Its that time of year, when Peter makes me cull through thousands of photos to pick my favorite 10 (well this year its 14, because he couldn’t manage to get down to 10). Every year, I start looking through my images thinking, “its going to be hard to find 10 I want to label as ‘my favorite’” and every year I end up with 50. One year, I will refuse to engage in this madness and see what happens. But for now, in the spirit of preserving marital harmony, here are my favorite 14.

I’ll start with the cover photo to this post, Summer Beach in Carlsbad. I almost didn’t make this photo. Peter and I were walking back to our rental after a long morning walk, and I pondered out loud about how would this busy beach scene look as an ICM/ME photo. I wasn’t sure if I wanted all the way back to the apartment to get my camera, and then turnaround and walk all the way back to the beach. Peter stopped, looked at me, and made a rallying cry I could not ignore, “Are you a photographer, or a fluffy bunny rabbit!”. An hour later with over 500 exposures to evaluate, I made my favorite photo of the year.

The rest of my favorite photos were made on during our travels. It seemed to be the only time this year where I found my photo zone and road the tsunami. I loved the colorful stripes and arches in this magnificent building. I had seen photos of it for years, but when faced with the awe-inspiring site, it took me awhile to wrap my eyes around all the things I was seeing and to isolate sections that told the story.

Side note: 2025 was the first year where I used my iphone as a “serious” camera on our travels. I still have quite a bit to work out in terms of preserving image quality when downloading to my PC and manipulating the photo in post. I am feeling optimistic that in 2026 I can streamline the amount of gear I lug around to this handy little camera PC thing that fits in my pocket (yes, I am approaching 100 years of age).

As with many popular tourist and pilgrimage locations, the courtyard in front of the basilica was full of people, modern signage, and visual noise. As we were admiring the architecture, I turned around and saw a single nun from a visiting group doing the same thing I was doing…trying to frame a photo. Then I realized, “this is the photo”. I did quite a bit of removal work on my phone using Lightroom Mobile to remove all the other people and distractions around her. I suspect both of us wishes the courtyard was as peaceful as what is portrayed in this image.

This was a scene that I couldn’t stop shooting. The water was moving, the light was changing, the colors were shifting, and it seemed that every shot was different.

Two of my favorite images from 2025 where taking on the same morning just minutes apart. We were loading the car getting ready to head out of town to start our day, it was cold foggy and rainy…and I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed my camera, no tripod, rain across the road and starting shooting. Hawk, our Icelandic guide, decided to make the most of the delay, and started washing his truck at a nearby gas station. When I finally decided I couldn’t stay out any longer, and approached the truck, he pointed the sprayer at me and said “Go ahead, make my day” accompanied by an impish smile and a maniacal laugh. I admit, it was deserved.

This is the second photo from that morning. It was one of those scenes that sucked me in. I forgot about the weather, the traffic coming at me head on, and the rest of the world seemed to disappear. Neither Peter nor Hawk was impressed by the image, but I have created a couple of paintings from it, and suspect it will continue to inspire me.

I usually don’t anthropomorphize objects, but the symmetry of the portholes and the thin downward lines seemed to communicate the loneliness of an old shipwreck on a remote beach, pummeled by the extreme weather conditions.

Ingjaldsholl Church, Snæfellsnes, Iceland

Peter is drawn to the lighthouses and waterfalls in Iceland. I am drawn to the amazing skies which seem to dwarf the humble features of the land below. The isolation of a single structure under the menacing storm clouds above spoke to me about perseverance and quiet strength of Iceland.

This derelict church on the cliffs above the ocean was one of my favorite subjects to photograph this year. I have favorite pictures from every side, every angle. This one challenges most of the photography rules: dead center, front on, nothing unique or special. Sometimes simple and direct just works.

After photographing the nearby pier, we were driving toward the main road on a dirt lane. There was a group of horses and this church. I was walking up and down the road trying to get a good angle, and then this white horse separated from the group and looked at me. It was magical.

We went to Red Sand beach twice. One time on a bright sunny day, and the other time on a foggy drizzly day. The first time we went, I found it challenging to capture the colors and ripples of the sand and water. We were lucky the second time we went, we were there at low tide and I could create a colorful abstract of the movement of the water and the sand.

This was a rare day during our trip when it rained all day, and the wind gusted so hard I could barely stand. We made a trip to the local store to stock up on wine (only the bare necessities should we be cabin bound for the entire day), when I asked Peter to stop at the pier. I thought I would make a representational photo of the pier, and as I walked down to the end, in the pouring rain, looking for a composition, I realized that the scene across the water would be ideal for an ICM/ME photo. Twenty minutes later I was soaked, freezing, and happy.

If you follow our blog regularly you may be thinking “Hey, wait, I’ve seen this photo already!” But I assure you, this is a different photo. You saw Peter’s, this is mine. When you are shooting out of the same window to your room so you don’t have to brave the 50 mph winds, the variation of composition is limited.

Last photo. This subject is the French Fry version of photography. It compels you to sit in one spot trying to capture a subject that is constantly changing, in this case the movement of the water around the rock, and after 100+ frames you find yourself saying “Ok, I’ll take just one more, and then I will stop”, and then you realize that your butt has gone numb because you haven’t moved in an hour, your battery is almost dead, and this was your first stop on a jam packed photography day. You finally stop after making as many images as you can.