Best of 2019

Is the middle of January too late for a best of 2019? I hope not. Last year was a massive photographic journey for me. After years of photographing with a Panasonic FZ1000 (great bridge camera, would still recommend it to keen enthusiasts), I upgraded to a mirrorless DSLR; an E-M1 Mk II, at the time Olympus' top of the range flagship camera. Add a few lenses and filter system for good measure and there you go. After several months studying the market, I decided that the Olympus Micro 4/3rds (or m43) system was the right one for me for a number of reasons: Most of my photography is done whilst hiking in the mountains and weight was a constraint, both for the camera body and any lenses I might need. Quality was also a huge consideration, I wanted a camera that wasn't going to frustrate me. The deal clincher on the E-M1 Mk II though was the 6 stop in-body image stabilisation (IBIS). I'm a sucker for slow water photographs whilst at the same time having a mild dislike for tripods. The Olympus IBIS lets me take pin sharp hand-held photos with exposure times of up to 2 seconds.

But it wasn't just the front-end equipment that got an upgrade; my main photographic interest is landscape photography. For years I'd been using Photoshop Elements as my go-to post-processing software. The more I've got into the subject matter, the more I realised that PSE alone wasn't going to be enough any more. As luck would have it, Adobe had just changed Lightroom from a purchase product to a rental product, i.e. you couldn't buy the software, you now have to pay a monthly rental charge to be able to use it. Looking around at alternatives, I came across ON1 Photo Raw, a relatively new and unknown software that looked to have some interesting features which combined the capabilities of Photoshop AND Lightroom.

Getting to grips with a new camera system and new post-processing software constituted an extremely steep learning curve - one that I'm only beginning to come out of after 12 months.

So, what are my favourite images from 2019?

The first outing for the Olympus was our Austrian ski vacation in February. We had some wild weather with Föhn storms. On the high cross-country ski track the wind had cut a swathe through the clouds that seemed to mirror the curve of the track with the Dachstein mountains in the background. 

Curves // f7.1, 1/125 s, ISO 64

April saw me back in the UK for a trip to visit my ageing parents. Purely by coincidence, it was peak bluebell season (convenient that) and my father and I had fun traipsing around various National Trust properties in search of the perfect carpet. In the end, I've gone for this shot of cyclamens taken at Knightshayes gardens.

Woodland Lillies // f7.1, 1/200 s, ISO 400

Our own garden is an island of England in the Bavarian countriside. At various times of the year it provides some great subjects, whether the snake's heads fritillaries, the cherry blossom or the irises like here.

Garden Iris // f4, 1/500 s, ISO 200

July is hot in Bavaria. 15 minutes down the road is the picturesque lake Ammersee with its boatshouses and jetties. On a warm summer evening the local youth were gathered at the end of one, diving into the water.

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay // f7.1, 1/50 s, ISO 100

Our last summer vacation with the kids at home saw us visiting one of our old haunts; Saas Fee in Switzerland. We had many great tours, not least of which this one, taking us up from the Mattmark over the Schwarzhorn and Schwarzberggletscher. Coming over the hill at the Schwarzhorn we came across this herd of goats coming the other direction. I only had a few seconds to catch the image before they passed us by.

There Once Was a Hill... // f10, 1/100 s, ISO 100

Once the kids were out of the house, we decided to use our newfound freedom to revisit one of all-time favourite places - Cortina d'Ampezzo. The town nestles beautifully in the Dolomites. At the beginning of October there was a light covering of snow on the tops. We'd planned several shots that we wanted to take, some of which worked, some of which didn't. This one wasn't planned.

Dolomite Layers // f9, 1/500 s, ISO 200

Last in the series is a shot took with a friend on a photography excursion down near Füssen. We'd wanted to hike along the Pöllat gorge but it was already closed for the winter. Before we headed off for the next site we decided to check out the pools at the bottom. One of the things that stood out was this little pool with the autumn leaves. I had an inkling that there might be a bit of gyration going on, but it was slower than the eye could take in. What we hadn't guessed was that there would be a double circle:

Gold and Green // f18, 10 s, ISO 200

Which one is your favourite? Do you have one of your own?