favorite photos of 2020

favorite photos of 2020

howdy hi,

and I’m back…. again! sometimes when you are working on a backlog of old to-do’s, you get things finished in batches. so here are some of my favorite photos from 2020!

initially I didn’t think I’d do a post from 2020. did I really go anywhere? did we do anything of note? was there anything worth really remembering?

the answer to all of these is YES. once I started looking through the photos from 2020 I was pleasantly surprised. it was definitely a tough year… but it still had its highlights.

this photo is from 2019… but since it was on a point-and-shoot camera that I rarely took snaps of…. it took a while to get the photos developed. I rarely shoot with a flash and it’s almost always at night — so having a photo during the day with a flash creates a really interesting look. I also really dig Teal’s cozy, yet hip outfit.

Teal styling

while driving North through Nevada, we stopped at a rest stop… and this semi-truck, just LOADED with hay pulled off the hiway and was hauling down a dirt road, kicking up a giant dust cloud. luckily I had my telephoto lens on and was able to get this snap.

dusty road

during that same trip, we went to Idaho City on a whim. then, on a second whim, we went to a Pioneer Cemetery. I love old cemeteries and this one did not disappoint. I really like the lighting here and how the area is overgrown, but not so much that it obscures the headstone.

mason's grave

I really, really like photos like this. if you’re at all familiar with the kinds of pictures I take, the “weird stuff on the ground” is a pretty common theme. seeing the line of the paint offset is so much fun.

twisted cap

sometimes, on the road you see some beautiful sunsets and sunrises. this sunset over the Sierras was one of the best I’ve seen in some time.

Eastern Sierra sunset

the next morning at June Lake followed suit. I really like this photo for a few reasons. the yellow grass contrasts with the blue sky. the mountains on the left mirror the houses and trees on the right. and there are four planes of distance. the grass, the hill, the mountains, and the sky. it’s really visually pleasing!

June Lake morning

I enjoyed having all sort of plants and statues on my porch. this photo was fun because of the speckled light. one of the things that’s great about film photography is the latitude between the dark and light areas — I think this photo does a good job of capturing that.

attitude test

I know I’m not alone in thinking that fall colors are fun to photograph… even though it’s a common thing, I still like taking these pictures. I’ve found I like photos of people walking away, I don’t know why… but there’s something about the figures receding from camera that intrigues me. here, the sidewalk creates a vanishing point and the trees create a canopy, which in turn helps to highlight the subjects. it draws your eyes in and leads you in the same direction that the people are walking. I also like the picture because it was a fun afternoon with my Mom and Dad.

East End walks

another road trip photo! and compositionally, rather similar to the one of my parents walking. this one was one of those special moments–where you just see something interesting and are able to capture it. we were somewhere in Nevada and Sofya was driving, so I was able to get my Canon AE-1 out before the light changed. I really like the way the road is illuminated but the sky is dark, it creates a strange sense of foreboding where the vanishing point pulls your eye forward before they slam into the darkness. it’s such a dramatic shift from light to dark it almost doesn’t look real, but it is!

lonely road, grey skies

this photo was not so random. it was my last day in my Hollywood apartment. I was bouncing back and forth between working, packing, and cleaning as we got ready to make the drive North. now I’d been in this place for over 15 years… so there was a lot of memories in this tiny space. the way the afternoon light was filtering in along with the emotions of the moment made this a moment I wanted to remember. the “not random” part is the chair. there’s something about an empty chair that signifies, I don’t know… loss? like “someone used to sit here” but now they aren’t. I tried a few different positions of the chair before I got one that I was happy with. I also like the red, green, and yellow colors.

the lone chair

and so that we don’t leave on a down note… here’s a photo from our first morning in our new home. a fresh blanket of snow had fallen. not enough to be a bother, but just enough to be pretty. we walked around the lake, across the river, and to what has become our favorite local coffee shop. on the way back, I grabbed this picture. I love how all three are walking together, headed towards a bright new day.

snowy morning walks

and that does it for my favorite photos of 2020! as always, you can see the entire collection over on my Flickr page. check it out here.

-Luke

1 Comment
  • Mac McAlister
    Posted at 22:44h, 23 April Reply

    I absolutely love the photo of the apartment. It’s so surreal like- I personally knew the body that worked there, slept there, entertained there, and now someone else occupies that space that I don’t know and I’ll probably never visit that building again. It hurts but also the image of how clean and empty this space is, shows that you’re really ready to make the move and the chair shows that you’ll always be a part of it. I’m gonna save this photo if ya don’t mind 🙂

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