Crest, Cliff & Canyon

Happy New Year! I ventured out yesterday hoping for one last keeper image on my birthday, but it was not to be. Sunset was beautiful, but not photogenic, at least not where I was. But that means the annual favorites collection is ready to go on New Years Day for once.

I wrote in my 2024 favorites post that it was an “uneven” year, and 2025 proved no different. I did a lot of local shooting early in the year, then was derailed. If I have a 2026 photography resolution, it’s that I must photograph more of spring this year. Summer brought some good trips experience-wise, but they were only moderately photographic. Once again, the year’s output was heavily weighted towards autumn, not in itself a bad thing, but it’s starting to feel like a rut.

Apropos of 2026, you may be recalling that you need a calendar, or another calendar, or someone you know needs a calendar. You’d make me happy if it were mine! That said, let’s get to favorite images.

Perhaps the most epic scene in this collection came from our little Palouse River during one of its personality changes, plunging over Palouse falls in winter high flow:

The Palouse again, in hibernation mode:

Journey into a blank slate:

The Palouse once more, still calm, still cold, but content in its lovely little canyon:

This one is, ironically, my absolute personal favorite of the year, ironic in that it was purely messing around, a handheld grab shot at the sturgeon hatchery. Nothing in it is sharp and nothing needs to be, just surface shimmer hiding something magical:

One of my very few spring images this year, made in the excellent company of Colleen Miniuk – hosting Colleen for a presentation to my local camera club was certainly a highlight of the year!

It’s always nice to make the acquaintance of a new Idaho river, this one being as far north as it gets in the Gem State:

Forest light on swift water:

The big event of our summer was being generously taken on a family cruise to southeast Alaska. Though very far from our usual travel style, it was a good time, but challenging to photograph, for reasons I may discuss more in the future. It was impossible not to love the scenery, though. This early morning lighthouse in Lynn Canal was a personal favorite view.

And leaving Juneau in the late evening twilight, we had what I expect is rare good luck to get a clear view up Taku Inlet to the giant peaks on the Alaska-B.C. border. The big group here is Devils Paw, and that outrageous spire on the left is called Michaels Sword.

My favorite trips this year were a couple explorations of the delightfully obscure highland country in north-central Washington.

Inland Northwest forest understory in autumn is always wonderful, even when it’s breezy.

Is there greater joy than witnessing the return of moisture after a long dry time?

I shot a lot of intimate autumn scenes, and picking favorites is necessarily arbitrary. But I love this one for the harmony between the red understory and the ponderosa bark, and for the aspens, a beloved tree that I don’t see enough of here in the Northwest. It was good to have aspens in my life again this fall.

One thing I genuinely love about Washington is how idyllic its valleys and low country can feel:

The last months have been stormy, turbulent and dark, lots of atmospheric drama but without the clean blessing of winter snow. We keep on hoping that winter’s proper white calm is coming soon.