This year has flown by really quickly and took me kind of off guard as far as coming up with my Best of 2022 or favorite images of the year. This is a group of images that I both enjoyed making and really love. I hope you all enjoy them as well!
“Loon Lake Pink Fog”“Point Betsie Sunset 1”“Kingsville At Home Again”“The Way You Move Me”“Light of the Pines”“Greening of the Forest Floor”“Spring Tulips 1”
“Detroit Skyline 101”“Solar Burst Summer 2”“Lake Erie Lights and Reflections”
2022 was a really different year for me. These past 2 years honestly have been quite unusual for me and all of us I’m sure, in one way or another.
I hope that the New Year, 2023 brings all of you excellent health, great experiences, wonderful times with friends and family, and joy and success in your lives!
As winter is nearing its end I am looking forward to spring wholeheartedly! I thought I’d bring you just a little taste of late spring from last year. These images were all made in and around The Royal Botanical Gardens near Hamilton, Ontario. Honestly I could spend hours a day in each of the many garden areas they have! These images are just a few to give you a jump start on your spring. I hope they give you a feeling of happiness!
“Rock Garden Peace and Beauty”“Follow the Reflections” “Finding Our Way”“Orange Poppy Twirl” “Light Pink Peonies in Sunlight”“Pink Peony Cluster”
I wish you all a very happy end of winter as we head into warmer and more colorful times!
As we’ve just passed spring tulip time, I wanted to share with you a couple of lovely and fresh spring tulip images. These are very subtle in color and to me have a light and airy feeling. I wanted to portray soft sunlight and a different type of look than my usual bright and very colorful images.
“Light and Lovely Tulips”
I hope you enjoy the simplicity and quiet beauty of these lovely tulips!
“Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen ~
I was fortunate to be able to attend The 2017 Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan this spring. I have been one other time but that particular year the tulips hadn’t even begun to bloom.
I was rewarded with beautiful tulips and daffodils this year at the festival, among many other types of flowers.
The lovely purple tulips above were some of the last I was able to see that day as the sun got lower in the sky.
The images below give you some idea of the abundance of tulips and wonderful color there at the Tulip Festival!
“Daffodil Tripartite In Sunlight” Just lovely little daffodils set against brightly colored tulips at The 2017 Tulip Festival in Holland, MI.
“Tulips in Rows” Beautiful rows of tulips with trees and flags in the background at The Tulip Festival.
“Tulip Festival Holland” Enjoying all of the many varieties of tulips at The 2017 Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan!
Spring has finally arrived here and even though almost nothing has bloomed yet in terms of flowers, I always enjoy when plants of any type start bursting forth from the ground. In this case actually from the shallow waters of a pond, just a preview of things to come.
In this photograph of aquatic reflections you can see the reflection of trees as well as that of the sky and clouds in both the foreground and background. Green plants that are growing just below the water’s surface are beautiful, as well as the vertical shadows that the cattails cast on the surface of the water.
This is a very simple composition, and I like all of the elements it has. Originally I thought of this only as a color photograph because of the beautiful greens, as a sign of spring.
I decided to do a black and white conversion though and really liked the feeling of contrast in the image as well.
I’m really looking forward to the changes this spring will bring, and surely hoping that we won’t have any more freezing temperatures that damage blossoms this year!
I wish a very happy spring to all of you, with plenty of outdoor adventures and beauty!
“Pond Plants in Reflection” Cattails in the shallow depths of a pond in spring with reflections and shadows!
Well, now that spring is fully here in Michigan, I have been thoroughly enjoying our warmer weather, and taking the time to go out in search of what is blooming. I had been afraid with a couple of late freezes we had that some early bloomers would have been affected. Thankfully most everything came through unscathed!
The daffodils this year got pelted with a bit of spring snow early on, but as you can see from these images, they rebounded nicely and we had some really beautiful blooms!
“Daffodils in Sunlight” Sun drenched daffodils on a spring day!
I have been out nearly daily in the last week or so in search of blossoming crab-apples of various kinds, as well as cherry and apple trees. I have found many beauties, but this one is the first one I have processed of the flowering tree blossoms. A lovely white crab-apple with a bokeh-licious background in raspberry pink!
“White Blossoms on Raspberry” Beautiful crab-apple blossoms against a background of raspberry.
Another beautiful daffodil enjoying the warmth of the sun!
“Daffodils within a Dream” Sun drenched daffodils on a windy day!
For some reason, I usually miss the hellebore coming into bloom each year, but this year was different! I actually got to witness several different varieties in bloom!
These were beautiful in a pinkish purple hue!
“Hellebore in Deep Pink” Really lovely pink Hellebore , fully open.
Spring seems to pass by so quickly, and in no time at all it will soon be summer, but I will be outdoors as much as possible while the air is still a bit cooler, the rain more frequent, and the mosquitoes not out in force yet, enjoying all the spring finds that I can!
I hope that wherever you live, you make sure and take plenty of time to enjoy your outdoor environment too! 🙂
We may still be in the thick of winter but my thoughts are now of spring! I have been going back over some of my spring photographs from last year and really enjoying the beautiful colors and delicate blossoms. I decided to process a few images for everyone else to enjoy also.
