My favorite Photos of 2014

2014 is nearly over and it’s time to take a look back and select 10 favorites from the photos I took this year.

As every year I tried to find some new locations to photograph, especially nearby. I found those in Franconia’s beautiful cities Nürnberg, Bamberg and Würzburg. But I also returned to places, which I visit every year. I have to say luck wasn’t always on my side. Often the weather was quite hard on me and the output of those trips isn’t as good as I had wished for. But still I got a few keepers.

Travelling was as usual the major source of new photos. In May we were in Cornwall for one week, followed by a trip to Krimml, end of July found me in the rainy Dolomites and in August I photographed London for three days. The longest photo trip was to New Zealand where I spend four wonderfull weeks.

Looking at my Lighroom catalogue, it tells me that I took nearly 7000 photos. That is 7000 are left after several cleanup sessions. All in all I think it was more like 10000 photos. Considering that I usually take between 5 to 50 photos for one subject it was still quite a productive year. Although I didn’t have enough time to process all photos I consider worthy I think that finally more than 100 photos will find their way through my post processing workflow.

And here are the 10 photos of 2014 I like the most.

Bamberg

I took this photo last winter in Bamberg. After a colorful sunset I went exploring some of the narrow streets and found this winding alley. The warm street lights and the dark blue sky created the perfect harmony.

Gertelbach

While leading my yearly spring workshop in the northern Black Forest we were served some very nice light while exploring the Gertelbach. I couldn’t help but take a photo of my own.

Heidelberg Castle

I have photographed in Heidelberg a lot over the past five years. This year finally I came away with a photo of the castle that I consider unique. The light was perfect that evening, the scaffolding was gone from the castle after severy years and I also found a composition, which I hadn’t shot before.

Nanven Blues

Taken on the evening of my last day in Cornwall. I had waited the whole week for the tide to be right. Unfortunately the weather brought thick clouds and rain in the evening. While there was no colorful sunset I took a photo of Porth Nanven during blue hour. I just love the calm feel of this one.

Krimml Magic

Usually I try to avoid shooting waterfalls in bright sunlight. But in Krimml sunlight was just the right ingredient to create a special photo of the falls.

Seceda

The Dolomite trip in July ended very wet. At least day two presented some interesting light in the evening. With fast moving clouds and lightspots dancing across valley and peaks it was a good opportunity to take some photos for later black and white processing. The clouds, structures and contrasts screamed for it.

Big Ben

My third visit to London in the last four years was my most productive. While I only took around 300 photos I came away with around 20 keepers. I’m still not done processing all of them but I already got my favorite. Originally this location was only intended as a shelter during a heavy downpour. But as I turned around and saw the view I didn’t hesitate to setup my tripod and shoot some exposures while the light lasted.

Lilienstein First Light

Every year I return to Saxony Switzerland. But for a few exceptions I wasn’t very lucky with light and weather. For this reason I’m even more glad that this year was kind of a change. The morning on top of the Lilienstein presented perfect conditions with a sea of fog and clouds in the valley below. For years I had wanted to photograph such a view.

Wanaka Mountains

This is not only one of my favorite photos, it’s the photo of one of my favorite moments in 2014. After a steep climb and two hours of shooting in freezing winds this was one of the last photos I took up on Roys Peak near Wanaka. There are quite a few photos of that evening that need processing.

Milford Blues

Quite unexpected one of my favorite photos is of Milford Sound. First I didn’t even want to take photos of Mitre Peak because it’s been photographed to death. Since we were camped at Milford Sound anyway because of a boat tour on the next morning I couldn’t help but try my luck with this subject.

There are still a few favorites lying unprocessed on my hard-drive and who knows, maybe I’ll need to extend this selection here to 12 photos in a few weeks.