Your favorite photo of 2011

[gaiagirl]

RE: Snowy owl pic

Gahhhhh!!! So jealous of the quality of this (and lots of others here, too). I've stopped hiking with my only decent camera because I killed my last one hiking and because it's just a bit too big to drag along in the pack. I can't afford a particularly good one anyway. Someday ....

K, J, and E ---- was this taken at Salisbury State Reservation? Last time I was there all I saw was fat, happy harbor seals . Had more luck last weekend in Rowley, MA with the sandhill cranes, though.

Amazing pics everyone. Thanks for sharing!!

 

[TrishandAlex]

Alex hams it up, her shirt inside out and backward, while Sage throws a bunch of good-natured heckles. Guadalupe Peak, Texas, Sept 10, 2011.

 

[Fisher Cat]

my fave

Forester Jake took this shot of me with all my Historical circa 1740'sTrekking gear atop Garfield for my wife's 48 Finish:

 

[Kevin Judy and Emma]

Nice!

Awesome stuff here, keep 'em comin'!

@ Gaiagirl- Yes, Salisbury Reservation. I saw someone else had pictures of the Sandhill Cranes on another site. I didn't even know you could see them around here, and I call myself a lifelong amateur birder... I hope I get to see them someday!

KDT

 

[Cymbidium]

Great stuff everyone. I will have to look at some of my 2011 photos!

 

[Chip]

There's something about this pic that I'm anthropomorphizing . If it was a tri-fold in the center of a magazine, I'd look twice at it.
Nice work.

Katahdin from Sandy Stream Pond.

 

[ksearl]

Your photo definitely has potential if you're willing to edit it a little bit in an image editing program.

A lot of the "greatness" of everyone elses photo has to do with how most of the photos in this thread are cropped. Try cropping out the sky on your photo so that the focus is on the mountains instead (the human eye tends to get drawn towards big open blank spots in pictures). This will also make it more panoramic, which emphasizes the height of the mountains more. Showing so much sky makes the mountains seem puny in comparison.

Another thing you can do is crop out some of one of the edges... with nature photography, you often don't want the focus of your photo centered, but 1/3 of the way from either side. Since Chocorua is the focus of your photo, I'd try cropping off a little bit of the left side of the photo so that the peak is 1/3 the width from the left side of the photo, and 2/3 the width from the right side.

I hope you don't mind, I took your photo and made both of these changes to give you an idea of how it would look. I also adjusted the contrast and saturation slightly (I'd wager that very few of the above photos haven't had either adjusted at least a little bit!). With only about a minute's worth of work, it looks like this:

Give both of these a try if/when you get a chance, and see how it looks (I use picasa for my image editing- it's a great program for making adjustments to photos quickly and easily, with plenty of automatic options that do the work for you)... After you do so, you'll also be able to upload a higher resolution photo without it being huge, which will make it easier to see detail.

DSettahr - Thanks for the feedback! It's too funny that I was reading your comments and looking at the picture you edited, not realizing you edited it! And I was like "huh, I think I did a lot of those things he's mentioning"...and then read that you edited it! Anyway, it got a chuckle out of me Yes, you did a great job with it and it looks much better now. Again, thanks for the tips and feedback. I'm going to download Picasa tonight.

Karl

 

[Elizabeth]

This one is of my dog Salty, about to finish his 48th NH 4,000-footer on Mt. Bond (ahead, hidden in the mist). Didn't think I'd be taking a shot like this one when he was diagnosed with canine lymphoma nine months previous, and given only ~8 months survival prognosis.



The Ridge by Elizabeth W.K., on Flickr

 

[ADKdremn]

Three generations on Noonmark.

 

[Ed'n Lauky]

This one is of my dog Salty, about to finish his 48th NH 4,000-footer on Mt. Bond (ahead, hidden in the mist). Didn't think I'd be taking a shot like this one when he was diagnosed with canine lymphoma nine months previous, and given only ~8 months survival prognosis.



The Ridge by Elizabeth W.K., on Flickr

I absolutely love that picture, but you know my weakness.

 

[pudgy_groundhog]

I'm enjoying the pictures - especially the bear, owl, and Salty.

There are probably 20 pictures I could pick as my favorite, but I'll go with this one for now:

 

[jrbren]

Great photos, these are my favorite threads. I am partial to photos with animals in them. My best animal shot is from my dining room last spring, so I can't count that as a hiking photo.

Elizabeth, great shot of Salty!

It is hard to pick a favorite photo, but this would be as good as any for my 2011 hiking photos. It is taken from Bighorn Plateau on the John Muir Trail in Sequoia National Park. Mount Whitney is the dominant mountain in the photo.

 

[Paradox]

There's something about this pic that I'm anthropomorphizing . If it was a tri-fold in the center of a magazine, I'd look twice at it.
Nice work.

Mountain porn??

 

[Quietman]

Monadnock sunset over fall foliage after the October snow storm.

Funny, the ground is bare now in December....

 

[PamW]

I'm enjoying the pictures - especially the bear, owl, and Salty.

There are probably 20 pictures I could pick as my favorite, but I'll go with this one for now:

So many great pictures! Love this thread!!!

Where is this gorgeous shot taken from? I want to go there!

 

[MichaelJ]

This is Pemi the hiking puppy, lying in the grass at 40 days old:

 

[pudgy_groundhog]

Where is this gorgeous shot taken from? I want to go there!

Thanks Pam! It's the Dolomites in northern Italy. We absolutely loved it!

 

[1HappyHiker]

I liked the cartoon artwork that I saw along the Crawford Path while hiking to Mt. Pierce in March 2011. It made a fun-hike even more fun!

 

[Raymond]

Really, my favorite photo of the year would have to be the one I took of a kitten that Susan and I found while we were out on a walk on August 20, but that wouldn’t have the interest here of this one from February 11:

That’s the top of Mount Monadnock, taken during my 20th climb of the mountain, in an 11th different month.

 

[blaze]

Spectacular photos on display here... great idea Billy.

Here is a shot from Hamlin Ridge on a bluebird day, back in January. I was blessed with lots of good times on the trail, but this Baxter trip was extra special. One of many things for which to be grateful, looking back on 2011.

Happy holidays to all. Wishing you a safe and joyful 2012!