If you’re stuck indoors on a cold and dull winter day, just have a look at what awaits us in just a few months! Think spring!
“Fresh as Morning Air” Delicate white apple blossoms after a spring rain!
“Foggy Spring Morning” Sunlight, fog, and haze glow behind a wonderful apple tree in spring!
“Feel the Love” Gorgeous deep pinkish purple crab-apple blossoms!
“Floating Raindrops in Spring” One spring morning just as a rain was ending I was in search of trees in bloom. I found these apple trees surrounded by daffodils. Sunlight shown through some of the remaining drops of rain as they fell from the trees. What a beautiful spring morning it was!
Here we are at the end of 2015, and what a year it’s been! As I’ve done for the past four years in a row, I am posting my favorite images of this past year. Not necessarily the best, but my personal faves. It was hard to narrow it down to only ten, but I finally did after a lot of going back and forth. These are not in any particular order and are of several different subjects. I hope you enjoy them! If you would like to look at my 2014 year in review you can check that out here. Best of 2014
Jim Goldstein in his Blog Project has hosted the year in review or top 10 images on his blog for a number of years, and I always look forward to it!  There are photographers from all around the world with amazing images! I hope you’ll check out his blog and take a look at the wonderful array of photographers and gather inspiration from their images! His post should be up in the early part of January 2016!
“Kayaking at Miners Falls” Gorgeous blue waters of Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore in summer!
“Great Lakes Autumn Waves” A beautiful and windy day on Lake Superior near Munising in autumn!
“One Very Fine Day” This was a fabulous day in Marquette Michigan on Presque Isle Park!
“Life is But a Dream” This was one special sunset on Lake Michigan! The waters were like glass, and the whole world seemed alive with the colors of sunset. There were several people kayaking and canoeing on the smooth water! Dreamy!
“My Sweet Lady” This year was a great year for peonies! I particularly loved this huge specimen!!
“Grape Hyacinth”2 One of many beautiful Grape Hyacinth this spring!
“Beautiful Cedar Falls” I had the opportunity to go to Hocking Hills in Hocking County Ohio this summer. The many waterfalls in the location and the amazing rock formations were wonderful! The summer was a dry one, so the water flow wasn’t as strong as I would have liked, but it was beautiful to me anyway!
“Afternoon in Shades of Gray” This scene in late fall with a beautiful snow just begged for black and white processing!
“Sweet Potato Mash” I had a year with a lot of motion blur abstracts, and this is one of my favorites!
“Song of Light” A bokeh delight in the fresh summer grass! One of my favorite bokeh-licious abstracts this year!
As we end this year and head into 2016, I’d like to wish everyone and their families all the best in the New Year. I wish you all good health, good times, plenty of adventures and family to enjoy it with!
I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes:
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. Â ~Â Edward Abbey ~
I’d like to share with you one of my favorite times of year at Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The time when The Peony Gardens come to life!
In early June, depending on the weather, these beautiful show stoppers begin to make their appearance. For the next couple of weeks you’ll have the opportunity to stroll through and enjoy these gorgeous peonies!
Below you’ll find a few of my images of the Peonies at Nichols Arboretum with a brief description underneath.
I have many more photos of peonies of every variety in my online galleries if you’d like to take a look!
“Dusted in Yellow” Beautiful red peonies with a large golden center, fully opened to the morning sunlight!
“Nestled Peonies” A lovely group of pink peonies nestled within their green foliage!
“Pink Sorbet” That’s what this gorgeous puffy and full blossom reminds me of. I also love the mottled pink color, not found in other peonies that I’ve seen before!
“Ahead of the Crowd” Lovely light pink peonies with ruffled petals against a background of white peonies!
“Peony Garden Stroll” Some peony admirers strolling through the Peony Gardens at Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor Michigan!
I hope you enjoyed this stroll through a very special place, and time of year! A morning of Peonies at Nichols Arboretum!
With spring in full swing here I thought I’d bring you a few of the recent images from what seems to be about peak for our spring happenings, at least as far as tree blossoms go!
The crabapple blossoms were amazing this year, so here is just one variety in beautiful soft sunlight!
“Crabapple Blossoms”
We had a robin nesting in a magnolia tree. I wasn’t able to get close to the nest for three reasons. Firstly I didn’t want to disturb the nesting process. Second the nest happened to be higher up than I could see into, and thirdly the robins were so protective that even coming withing twenty feet or so, they’d start swooping down on me! I took this image as the robin perched in a nearby crabapple tree as the blossoms were just starting to come out.
I never got to see it but the Robin’s eggs did hatch and the baby birds were born and eventually flew away without me being able to see more than a peak of a baby beak!
“Robin in Spring”
I love Hostas and they came up pretty quickly this year. I went out after a spring rain one day and made a few nature-abstract images with these beautiful plants. Here is just one example.
“Hosta in the Rain”
I hope you enjoyed a bit of my local spring happenings, and I hope whether your area of the world is in spring or fall, that you are experiencing a beautiful season!
