, American and foreign travel, my local neighborhood.
Continue reading to see larger versions of the photographs and to read more about them. (Click photo titles below to see their original posts. Click on the photographs to view them larger.)
Photographs by David Hoffman and G Dan Mitchell February 16th to March 14th, 2019 at Stellar Gallery, Yosemite Gateway Gallery Row 40982 Hwy 41, Suite 1, Oakhurst CA 93644
Artists Reception, Saturday Feb 16th – 5 to 8 pm
BIRDSCAPES features works by two photographers best known for landscape photography. Both Dave and G Dan are not only inspired by the beauty of wild lands and natural places, they are inspired by their flora and fauna as well. Birds are an integral part of most environments. Their nesting habits, migration patterns and survival strategies express volumes about the places they live, and ultimately our own habitat as well.
David Hoffman
Over the many years during which I have been involved in photography, I would have described my field of interest as landscape and nature with the emphasis on landscape. Wildlife of any sort was usually something that fortuitously showed up to be incidentally included in a landscape photograph.
In recent years I began photographing winter wetland landscapes in the Pacific Flyway and migratory birds naturally became a feature of many of the landscape images. As time went on, the birds went from being a mere feature of the landscape to being deliberately featured in their wetland habitat.
The photographs that I have included in the exhibit Birdscapes run the gamut from huge flocks of geese in the Pacific Flyway to a portrait of a hummingbird.
G Dan Mitchell
I have photographed the landscape for years, but more recently the photographs have included birds. I began to photograph birds in the locations I visit — geese and sandhill cranes in California’s Central Valley, brown pelicans along the Pacific coast, tundra swans and golden eagles near Oregon’s Klamath Lakes, trumpeter swans in Washington’s Skagit Valley. Migratory birds connect us to remote landscapes where they breed. Their presence brings landscapes to life. The sound of thousands of geese and cranes in the pre-dawn cold of a winter morning always makes me smile.
The photographs in “Birdscapes” come from several of these locations. They represent multiple ways of “seeing” birds. Some look closely at individuals, often focusing on the beauty of the birds in flight and the moments of take-off and landing. In others thousands of birds fill the sky. Almost all reflect the light and atmosphere of the places where birds are found —morning and evening twilight, colorful light of dawn and sunset, fog and clouds, or crystal-clear winter skies.
The galleries at Gallery Row in Oakhurst offer a wide selection of fine art and fine craft, and host exhibits and special events that support the arts in the Yosemite area. Thank you for supporting the arts!
In addition to more than a dozen of my photographs, the show includes prints from a talented group of photographic artists and friends that I invited to collaborate on the project: Jerry Bosworth, Franka Mlikota Gabler, Charlotte Hamilton Gibb, David Hoffman, Vidya Kane, and Kerby Smith.
From the Yosemite Renaissance website:
Over the past two months, artist in residence G Dan Mitchell has been photographing Yosemite during the transition from winter into spring. It is an unpredictable time, rich in imagery for photographers as late winter storms challenge the new growth of spring. Wildflowers appear first, poppies and many others. Dogwoods come next, encouraged by warming temperatures and clearing snow. At the same time temperatures suddenly drop and snow falls in unpredictable ways. Daffodils and irises are suddenly covered in snow. G Dan and six other photographers have done their best to capture this magical time in and around Yosemite. The show will include over 40 works documenting the transition. Proceeds from the exhibit will benefit Yosemite Renaissance. Please join us!
Gallery 5
40982 Hwy 41, Suite 5, Oakhurst CA
559-683-5551
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
