WITH FOUR trips outside the U.S., and one photography-specific trip, 2022 was a pretty amazing year for photography. I had a lot of chances to make images. In the past couple weeks, I have gone through the process of trying to select my 10 favorite images for the year. A daunting task. It turns out I have a bunch of favorites. “Favorites” does not necessarily mean “best.” Both terms are, of course, purely subjective. I chose these images over a period of 2-3 day. I am not sure I would pick the same ones if I began again today. That is how subjective it is. As is photography, for the most part. But here are my final picks – not in any particular order:
Mackerel Cove Bailey Island, Maine [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IT IS partly about the “story.” On our trip in April, my buddy, Rich and I had spent most of a week on the peninsulas of mid-coast Maine. Our primary targets were lighthouses. We got some really nice pictures, and they were part of the reason winnowing down to just 10 was so difficult. It could have been 25. Or even more. The photo above was made on our penultimate (I have always wanted to use that word in a post 🙂 ) day. It turned out to be the one really rainy day of the trip (the rest was mostly overcast, but we stayed dry). We tried to find one lighthouse and fishing harbor, but the fog was so thick, we couldn’t see more than a few feet offshore. We had seen images of this colorful shed with buoys hanging off it and decided to find it. We didn’t really like the “orthodox” shot we had seen, from up on the road, so we found a spot to scramble down a steep, brushy bank, to the beach. I hadn’t noticed the beached boat from the road, but when we got down on the beach I knew I needed to get as close as possible, and shoot this from a low perspective, with the shanty becoming part of the background. The gloomy skies that afternoon meant I would do some work in post-processing when I got home. I liked my result.
We Are The Champions Porto, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]AGAIN, THE story. We spent 20 days in Portugal in May-June. What a trip. What a country. My favorite spot was the city of Porto, to the north (and probably the “namesake: of Portugal). Shortly before we arrived in Portugal, the Porto “football” team won its national championship (I believe for the first time in many years). This fan proudly displayed her team flag as we walked and shot the streets of Porto. I am not sure what the “favorite” criteria here is. It may be my favorite. Or, it may be my guide, Jose’ Manuel Santo’s favorite of my images. Either way, the story is as good a memory for me as the photo.
Porto at Night Porto, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IT MAY or may not come as a surprise that most of my favorites this year came from either Portugal or Maine. While others were great, I think my best images came from the time spent in those locations. There were so many wonderful photos from Portugal. I had researched this shot, and the viewpoint from which it was made, long before we left the U.S. I walked to the spot (maybe about a mile away from our hotel) the very first night we were in Porto. The shot is of Porto’s Ribeira, a very popular tourist and night spot along the Douro River, near the city center. The prominent and photogenic bridge is Ponte de Dom Lui’s I. To reach the viewpoint (“Miradouro” in Portuguese), I walked across the Ponte Infante Bridge to the other side of the Douro River. The viewpoint is actually in the neighboring town of Vila Nova de Gaia.
Colored Doors Porto, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]FOR OUR stay in Porto, I engaged a photo guide for one day (this was after my night shot above). It was one of the best decisions I have ever made when traveling to an unkown city. I will surely do it again in the future. My guide, Jose’ Manual Santos, operates his company as Pictury Photo Tours, in Porto and on trips out into the Douro Valley. Hose’, in addition to being a talented photographer, is a wonderful gentleman and we had a great day together. He is gracious and knows Porto (where he has lived all his life) intimately. I saw places I never would have had I just struck out on my own. Those who have followed here for a few years may remember my fascination with colored doors (first in Dublin, and more recently in London). These were as good as any I have seen and was just one of the really cool photo spots Jose’ took me to see. I will note, for precision, that this building is actually in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the bridge from Porto. The viewpoint from across the river actually yields some of the best images of the city of Porto from a landscape perspective.
I started this process with a kind of “best of” point of view and quickly decided to change the focus to “favorite.” Again, there is no doubt that my decisions are colored by the story.
THE TRIP to mid-coast, Maine was another place that yielded many more great photographs and made the selection process so difficult. I started this process out with a kind of “best of” point of view and quickly decided to change the focus to “favorite.” Again, there is no doubt that my decisions are colored by the story. I have had Maine Lighthouses and the Maine coast on my radar for years now, and really jumped at the opportunity to spend nearly a week there. I would return in a heartbeat.
