While I’ve never been one to put huge significance on the changing of a year, it turns out I’ve been doing these retrospectives on my work for almost a decade now. Generally speaking, it’s a rather healthy way to see where I’ve come from and how my work has progressed. While selecting images for 2021, it became quite obvious that I’ve been putting an even stronger emphasis on work from the prairie as this landscape has really been speaking to me on a personal level. I understand these types of images may not appeal to the widest audience, but it’s been rewarding to seek out new images and build a stronger body of work on this subject.
That’s not to say that I didn’t give the mountains a solid try! During the brief summer season I did several backpacking trips in Montana, Colorado, and my most strenuous one ever in Wyoming. We all know that this year was plagued by frequent dense wildfire smoke and the worst of it seemed to line up with every trip I had planned. This resulted in plenty of miles hiked, but a summer that was less photographically productive that I would have liked. Not complaining at all, but let’s hope for better conditions when I hit the high country next summer.
From a business standpoint, I want to thank you all for a wildly successful year! I couldn’t do this without your support, from those of you who purchased prints at my art shows to those who enjoy my educational material and film scanning services. This year I launched my new ebook Large Format Film Photography which seems to be much appreciated by both new and experienced photographers. Seriously, it means the world to me to have this outstanding support from the film community and art collectors. A huge thank you to all of you!
I’m going to keep this post short and let the photos do the rest of the talking. In no particular order, here’s a selection of my personal favorite images from 2021. Some of these hold more value to me than they may to the general audience, but that’s the whole point of this post. Do you have a favorite image? Leave a comment below to start the conversation.
Thanks for reading along, get ready for new images, fresh educational blog posts, and more in the coming year. I wish you all a great 2022!