It's already February. 2022 seemed to have slipped by incredibly fast. I had fully intended to have my site update done and live in autumn of last year, but here we are. One mad dash fueled by impromptu motivation and I have a slightly sleeker site with some added functionality. After months of putting it off, I'm finally ready to start adding new content. Lens reviews, thoughts, and ramblings are all incoming. Today, however, I am going to do my yearly write up of my photos that were selected for by the Flickr algorithm.
leaf
Taken on December 20, 2021, featured on Explore on January 6, 2022
The first image of the year: a lone, dead leaf on concrete. A memory of autumn, isolated into a singular photo. I like this image quite a bit in its simplicity and minimal composition. The texture and tones of the black and white are also pleasing to me. We're off to a good start here.
orange rocks
Taken on December 29, 2021, featured on Explore on January 22, 2022
An okay shot of some orange rocks. Taken on an impromptu hike after we shut the shop down over a covid outbreak. Thankfully I didn't get sick at that time, but I did get a free day to hike out of it!
dormant reeds
Taken on February 2, 2022, featured on Explore on February 7, 2022
I'm not in love with this photo from a composition standpoint. I do like the colors, and the day was lovely. It was snapped during the February freeze of 2022, and the entire walkabout with my beautiful girlfriend was (while freezing cold) quite nice.
foggy street
Taken on February 4, 2022, featured on Explore on February 24, 2022
I remember this morning fondly. Waking up before my girlfriend I saw that the morning sun was lifting some fog, so I yelled that I'd be back in a bit and had a lovely, cold morning walk around my small town. This is one of my favorite shots from that outing.
frozen droplets and barbed wire
Taken on February 23, 2022, featured on Explore on March 12, 2022
One of my favorite ice shots from last year, just some nice frozen water droplets that caught up on a spider web on a barbed wire fence.
twisting vines
Taken on March 5, 2022, featured on Explore on March 28, 2022
Another nature detail shot in monochrome with my Olympus E-M10 mark iii and Panasonic 20mm f1.8 lens. Lovely combination for monochrome. Nothing special about the image, but it was good practice with a newish (to me) lens at the time.
flowers by concrete
Taken on March 27, 2022, featured on Explore on April 13, 2022
Another photo walk snapshot. Nothing special about this image. Just the XF23mm f1.4 lens doing its thing and making lovely images out of the mundane.
cardinal
Taken on March 12, 2022, featured on Explore on April 27, 2022
A shot of a male cardinal. This was shot on the very first outing with my Sigma Contemporary 150-600mm. It isn't a perfect image, but its a nice marker of a new style of photography.
liesure
Taken on April 30, 2022, featured on Explore on May 13, 2022
Just a quick snapshot taken on a lazy Saturday around the house of my girlfriend playing her Switch. I like this image. It's personally significant and just captures a nice moment in a nice place and time. The colors and softness of the image really solidify the feel for me.
grasshopper on brick
Taken on April 2, 2022, featured on Explore on May 25, 2022
This shot is just okay. Its just a big old grasshopper on a brick wall, haphazardly captured with my XF50mm f2 lens. It does remind me of how god dang amazing the bokeh/DOF transitions are with this lens. Absolutely creamy and smooth.
prickly pear
Taken on May 14, 2022, featured on Explore on June 10, 2022
The newly budded growth of a prickly pear cactus. Taken on a summer hike at Enchanted Rock state natural area. Just another lovely little nature detail. Nothing special, nothing outstanding. Just a nice nature shot.
spike balls
Taken on June 4, 2022, featured on Explore on June 27, 2022
A fairly well-executed shot of a button bush. These things are neat as heck, and I quite like the execution of this photo.
leaf fuzz
Taken on June 18, 2022, featured on Explore on July 13, 2022
Not the most fantastic macro ever, but it stands as proof that the Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm macro lens + 2x teleconverter are still a solid macro option today (if you've got the strength to wield the combination!).
cardboard textures in macro
Taken on July 20, 2022, featured on Explore on July 29, 2022
This is from the set of the first images I created with the Venus Optics Laowa 65mm f2.8 2x ultra macro lens. I like it. Its quite abstract with good textures and technical details.
faded, macro
Taken on July 23, 2022, featured on Explore on August 14, 2022
I love this shot. I went to the Zilker Park Botanical Garden with my new Laowa 65mm lens at the wrong time of year, and there were quite a few dead flowers around the place. This was the result of that bad timing, and is quite a compelling macro, in my humble opinion.
tiny jar
Taken on July 30, 2022, featured on Explore on August 30, 2022
This image was produced during an afternoon of experimenting with tabletop setups, LED lights, and some tiny jars filled with stuff we plucked out of the yard. I think its a pretty neat image, and a neat concept that I'll probably re-explore in the future.
looking up
Taken on September 3, 2022, featured on Explore on September 15, 2022
Another shot showing the XF23mm f1.4 doing its thing. I like this shot quite a lot. The perspective and composition may be fairly pedestrian and ordinary, but the levels of texture and the black and white rendering are aspects I'm quite fond of in this photo.
tall grass
Taken on September 9, 2022, featured on Explore on October 1, 2022
Not fond of this shot. I'm kind of embarrassed it made explore. I guess it should serve as a lesson in discretion about the quality of images I post to Flickr.
daughters
Taken on September 24, 2022, featured on Explore on October 17, 2022
Not fond of this shot. It has bad snapshot vibes all over it. Colors are nice, though.
succulents
Taken on October 8, 2022, featured on Explore on November 2, 2022
This is the result of a weird combination of a telephoto zoom lens and a big stack of macro tubes. Not a bad result from a weird experiment.
til death do us part
Taken on October 29, 2022, featured on Explore on November 18, 2022
A shot I've taken multiple times, on different occasions, with different camera/lens setups. They're never exceptionally good shots, but I do like this street art.
fisher spider ii
Taken on November 5, 2022, featured on December 4, 2022
In the autumn of 2022 there were multiple fisher spider mom's guarding their nurseries on the banks of the river that runs through town. This isn't the best shot I took of one of them, but I'll be damned if every (even somewhat technically competent) shot I took of them didn't turn out gorgeous. Lovely ladies, and I hope their offspring are thriving now that the weather is warming up.
red and green
Taken on December 3, 2022, featured on Explore on December 20, 2022
Beautiful autumn colors captured with the Tamron Adaptall 2 SP 80-200mm f2.8 lens. I like the vibe and colors of this shot. It's nothing special, just another nature detail shot, but it's nice to my eyes.
Written on
Tuesday, 14 February 2023, by Aaron Brown.
Last edited on