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Bristol, Maine [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]We photographed 5 lighthouses. 3 of the 5 would be on my “best lighthouses” list. Pemaquid probably has the best “story.” We visited the site on two different days (at least an hour’s drive from our hotel). They were two very different days. The first was a (predictably for the trip) a cloudy, early morning. The air was completely still and the ocean relatively calm. The tide was out, and we were able to climb well out onto the rocks, which were dry for the most part. This gave the opportunity for the interesting rock foreground, carved by years of ocean waves. I know it is not the most unique perspective, but I was looking for the reflection image above. There were some very small tide pools, and I did get a reflection shot of sorts. But the sky was dreary, and it wasn’t what I had hoped for. We decided that we would try to return later in the week and catch the late sun. The day we returned started out rainy and was (consistent with the rest of the week) mostly cloudy and dreary. But we had some hopes, as our weather apps both told us it would clear in the late afternoon. When we returned, there was a steady wind, and the ocean was as rough as I have ever seen on a normal day. Waves were crashing way up over the rocks we had climbed around on the previous day. The good thing was that they had created a couple much larger tide pools. And, with a stroke of good fortune, the cloud-cover broke, and we were treated to brilliant blue skies for the rest of the afternoon and into evening. Maybe not the best, all of the above makes this qualify for a favorite.
Rail Station Porto, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]ONE OF the Places Jose’ took me was the Art Deco interior-designed Porto Rail Station. There are some very interesting windows in the station that he tells me make for magical lighting later in the day as the sun sets. We were there mid-day, and I did not make it back. It was also very crowded at that point. I made some images of the mosaics and yellow Art Deco trimmings that I liked. But what the heck. I was at a railway station, and it was an older one. I thought I should at least walk out and see the platforms. The image above immediately drew my attention. For me, it was an easy pick for a favorite.
Algarve Lagos, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]THE ALGARVE is a “region” (at one time, hundreds of years ago, it had something close to its own sovereignty, and eventually became part of the kingdom and eventually nation of Portugal) in the southwest part of Portugal. It’s warm climate and long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean makes it the premiere beach, boating and fishing area for vacationers. These visitors (many have semi-permanent vacation residences) are not just from Portugal but come from all over Europe. We met a couple from England who have a vacation residence and a boat in a marine there. The coastline is mostly rugged, with some beautiful sandy beaches interspersed. The rock formations are primarily what I would describe as sandstone and there are often outcroppings out into the waters. Paddleboard rentals and classes are one of the many popular watersports. I made this photo not far from our Lagos Hotel. I like the pattern and symmetry of the paddleboarders around the rock outcropping. Again I made quite a few really nice photos here and this one edged out a few others as a “favorite.”
Ponte del Dom Luis I Porto, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IT SEEMS like in every major city there are one or more landmarks that are visible and dominating from all over the city. Paris’ Eiffel tower, The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., The Golden Gate Bridge in San Franciso, and The Acropolis in Athens come to mind among others. The Ponte del Dom Luis I is one of those landmarks. And it is a wonderful, strong element to build into a landscape image. This closer perspective is made walking down a street in across the river, Vila Nova di Gaia, toward the walking portion of the bridge, on our way back over to Porto. I have a handful of shots of Porto using this bridge as an element. As I looked at them all side-by-side during selection, this one kept coming to the forefront.
Doge’s Palace Piazza San Marco Venice, Italy [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WE FOUND ourselves in Venice again in October; me for the third time and my wife for her 4th. Having spent a lot of time around St. Mark’s Square during those trips, I found myself looking for something hadn’t “seen” or shot previously. I made less shots and just tried to let things come to my vision. A runner-up here would have been the shot I made showing the water ankle deep in the middle of the square from the rising tide. It was the first time I had experienced it. This one drew my interest partly because of the graphic elements, and partly because of the “lone” human figure sitting on the benches (obviously there are several, but the first one primarily draws the attention). As I processed the image, it occurred to me that this was probably better rendered in B&W. I don’t do that often, so it is a surprise it made the cut. But it did 🙂
Tampa Skyline Tampa, Florida [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]L
AST, BUT certainly not least, my recent shoot, spent with an old high school friend (Mark Weaver), of the downtown Tampa skyline at night, yielded several “favorite” eligible images for me. I think this will probably be my last serious photography outing of 2022, and it may be that it is partly because it is so recent. But it has also been on my radar since I moved to the Tampa Bay area a few year back. The bridge in the foreground changes its lighting colors every minute or two, from yellow, to red to blue, with shades in between. I made several colors of the bridge in this same images. I think the blue works best, possibly because it ties in well with the blue roof of the distant Regions Bank building in the skyline.
[Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]ON THIS Christmas Eve, as 2022 comes to an end, we have more adventures to look forward to, and I have a lot more photography ahead. We leave for South Africa in just 2 days, to start 2023 off with a bang. In February, a cruise in the Caribbean and in June a cruise in Iceland, Ireland and the U.K. Are on the agenda. A trip to Germany is on the horizon for September. Probably some other stuff in between. Plenty of new stuff to come, including two more trips that happened in the fall of 2022. There will be a couple week hiatus here, as we travel to South Africa and back. When we return, I will post a series on our August/September trip to the Baltic Sea. In the meantime, I wish you a happy and prosperous 2023!
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