My "personal best" landscape photos from 2023
Another year is coming to an end. I realize that I haven't created a new blog post in exactly a year. It is the time when many flashbacks arise; whether on television, on websites or in magazines. There is the “Annual Review 2023” everywhere. It's almost a cliché to do a year in review.
For me, however, this personal photographic review has real relevance. On the one hand, there are the memories and stories with which the images are inevitably linked. This year I started sharing some first stories about the pictures. If you are interested, I recommend you explore the
Stories section on my website. On the other hand, you often tend to only see all the things that you haven't achieved. For whatever reason, be it lack of time, motivational reasons or other reasons. Too often we overlook what we have done or achieved. A look back at my photographic year 2023 will help me enormously here. Like every year, 2023 also brought highs and lows.
Looking back at my personal image catalogue from 2023 also ensures that I look with more focus on my pictures from the year. Reducing a few hundred images to a number of 10 is always difficult. Cherished images and moments always fall off the table by doing so. What remains is a mixture of images that either have a special expressive power in themselves or images that also live through their story.
What is particularly noticeable is that a sky can only be seen in 2 of the 10 images. In the other 8 pictures it is not immediately clear where these pictures were taken. A development trend that has been evident in my pictures for some time now. A development towards, in my opinion, more personal expression in my landscape photography.
The pictures show 3 main topics, or 3 regional and time-wise themes. The first group of pictures is from a winter trip to Iceland. The second group includes pictures from spring and early summer with motifs from my homeland. The third and largest group with 4 pictures are pictures from my trip to the USA in the fall.
The first picture was taken on a hiking tour in Iceland. It was completely unexpected. On the way to the actual destination of the hike, I kept noticing this mountain. When the foreground was finally right and the weather allowed a reasonably clear view of the mountain, I took this photo. A slightly modified version of this can also be found in my
Iceland calendar for 2024. The weather was pretty brutal, typical of winter in Iceland. Strong winds and alternating snow and rain. If I remember correctly it was already dark when we got back to the car.
The pattern of the stones, the black piled sand and the particularly soft and flat light make this picture something very special. You can read more about the story behind this shot in
Episode 1 - Unexpected, in the Stories from Landscape Photography section.
New equipment rarely or never results in better photos. Unless the new equipment overcomes a technical limitation. The purchase of a new drone made this panoramic shot possible in the first place. It was a very special sunset and the hours before were a real “glimmer of hope” on our trip to Iceland. The weather chaos should continue over the next few days.
Fog and mist lay in the small nature reserve on this spring morning. When the sun finally crawled over the hill, this scene was created. The moisture in the air, as well as the trunks and branches of the trees, create the sun's rays through their change in light and shadow. At the same time, the fresh green buds and leaves on the trees shine from the sun's rays.
This picture was taken in almost the same place as the last one. The tree in the middle looked like a light bulb due to its bright green and shape and so caught my attention.
I had often seen this group of trees from a distance but had never managed to photograph them up close. They are in a place that makes them difficult to reach and on this day too I had to go through some waist-high grass. It was a very wet morning for me due to the fog and the associated humidity. The pictures from this morning make the effort worth it.
A very special scene on a morning in Utah. I was already on my way back to the car when this bush received the rising sunlight just a few moments before it hit the ground. This created an incredible light/dark contrast. This contrast makes the shape of the bush stand out particularly well against the dark background.
In 2017, on our first trip to the USA, we already passed through some badlands. We also got out at a few places and soaked in the landscape. However, these were more like coincidental discoveries between our actual targets. Afterwards, I did a little research and when I realized which landscapes we "just drove past", I really wanted to visit these places again. Many of the scenes I originally wanted to photograph are now somewhat “destroyed”. The authorities in the USA have opened this area to ATVs. The traces of vehicles appear immediately in the soft layers of sand and will probably still be visible for hundreds of years. In some places in the Utah Badlands, ATVs have been restricted again. With the drone, however, the Badlands are a true paradise. There is still a lot to discover from above. Like this hoodoo here, whose shape reminds me of a bird's head.
Mudcracks were one of my photographic goals on my trip to the USA. However, I didn't know if I would even find such structures. In the end, I found mudcracks in all shapes, colors and variations. I couldn't have asked for more. The story of how this picture was created can certainly be read in the
Stories section at some point in the future.
I timed my trip to the USA so that I would have a certain chance of seeing fall colors in the Utah desert. It is always uncertain whether such a plan will work. In short, I was incredibly lucky. In many places on my trip, the leaves on the trees had turned a bright yellow. Like this old cottonwood tree near the Escalante River.
