Two of the photographer blogs I read regularly, Alexandre Buisse and Cody Duncan, both recently made posts containing their favorite pictures of 2011. While I am neither as talented nor as well followed as either of these two photographers I thought it would be fun to post my favorites from this year along with a few words about the image. In chronological order here they are: …
My first trip up to Huntington Ravine could not have been on a better day. Well maybe slightly warmer, but the sun was shining and winds were low. An amazing alpine day up on Mt. Washington.
In April I went out to Red Rock to climb with my friend Mark again. On our hike up Juniper Canyon we got a beautiful view of the Rainbow Wall and its arching roofs. Our climb was a bit easier and less committing that the routes that go up that wall. The views and the climbing were great on Black Dagger (5.7+).
Deep soulful eyes of Sampson, one of the Brenner’s Great Pyrenees guard dogs. He’s very friendly, once he knows you are a friend.
Another dog picture already! Here’s Singer one of my most favorite doggies. Well this picture is more of her nose but what a nose! I actually kind of like the shallow depth of field in this shot, but it would have been nice to see all of her face in focus too.
In June I went back to the Whitney-Gilman Ridge (5.7) on Cannon Mtn. Me an Chris had the climb to ourselves in the misty morning. It is a good climb with plenty of exposure. The rock quality is kind of low but such a fun climb nonetheless. I like how the rope is in frame and in motion too.
Ben making the dyno move on Jaguar (5.10) at Cathole. His expression and slight motion blur give a good sense of the commitment needed for this move. Most people do it in a dyno.
For my Presidential Traverse attempt in September we got an alpine start, 3am. Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish the Traverse but the early start did afford us an amazing sunrise bathing Mt. Washington in a warm glow despite the snow in the upper elevations.
Again from the Presidential Traverse hike. The sun rising on this cold windy morning was by far the best part of the whole weekend.
So it should be pretty obvious that with three photos from the same trip I had some good luck photographically. This is Crystal Cascade above Pinkham Notch on the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. I’m sure there are thousands of this same shot out there since there is a well defined viewing area of these falls. I think this turned out great, especially since this is without a proper tripod. I only used the rock wall and my wool hat to stabilize the camera for this shot.
I don’t have much to say about this one other than it was a fun weekend at the Parson’s Family Farm. This frost only stuck around until the sun hit it and then it melted away. Some of the first images shot with my Canon 70-200mm F4L with 2X Extender.