Top 10 Photos of 2024
Hello everybody! Well, 2025 is here! Every year I take the time to look back at the photos I’ve taken in the year and pick out the 10 “best” shots of the year. I use best in quotes as some of my choices are obviously a little biased. Some of the reasons why they are the “best” for me is the story behind them, which you may not know and certainly has no bearing on whether you like them or not. Some of them are my best because of the aesthetic or technical aspects of the shot, they hit me just right. Or some of them I consider the “best” because I just plain like the shot, and there’s nothing specific I can put my finger on for it. I’m sure if I had my portfolio critiqued by some professionals who don’t know me, they likely wouldn’t pick most if not all of the photo’s I picked, but hey, they’re not here right now, and I don’t have a comment section in my blog, lol
So without further ado, here are my top 10 photos of 2024, in order from oldest to newest throughout the year.
Symbolic
January 6, 2024, 12:58 PM
Canon EOS R7
TAMRON SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 A022 @ 375 mm
¹⁄₂₅₀ sec at ƒ / 7.1
ISO 800
A typical outing for me at the beginning of the year is a visit to a local nature preserve near my home. If there’s no snow on the ground yet, I visit the injured birds that are cared for at the preserve. One of their resident eagles gave me this perfect glare on this visit, and I decided to go with a square crop to give the image some symmetry, and to draw the focus on the most important part of the scene. I wasn’t the only one that thought this was a great shot either, it was featured in an issue of Photography Masterclass Magazine this year as well.
Silent
January 27, 2024, 12:33 PM
Canon EOS R7
RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM @ 24 mm
¹⁄₅₀ sec at ƒ / 9.0
ISO 100
This shot makes it into my top 10 for the mood. I love a bit of fog in my photos. I’m not an early riser, which is often when we get the most fog where I live, so when the fog comes out during my waking hours, I get excited. This tree at a local park stands out amongst the crowd on a normal day in winter, but with fog, the scene gains an ethereal feeling. I just love it.
Eternal Flame Falls
April 7, 2024, 9:01 AM
Canon EOS R7
RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM @ 24 mm
1.6 sec at ƒ / 11
ISO 100
There is a bit of a theme to the next few images. In April of this year, I went on a trip to New York state to photograph the total solar eclipse, and while there I made sure to do some landscapes as well. This particular shot makes it into my top 10 because I’ve been dreaming of seeing these falls for years. Thanks to travel related Facebook reels, I’ve learned about the unique Eternal Flames Falls a few years ago. A natural gas leak in a tiny culvert can be lit aflame, placing both fire and water in the same scene. This shot makes it into my top 10 for a few reasons, first the dream of getting to this place, and also for the contrast in the scene that comes out in a few ways. You’ve got the light and dark between the water highlights and the shadows in the rock. Then there’s the literal contrast of fire and water in the scene. I’ve named other images with the title “Fire and Water” in the past, but those were typically metaphorical in sense, where in this case, both are actually there.
Rainbow Rising
April 7, 2024, 4:39 PM
Canon EOS R7
RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM @ 18 mm
0.5 sec at ƒ / 11
ISO 100
Another one of the stops in my Eclipse trip was Letchworth State Park, the Grand Canyon of the east. This day there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which on one hand had me hopeful for the weather on Eclipse day, but it didn’t do much for me on a landscape shoot day. This shot makes it into the top 10 for me as it reminds me that sometimes even when the skies aren’t in my favor, the effects can still surprise me. The unobstructed sun gave us a perfect rainbow show that day. I love the way they rise out of the falls, the scene is recognizable with the iconic bridge making an appearance, and then the shadowed trees on both sides of the frame encouraging you to look to the center of the scene at main subject.
Plummet
April 7, 2024, 5:18 PM
Canon EOS R7
RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM @ 100 mm
¹⁄₈₀ sec at ƒ / 11
ISO 100
Still taking advantage of the rainbow show that same day, this one makes it into my top 10 as I was taking inspiration from another photographer for this shot. Now, my shot doesn’t come close to his image (and his didn’t have a rainbow in it), so I’ll be trying this again someday in the future. I like this shot for the abstract vision of nature it presents. There’s enough there to know what it is, but there is a still a bit of wonder in the scene. How big is the waterfall? How far does the rainbow continue for? Only I know.
