Favorites from 2015

I spent way too long trying to winnow my favorite photos of 2015 to 20.

These 20, posted in a gallery in the Archive, now seem arbitrary, and my choices changed during the process, so I just stopped.  But I did notice that I really liked trees this year.

Alnus tenuifolia – Mountain Alder; in shrub border with Cornus

The first photo chronologically that made the list was these California Mountain Alders at Tilden Regional Botanic Garden last January.   After a day of admiring bare trees and leaf pattens, these became an abstract blur – and a print in the Store.

At the top of Cherry Hill, behind my house, magnificent Oak trees frame the cell phono towers.  On a foggy day I shot a series to stitch together in a panorama.

Panorama with oaks, foggy winter morning on Cherry Hill with cell phone towers

Then just last month I was fascinated by the branch patterns of the Black Oaks on the ridge across the street in the Rush Creek Open Space Preserve, and a post Oaks Inspire Art.

Looking up at Quercus kelloggii, California Black Oak tree with leaf pattern in fall color silhouette

There are more trees in the gallery from the East Coast:  Mt. Cuba Center, Winterthur, and Longwood Gardens, but this Magnolia, flowering my own garden, became an extraction, a PhotoBotanic illustration:

Before and After Slider

A print can be purchased in the Store.

Magnolia soulangiana flowers on deciduous tree in California garden

Trees may have dominated the favorites list but there are others.  I hope you will take a moment to enjoy and let me know what you like in  the gallery in the Archive.

I am determined to do more of my art in 2016.  Who knows what adventures will materialize, but I promise  to myself is more art !