As every year, at the end of December I take another look at the past photo year, using numerical data facts 😉
This year, I left my camera in my bag from time to time, and especially after larger photo projects or great trips (to Iceland, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands), I always had slight motivation problems when it came to photography on the doorstep. In addition, I had to change all my photographic equipment, which took some time. This was reflected in the number of days spent in nature, which dropped by a full 24% compared to 2021.
The number of published nature images this year was 426, which I was able to show in a total of 27 blog entries 😃 Actually, I'm surprised that the number of images produced was still so high in the first place, as the days of action hadn't been this low the last couple of years.
Divided into the different "genres" of nature photography, I focused on wildlife photography this year, 51% in total. But this is more by chance, because I had some good opportunities to build up a passable kingfisher portfolio, for example.
This year, only 32% of the photos were taken in areas close to home - in the Bergisches Land, the Sauerland, the Ruhr region and the Eifel. This is a big difference compared to last year (71%), as I travelled a lot and took a break in between as described above.
This year I was able to do landscape photography mainly at my workshops and in Iceland and private in Norway, where we had wonderful conditions.
As already suspected last year, the number of images in 2021 was the peak upwards, I think it will also settle permanently at 110-120 days of action.
All in all, you can see quite well from this picture that the number of „days of action“ over the years has a relatively small influence on the number of pictures produced. It is rather the "yield" that is relevant here, i.e. the number of average pictures per day of action.
I will go into the reasons in more detail in the New Year, but basically you can say that since 2020 I have been selecting my intended subjects much more according to the weather and only plan the location at very short notice. If you ask me on a Friday at 6 p.m. where I'm going to photograph the next morning, I can never say. I usually only get incredulous looks when I explain this. For me, the satellite image is relevant in the morning after the alarm clock rings and then I choose from a handful of alternatives. This approach gave me a real boost. That is also clear here:
As mentioned before, however, this is also strongly dependent on the selection of projects and not a quality indicator - if I were to invest a month next year to photograph snow leopards in Mongolia, for example, then I would have perhaps 5 usable images in 30 days of use, i.e. a poor quota, but possibly a very special quality of the images. In this respect, such numbers should always be taken with a grain of salt 😉
And here again is all the "raw data" in table form. There is always a minimal deviation in the previous year's figure, as I usually publish in December (I don't have time in January) and there are usually two more photo sessions to follow. This will be corrected in the following year.
On the terms: A "day of action" doesn't always have to mean a whole day, sometimes it's only enough for 2-3 hours in the morning or evening. The mix between whole and half days is about 60:40. Days with no pictures are included here. The number of pictures results from how many I actually publish on my website - in 2009, for example, I spent quite a lot of time on nature photography, and of course took thousands of pictures, but by today's personal quality standards there is actually only one picture left that made it onto this website. I am quite restrictive in that respect. The learning curve is constantly progressing and with some progress, older pictures quickly no longer meet one's own standards.
So that's about the numerical facts of the year 2022.
As far as the motifs were concerned, some series themes once again came as a complete surprise, and these are usually my favourite series as well. Here are my top 5 series from 2022:
- „Winterbirches“ in March
- „Inhabitants oft he salty lakes“ in May
- „Landscapes in the blooming season“ in June
- „Kingfishers – an unexprected delight“ in August
- „Mirror World of Lofoten Islands“ in October
But the best part of travelling are always the many experiences "between the photos" that I get to share with Christina. And there were some great encounters with very nice people, especially in Norway and Iceland.
As I write this, we are currently in the Algarve leading a landscape photography workshop with some nature enthusiasts, which is a great end to the year for us.
I now thank you very much for your interest in this blog, wish you a good start into the New Year and above all the best health for 2023, because that is always the most important thing.
With many greetings,
Thomas