Total Solar Eclipse 2024
April 8, 2024, 1:46 - 4:15 PM
Canon EOS Rebel T8i
EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM @ 250 mm
¹⁄₄₀₀₀ sec at ƒ / 5.6
ISO 100
At last, the day of the eclipse came! The day that I planned a trip to New York for a 3-minute period of celestial awe. The day I drove 8 hours away from home to experience in New York. The day I would wake up in the morning praying for clear skies to take a photograph I’ve been wanting to take since the 2017 eclipse that I only captured in partiality. The day that I did a complete 180 and drove 4 hours into Ohio to photograph it there instead. That’s right, all the preplanning to photograph the eclipse potentially at Niagara Falls, instead I woke up to classic lake effect cloud cover, so we sped our way to Marion, Ohio to find the closest area in the path of totality that didn’t have cloud cover.
This composition makes it into my top 10, partially for the crazy pivot I had to take to actually witness the eclipse, but it also makes it into the top 10 for the pride I have in this image. I planned for this adventure since the last eclipse in 2017. I had 2 cameras set up, one taking wide shots for the sake of the progression compilation, and another taking telephoto shots for close ups of the moment of totality and as an emergency shot for the occasional out of focus shot in the wide shot camera set up. Stitching the results together to create this image showing the stages of the 2 1/2 hour event. Getting this shot was certainly worth all that time and gas driving from Holland, MI to New York, then back to Ohio, then back to New York (where all our stuff was still at the hotel), and then back home to Holland again.
The Dark Side of the Moon
April 8, 2024, 3:12 PM
Canon EOS R7
TAMRON SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 A022 @ 600 mm
¹⁄₂₅ sec at ƒ / 6.3
ISO 100
This I would say is the next big highlight of the eclipse trip. I wanted to do something more than just the eclipse as I saw it, I wanted to do a little art with the eclipse as well. This image is a composite of 3 images, The eclipse itself taken in 2024, the moon is from a 2020 shot blended in to show sharper details from what I caught, and the stars were added in from a 2016 shot, and that was for fun. You may think this is cheating, but not I. On the day, I was able to faintly see a few stars in the sky (and I think Mars or Jupiter if I have my planets correct), and you can see the details of the moon if the conditions and camera settings are just right. I used my photoshop skills and knowledge to take this shot to the next stage. If you still thinks it’s cheating, you're more than welcome to replace this image in your mind with my diamond ring shot of the eclipse if you prefer.
Dancing Lights
May 10, 2024, 10:50 PM
Canon EOS R7
EF-S24mm f/2.8 STM @ 24 mm
2.5 sec at ƒ / 2.8
ISO 400
So we had the celestial wonder of the total eclipse in April this year, then nature decides to tack on another wonder (for me) with a freak solar storm that resulted in Northern Lights in May way farther south than is usual. Before this year, I thought the way I’d finally capture this wonder would be by taking a special trip for them, and still I would have to get lucky enough to see them in that case. Never did I expect that I’d see them in my own backyard in Holland, MI. This particular shot makes it into my top 10 this year not only because of the amazing fact that it happened not once, but twice this year (the second time being in October), but of all the shots I got this year of the aurora, this one I consider to be the money shot. The lights have the classic swirl in the light pattern that I was hoping for at the moment, and the way the lights rise through the image, appearing to sprout from the branches of the dead trees in the little “valley” of the tree line is just perfect!
Garter Snake
September 8, 2024, 11:55 AM
Canon EOS R7
RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM @ 150 mm
¹⁄₆₀ sec at ƒ / 6.3
ISO 500
This little guy makes it into my top 10 this year simply because….he’s a snake! I have a really hard time finding these guys, and when I do, they' usually notice me first and are lost in the brush before I can get a shot of it. It’s a relatively simple shot, but I love the fact that I got it.
Harvest Mist
October 14, 2024, 9:37 AM
Canon EOS R7
RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM @ 125 mm
¹⁄₁₂₅ sec at ƒ / 11
ISO 200
Here we are, the last image of my top 10 photos of 2024. Remember at the beginning of this blog where I mention fog is a great element in landscape photos? Same goes for mist rising from bodies of water. While in the U.P. this fall, one of the days had no plans for specific photography. I was in an area where there was not a lot of iconic locations, so the plan for the day was to wander (somewhat) aimlessly, and when things catch my eye, photograph it. This sight at Witch Lake was one of those sights! With a slight orange hue from the fleeting sunrise light, I enhanced it in processing and boosted the contrast to emphasize the mist and give the scene a feeling that screams of the season. This is a shot that I would definitely put in a frame on the wall, in fact, I did!
Well there you have it everyone, those were my top 10 photos of 2024! Now, let’s look forward to 2025, where I know I will create even more photos that will wow and delight my viewers/readers!
Happy New Year everyone!
