Photographs by Frank

Here is the latest iteration of my annual ‘Adams Dozen’, a tradition I began in 2011 (see this post for the first iteration and an explanation of its genesis). It is difficult to believe that this is my twelfth version.

One can see all of the previous iterations here.

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Interestingly, this first post of 2023 includes the nine hundredth (!) gallery of photos that I have added to this site since I began blogging (on 24 May 2010).

Additionally, for the those keeping track of such things. My Lightroom catalog says that I made 7,400 exposures in 2022. This is number is quite a bit lower than my average of 11,671 exposures per year since 2013, the first full year that I used Lightroom. However, this is not my least productive year to date; that would be 2020 with 6665 exposures.

Back at the end of 2011, I started a tradition of posting twelve photographs made during the year, see that post for a further explanation of the idea. I seem to have missed a post about my ‘Adams Dozen” for 2012, but here are all of the subsequent posts.

Anyway, here is my “Adams Dozen” for 2021:

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For the those keeping track of such things. My Lightroom catalog says that I made 12,936 exposures in 2021, including 2,719 made on our five week trip in September and October. This is number is very close to my average of 12,157 exposures per year since 2013, the first full year that I used Lightroom.

As has been my longstanding habit*, here is my “Adams Dozen” for 2020… the year of the pandemic.

Being retired and living a generally quiet life in the New Hampshire woods, our life has not been changed nearly as much as many others have. We made no big trips this year, but I still got out in the neighborhood regularly to make photographs**.

One of the highlights of this year was the successful nesting of a pair of loons on Gregg lake; the first in living memory. I spent many enjoyable hours back in May and June watching (and photographing) the nesting adults and then the pair of chicks, that joined them. Both juveniles successfully fledged this fall and headed to the ocean.

You will be glad to know that I have included only one loon photo and a single dragonfly photo among the dozen… there are many, many more of each subject in this year’s collection!

Additionally, I used some of my “home time” this summer to start making cyanotypes again (after a twelve year hiatus). This fall I also experimented with hand coloring black and white prints. I intend to keep making both type of prints in the future.

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* The first edition (from 2011) explains the genesis of this tradition and here is last year’s edition.

** For those keeping track, I made 6651 exposures in 2020 (about two-thirds of what I made in 2019) and processed 1037 of these (about 15% of the total) which is about average.

It has been my habit at the end of each year to choose an ‘Adams Dozen’ of photos made during the year.

This is my ninth installment. The first iteration was 2011 and for the sake of organization, here is last year’s version. One can find the rest of the years by searching the blog for “Adams Dozen”.

Here is this year’s selection.:

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For those keeping count, my Lightroom catalog says that I made 9648 exposures in 2019 and that I processed 1643 (or 17%) of the photographs. This is about a thousand less total exposures and a couple of percent more processed than last year.

This post represents the eighth annual installment in my “Adams Dozen” tradition. Whereby, as each year ends, I choose a dozen of my favorite photographs from the past year.

In the first installment of this series, I stated that choosing twelve photographs was “not as hard as I thought it might be”. However, it is my impression that the selection becomes more difficult each year. I do not have a clue why this seems so, but I struggled this year to narrow the group down to just a dozen.

I could have filled out my selection just using photos from our trip to the Grand Canyon and other places in the southwest but I worked to pick images from throughout the year. The first of this set was made back in January and the last two about six weeks ago in mid-November.

Without further ado, here are the twelve photographs, representing roughly one-percent* of my “keepers” for the year:

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* For those who are keeping track, my Lightroom catalog says that I made 10,733 exposure this year. Of that number I finalized 1542 (about 14%) of them. The former number is a bit lower than it has been in the past (the average for the five previous years is about 13,800) and the latter number is a bit higher than usual (again the average for the past five years is 10.7%).

Well, it is that time of the year… time to choose my “Adams Dozen” for 2016.

Long-time readers will remember that at the end of each year I pick my twelve favorite (best?) photos of the year; a tradition I began back in 2011 (see this post).

In choosing photos for this collection, I did not consider images from the three projects (Barn Board, Autumnal Abstracts – 2016 and ‘Belfries, Spires, Etc.’ that I have been working on this year. The first two projects are more-or-less finished while the third is still a work in progress. These will be presented in due time.

Thus, the photos selected for my Adams Dozen are ‘singletons’ (i.e. not part of any project).

Here they are:

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I am still having trouble with my gallery software. I have figured out a work around for getting titles displayed but I still am unable to control the order in which the photos are displayed… #$@!&* computers!!!

“ Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” – Ansel Adams (1)

The end of another year… I suppose that it is natural to reflect back on the past year. In reflecting on my photography Adams’ quote came to mind.

This got me thinking about editing one’s work and the adage “You are known by the what you show  not the what you shoot” (2) also came to mind.

While searching (unsuccessfully) for the source of this adage, I came upon a quote from a travel photographer which is also apropos:

“It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures
were the ones that were hardest to get.” – Timothy Allen (3)

Thus inspired, I decided to see if I could choose just twelve photos to represent my work for the year. It was not as hard as I thought it might be.

I make no claims to their “significance” and I am certainly no Ansel Adams.

Here they are…

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(1)  Although widely attributed to Adams, I can not find specific source for this quote; maybe it is apocryphal.

(2) At least I think this is an adage and not a quote attributable to a specific individual.

(3) See: http://blog.travellerspoint.com/90/

P.S. for the statisticians in the crowd… I made photos on 82 days in 2011 and exposed about 12,000 “frames” total (ain’t digital wonderful… who could have afforded that with film!).  I processed about 1000 of those frames… roughly 8%.  This last number is actually pretty meaningless. I do a lot of “exploratory” shooting just because digital is cheap and I can… I am not intending that every shot I take is a “keeper”.