I know I said this last year, but it’s my favorite post of the year!  Seriously, I have gotten to the point where I SO look forward to doing these every year. It has become part of my year end tradition, and what a way to wrap up the year than by looking through all the pictures I’ve taken through the year.  I had a photography instructor say to me once, “we take pictures of the things we value”, and so going through this process not only gives me a chance to look back at my work, but also reflect on all the blessings we’ve had.  In fact, I enjoy this process so much that after last year’s post, I actually went all the way back to 2010 and chose my favorites for each year.  You can see links to all those at the bottom of this post if you care to look, but regardless, it was a ton of fun for me!

The last several years (basically since starting my new job back in 2015) have been full of interesting travels, and 2018 had some highlights for sure.  I was able to return to some of my favorites (Singapore and the west coast of the US) and visit some new places like Japan, and the bayous of east Texas.  Two trips really stood out though because Holly got to come with me: China and Argentina.  The China trip we were able to take our niece Holly along with us, which added to the adventure (traveling with a teenager, ahh the highs and lows! LOL) and in Argentina we were able to cross the long term goal of visiting Patagonia off our list. Absolutely incredible.  The highest point of the year, however, was closing on a small farm here in Blount County, which will one day be the site of our “forever home”.  Holly and I had been looking for land for quite a while when a family member decided to sell a piece of property that had been in the family for decades.  We were thrilled to be able to buy it, and are so excited at the future possibilities.

Thinking of 2018 from an artistic point of view, a couple of things stand out to me.  First and foremost, my top 5 is dominated this year by images from the United States, something that hasn’t happened since 2015.  That probably says more about where I put in a ton of effort than anything else, but I found it interesting none-the-less (2017 and 2016 were both dominated by images from Asia).  Also in the mix this year is a stream scene, which represents a major accomplishment for me personally… I finally overcame my stream scene mental block, and came away with several images from our beautiful Smoky Mountain streams that I really like.  Finally, in years past, my top 5 have been dominated by big scenes; panorama images made up of multiple shots to create a single image.  This year, only the stream scene and the bonus images are panorama shots.  I’m not quite too sure what to make of that yet, but we’ll see if it continues as a trend next year!  I got a new (to me) camera this year, which means I’ll be able to better capture Milky Way images, so I’m hoping for lots of clear nights in 2019.  🙂  We’ll see what happens!

2018 by the numbers, I took 13,897 pictures throughout the year and of those I liked 221, and LOVED 68.  That seems to be an improvement over 2017… but I could also be getting less picky.  🙂

Well anyway, without further ado, I give you my favorite pictures from 2018!  Holly and I would like to wish you blessed 2019. Have a Happy New Year!

–Dan Thompson