Well it’s that time of the year again to review my work from last year and narrow it down to my top ten shots. I’ve been doing this each year now for quite a few years, thanks to Martin Bailey of the Martin Bailey photography pod cast.  https://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/blog/

Each Year Martin goes through his top then shot for the year and explains the pain of discarding so many great shots to narrow it down to just ten. Each year I feel his pain as it really is so difficult to throw out the last ten from your final twenty. So here’s my final ten, though my second ten could have so easily been a complete set of ten in their own right. I also did a top nine from Instagram this year and I’m any to see one of my top ten here was also what was picked for my top nine form Instagram likes. Though my top nine from Instagram were all bird shots and that’s entirely based on likes, a program automatically generates your top nine based on likes. Where as my top ten here is based on my selections of my years work.

So on with the top ten.

First up first of Three Fungi shots for the year, Again using two off camera speed lights one with a brown gel to give the warm soft light, these are focus stacked to give the great detail. Love all the fine details in the gills on these.

Next up is a shot from Strahan Tasmania an early morning shot before the wind had a chance to ripple the water giving a near perfect mirror reflection. The different coloured wooden row boats just adds to this shot.

The next show was also taken in Tasmania and is at Cradle Mountain, most shots in the area or around Dove lake and the Cradle, which I also got a few but this shot is of this little wooden cabin which was an old Bath house for the guests that stayed in the area.  Considering it snows in the area any time of the year, the Warm bath would come in handy.

The next shot also from my Tasmanian trip is of a small troupe of Fungi growing on top of an old log in the forest. Again light with two off camera speedlites and focus stacked.

This next one the first of three Bird shots in my top ten is of a Silvereye (Zosterops Lateralis) this ones taking in my local Botanic Gardens, the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, which is only a few minutes from my place and can be seen from my window, the Gardens have over 184 different Bird Species known within the gardens and has 12 km of roads within the gardens. I usually spend a few hours each weekend in the gardens there looking for the different Birds and Fungi to shoot. This year I ran a series of photography Workshops with the gardens and more are planned for this year.  This shot the Silvereye I’ve had printed large in A2 size print then matted and framed it, White mate and black frame its hanging in my Mother’s house on a Green wall the same colour as the background so looks great colour wise on the wall.

This next one is of a pair of Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) as they chased each other over one the lakes in the Botanic Gardens. Towards the end of the day if I’m still in the gardens I’ll go to the lakes and practice my panning shots on the swallows, if I can get the fast moving swallows I’ll be able to get most birds, so these make great practice for me, this time the sun was setting so the golden light on the water and two birds in the one shot so happy with this one, and the water colours make it just that more interesting.

Later on in the year I made a trip to Western Australia for three weeks photography so a good year for photography travel for me. This shots of an old shearing wool shed still in use. Walking into this shed is like walking back in time so I gave it the works post processing wise and really happy with the results here, Its had a bit of everything Lightroom, photoshop and silver effects as well, so been though a lot of processing far more than I normal do, but this case it worked out well. The shearing wool shed was at Murchison house station Kalbarri Western Australia and well worth the stop just for the shearing shed, I took quite a few shots in the shed that day.

This next one also taken at Kalbarri Western Australia, taken from the cliff tops at sun set. Slow exposure to get the motion in the waves while getting a moment when the fishermen on the rocks stayed still long enough to capture them. The sun still has the golden light lighting up the cliff faces, so everything came together for this shot.

This next one is again of a Fungi in the Australian Botanic Gardens and is of a Stink horn not one of the most prettiest of fungi usually but with the low shot, and the lighting this one came out well, so goes to show you don’t always need the prettiest of subjects to make a great shot.  Two off camera speedlites and focus stacked. All the Fungi shots are taken with an old Canon 60D so also showing you don’t always need the latest gear. Having said that all the landscape shots are with the Canon 5Dmk4 and the bird shots are the 7DmkII with Sigma 150 to 600 sports, not the lightest of lenses but really happy with the results I get out of that as this next shot show.

The last shot from this years top ten is of a rainbow Bee-eater (Merops Ornatus) this one wasn’t taken in the local Botanic Gardens but the nearby Nepean River at Camden about 15 minutes drive so not far. This shot has captured the bird as it does its stretching exercises prior to its next flight.

So all up another good years worth of shots. Early December I bought myself a Canon Pro-1000 Printer so I’m now starting to print my own work rather than send out for prints so this years project will be learning to get the most out of the printer, with the aim of at least one print a day, so far since I’ve had it I’m managed that so going well, this will push my photography to the next level as images that are acceptable on the screen soon show up any small faults in the print so working to get better results pus learn the new world of printing, I’ve booked myself in to a framing course in February as well so I can learn all the tricks there as well. So another interesting year coming up. Plus a Series of photography workshops being run in conjunction with the Australian Botanic Gardens, so busy times ahead. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, for my top ten shots of 2017.

Glenn.