September Theme - Favorite Image

I thought it would be interesting to see those one or two images from everyone's portfolio that are your personal favorites. It doesn't have to necessarily be your "best" image, but your favorite. Maybe it reveals something about you as a photographer, your appreciation for certain subjects, or just a spectacular moment captured on film or sensor.

If you had to throw every image you've ever made except for one or two, which ones would you keep?

p.s. ...and feel free to tell us why it's your favorite!

Wow what a treat! Ok here's my First all time Fave!

And this would be my second most fave image.

This shot of Dream Lake was with my Sony P&S on my first vacation where one of my objectives was to "take pictures". I had been to Dream before and couldn't wait to return to capture more of its beauty to take home with me.

This is a shot of my grandpa, who passed away this year. Despite not seeing him as much as I should over the last few years of his life, we were always close. He died doing what he loved, which was working on his farm. He always had a Border Collie at his side. This particular dog is named Jo, and she still lives with my Grandma. This photo was taken during the fall wheat planting season and moves me more than any other photo I've ever taken.

This brings back memories of a very peaceful day in a quiet spot.

Roger, this Aspen Grove image is awesome!

What a cool idea for a theme, and some great/interesting shots so far. i think ill shoot my favorite photo next week.

SELF-

EXPLANATORY

Great theme, and nice shots so far. I like the personal interpretations too.

This is probably my favorite since I've been shooting digital. It would be interesting to revisit some of my favorite slides.

Columbines are always a favorite of mine.

Columbine - Yankee Boy Basin - 2005

Another recent favorite. I love the sensual lines and deep light. It reminds me of a great day deep in a very cool canyon.

This is probably my all time favorite one. I think I posted it somewhere else on this site, but this is currently my favorite. Maybe with the fall colors coming I'll find one I will like better......never know....with my upcoming planned backpack trip into Deluge Lake.......hmmmmmmmm

This is a great topic and great photos so far!

This photo is one of the first ones I ever took with a digital camera. I was walking along the beach in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, which is along the Outer Banks. I had my dad's Canon Powershot Digital Elph 4.0 Megapixel camera with me. He had just purchased it shortly before the trip and I asked if I could check it out. After we got home and I looked at this photo, I was inspired to learn more about digital photography. Within 3 months I purchased the same camera and a new hobby was born!

Yes great theme for sure! And already some super posts here.
So here is my first most favorite from El Dorado Canyon last Fall. It was juried in to a show this summer. I love the vibrant colors in the rocks and how that gold color flows down the front of the rock.
John

And here is number two taken this winter. Also entered in a juried show. I enjoy high key winter shots.

I love that second one, John, but would HIGHLY recommend a thin keyline around it, so we can tell where it ends.

Hawaii - 2005

Gecko looking for lunch on a Bird of Paradise

Hopefully I'll have some good stuff from my vacation starting Sept 15th and can add a new favorite by the end of the month.

Mt. Sneffles area last September after a very dreary, rainy day. i had just about given up thoughts of shooting when lo and behold...

Lo and behold: three of my favorite words.

My favorite subject has to be the small pockets of grasslands that dot the Colorado Front Range....And most of my "favorite" images are usually my latest ones...so here is a recent one

I consider this as a great example of "Texas hospitality" - a Green Heron helping a frog cross an alligator infested pond

It's one of those opportunistic "grab" shots. As I was busy photographing birds across a small lake, this heron creeped up behind me and caught a frog just a few feet away. To get a clear shot, I had to hand hold a 500mm lens with 2xTC. No time to remove the TC or get the tripod set up. I was certain that I had botched the opportunity since I could barely keep the bird in the view finder and got off only 4 shots before it flew away with lunch. So, that evening I was thrilled when this came up on the screen - ISO 800 and 1/1250 sec, wide open, saved the day!

The image won first place in Nature-Wildlife category of the 2006 BP International Photo Competition.

That's a great shot Bill.

Here's a couple of mine. This one is from Bear Lake last fall. When I got there I was kind of bummed there weren't many leaves on the trees left because of wind storms, but it still turned out alright. Kind of reminds me of Jesse's shot of Capitol Peak from a couple of years ago, even though the leaves weren't at "peak" here I still got a nice shot.

Here's one from summer 2006 at the Maroon Lake loop hike. Even though this isn't a reflection shot at the lake, I really dig the bells and the fireweed that I saw then.

Denali from Reflection Pond ~ Denali National Park, Alaska

I shot this the morning of summer solstice 1993. I was very much at a crossroads in my life. This mountain and the landscape around it helped me learn who I was and who I wanted to become. The combination of grand scenery and solitude I experienced that summer are precious memories. That's why this image will always be a personal favorite.

And damn, how I wish I had this on 4x5 Velvia!

Beautiful, Scott!
Joshua, I love the light on the pines in your first one.

Great stuff so far, everyone!

To Joshua Hardin, I really like that early morning shot with Longs in it. very well captured. Love that golden warmth

Stunning work everyone! It's difficult to know what my best is because I feel I'm no where near where I want to be as a photographer. That said, I chose two to post here. The first is one taken at the Great Sand Dunes. It's flawed aesthetically because of all the footprints but the light is what makes it memorable for me.

Pam

The second post is one near and dear to my heart. It took me a year to complete with one retake due to spring having not sprung yet. I worked up several versions of this poster and this is the result. I am very happy to report it is now offered for sale at Webers Books in Breckenridge. I owe a great deal of thanks to Todd Caudle for pointing me in that direction

Pam

This is one of my favorites, more because of the memories than the quality of photo. It is of Jokulsarlon , Iceland. This was my first international trip, and my favorite place in Iceland. It is a lagoon by the ocean where part of the largest glacier in Iceland ends. This photo was taken at about 11:00 PM on the summer solstice. My brother and I camped here that night, not another person around. All through the night you could hear the ocean waves crashing on the shore in one direction and icebergs calving into the lagoon from the other. A truly magical place in my memories.

May not be my number 1 favorite, but I'm quite fond of it since its completely original.

Well I have quite a few "favorite images" but since I am supposed to the the "master of grass" I guess I need to choose this one . It was the first image that opened my eyes up to the possibilities, has won several awards and is consistently one of my best sellers

I'll see one of Todd's dawgs and raise one of my own from on top redcloud in the san juans

Oh, and here's another, my other pal in Cochise Stronghold :-)

OK here is mine, one of the first shots I took that I really liked, Fall morning on the Poudre and the Heron shows up in the middle of the viewfinder, I got lucky. I was happy with the view without the heron and mallards.

Bill

I can't help it i just luuuv tigers.

Bill

Well I'm surprised we haven't seen more posts on this topic. Are people having difficulty deciding? For myself, I've been traveling (still am; in Ningbo, China right now) and haven't had a good opportunity before now to post my faves. These are chosen primarily for nostalgia purposes as they represent my favorite places on earth: China and Utah. But I am not ashamed of them from an artistic POV, and they also represent my two strongest themes: nature and night cityscapes. This first one, hardly a nature photo, is from Shanghai two summers ago. At full size it has scrumptious colors, values, and details. Kodak Ultracolor UC400 in medium format. Hopefully the levels look good as I tweaked them on my laptop, an unfamiliar platform for image editing. -Don

And here's my second: I will not identify the exact location publicly, but you can email me for it if you wish. If, as Ed Abbey said, the Escalante is the heart of the Colorado Plateau, this spot is perhaps the Escalante's left ventricle. The speck on the flat rock by the stream is an adult woman, just to give some scale. Also Kodak UC400 in medium format.

Well here's one I kind of like. This web version doesn't quite stack up to the 30x40 I'm looking at on my wall, but oh well!!!

John

My "favorite" = "most recent" oftentimes. The freshness and excitement of my recent experiences in nature is generally what keeps me going. And so it goes with the images I make. So here's one from this summer. This image represents a lot for me, a sacred place, a unique moment, new directions and so on.

And there's always one of my favorite landscapes, for the photo and for the story around the photo ...
http://www.jessespeer.com/photo.php?id=52&gallery=photography&page=4

Incredible image John, talk about a grand landscape!

Thats an awesome image Jesse, great tones and composition.

Wow, there have been some absolutely killer posts in this thread.

John: I can't even imagine why you would be so enamored of that Sneffel's photo. Seriously, it's one of the absolute finest I've seen from that area.

Jesse: Your Tetons image is stunning and has long been a favorite of mine.

Here's my contribution. It certainly isn't my best photo but it was the first time I saw one of my slides on a light table and went, "Holy crap, I did that?!" It was also the first time the photo lab guys gave me props on anything of mine they had processed.

Great shot Bret (is it Ranier?). I remember the first shot I ever took that I really liked too!!

This thread has an amazing variety of shots. I can't wait to see what the second half of the month brings.

John

This has always been one of my favorites as it just sums up fall for me. I was just browsing my photos one day and felt compelled to mess around with this one, and after many hours of trial and error using the lasso tool to select the leaf, I came up with this, which is just desaturating everything but the leaf.

John, it is Mt. Rainier. I was supposed to be climbing it with some friends who were on the mountain when this image was made. A week before the trip I broke my hand and couldn't hold on to an ice axe. Thanks for the comment!

Chris: I really like that photo. Super cool and well worth the effort you put into it.

My current favorites:
Memorial Day at Kenosha Pass
The local fauna

I've always had a thing for layers in photographs, which Kenosha Pass provided most spectacularly that day. And the cat, well, she's my baby and it's probably the best classic portrait-style shot I've ever taken of her.

Geez Rick, this is like asking a parent "so, which kid is your favorite?" Nice images, folks.

This bull bison image came at a time when I was trying to develop the bison storyline for my book - when there were no wild bison on the Colorado plains. For me, it captures the window to the soul and intimacy that I was after.

Yeah Dave, I know what you mean. I asked my parents that question once, and they said that they didn't have a favorite. A perfect answer....if I weren't an only child....

Here's one of my favorites. This was one of the first times that I really worked hard at previsualizing the scene AND had the image work out as I had imagined. It's also the place that Jennifer and I returned to years later to marry.

Swamp Lake near the Beartooth Wilderness, WY

My wife enjoying Maui...why not.

This image of a 1/2 Dead Tree is from Capital Reef Nation Park a while ago. It was probably the 1st time I consciously changed the image and asked myself how to change the image to make it better. Then I waited for the light to be just right and walla!!

And since others have great dog pics I had to add this one. This is Ginger . One of the best dogs I have ever known and we still miss her terribly since losing her to cancer last year.

RichieV

This was taken in the Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park, it was the last night of a 2 week trip that included Great Basin NP, Yosemite, Death Valley, Arches, and Sequoia NP. It was the only night of 14 that had clouds at sunset, so it was a special end to a great trip.