The best of 2010

It's along about this time of year I go through last year's pictures looking for what I think is the best. I can take 10k pictures in a year. Digital cameras have made it so easy! Just go ahead and click away it's not like you're spending anything on film.

It's a minor obsession and people are now so accustomed to me taking pictures of everything they don't even notice anymore.

My favorite picture from 2010 is:

Summer Table
For technical merit I love the light. I shot 6 frames of this table setting at different exposures and angles and I used a flash for a couple of frames. In fact here's the same picture in this post with a different crop and a flash filling in the shadows. I think the natural light however makes it feel more like summer and I like the long shadows. That was in August and I think it looks like it.

I like the composition. The salami platter leads your eye into the frame from the lower left corner where it then wants to run the length of the basket, curl around the caprese salad and run up along the bottle where it then exits the frame from the top right. I think it flows in a pleasant way.

And the subject of course is a favorite thing, at a favorite time of the year.

It's very hard to pick a single favorite from a year. I have a lot to choose from! But as I went back and forth I just kept coming back to that picture. The year had many highlights and lowlights and that picture makes me feel good.

I've talked about seasonal favorites here and here. One goes through dry spells now and then so sometimes I just don't have a seasonal favorite.

Oh and this, by the way, is my Spring 2010 favorite! But that's just me.

Spring 2010
You see, I remember that day like it was yesterday. You know that very first day in the Spring when it looks like Spring, it feels like Spring, and it smells like Spring? Where *everything* just says "Spring"? This was that day last year. L and I had the most enjoyable ride. I can't think of a better way to welcome the Spring and with the way I hate Winter that's a huge thing for me. I can get almost manic when I feel the Spring coming.

I find maybe 1k of those 10k pictures are worth keeping and some of those I think are quite good.

Some several lifetimes ago I made my living as a photographer. So let me share 3 secrets to taking good pictures:

• Learn some technique. You need to know how your camera works. Experiment and learn how the settings impact the image. And you don't need all kinds of equipment. I have a "nice" camera and I take *tons* of pictures with a little compact pocket camera. And you know what? I've taken the same pictures with the "nice" camera and the pocket camera and compared them and find the images generally compare favorably.
  
• Learn composition. There are some hard and fast rules but the one of the best ways to learn about composition is to study things you like. When you see a picture you like in a magazine stop and look at it. Study it. Try to figure out what it is you like about it. Do the same thing when you watch TV. Or see a movie.
  And, as part of learning composition, be mindful of backgrounds! The single biggest mistake most people make is looking at what they're taking a picture of. Rather than looking at the whole picture.
  
• Take lots of pictures! Odds are when you take a lot of pictures some of them are bound to be pretty good.