Back in my daily newspaper days we were asked at the end of the year to choose a favorite image we had made over the past year. Each of us would weigh the circumstances and possible challenges surrounding each of the images as we made our choices. This was especially true if you took the assignment to heart, and most of us did. Nowadays I’m under no such restrictions, and for the fifth year in a row I’ve been determined to choose my favorite 12 … a dozen among the several hundred images stored in my files from my year in the natural world.

It began by brainstorming, if you will. My initial collection featured some 84 different images which may be cause for laughter among my photojournalistic comrades. Whatever!

Although none made the final cut, there were images from five different Northern Light displays although I had slept through at least two displays and was clouded out on a couple of others. Accumulative, there were at least nine different Northern Lights displays through the year including two each in April, November and now December.  

Which is part of the fun of the exercise. Interestingly, my accumulation of deer images for the year was down significantly. No such issues with birds. Among the many images were birds I hadn’t photographed before, including a Western Meadowlark, White-faced Ibises, Indigo Buntings, Starlings, American Avocets, Catbirds and Bluebirds, to name a few. It seemed that every trip to a different state park would garner images of Catbirds, Yellow and Yellow Rumped Warblers. There were photographs from numerous trips to capture Sandhill Cranes throughout the year, most notably a special photographic expedition at Crane Trust in Central Nebraska for the annual spring migration with nature photographer, Cheryl Oppermann. We also made two trips to the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge for both Cranes and Swans. 

Wildflowers came through once again as I seem to follow their numerous flora seasons beginning with Pasque Flowers in March. We didn’t make a bog trip this past year, though, although autumn tree and sumac opportunities were both numerous and thoroughly appreciated.

And, you can’t live within the Horizontal Grandeur without capturing big sky images, especially those that capture the ambient light created by both sunrises and sunsets. Monet would be a happy prairie painter!

Several camping trips were made to different Minnesota State Parks along with a two week trip to Iceland and Norway, where every day seemed to offer an array of different waterfalls.

It was a blessed year, and a lot of “tough” decisions were made here on a snowy, gloomy wintry afternoon. My last 30 images were incredibly difficult to pare but I eventually made it down to 24. The last 16 took a long stretch of time. So many choices! A reflective image at Lac qui Parle State Park was very hard to eliminate, along with a nice broadside flight of a Bald Eagle. Some of the images fell into my “photographic poetry” realm, meaning that the feel and texture offered an “impressionistic” mood thanks to the beauty of nature. 

So, here you go (my 12 along with bonus images from Norway and Nebraska. All the rest were made in the prairies and woodlands within a day’s drive from Listening Stones Farm!): 

And now, for my bonus images: