I posted a collection of my Photo of the Month pictures last year, so I thought I could look back on 2010 as well. This was a bit of a low-key year for me, there was a lot of personal stuff going on that left me uninspired many times. But I did get in some great pictures as well, some of them would be at home in an ”all-time best” collection and I think that these few highlights are more important than a big bunch of mediocre pictures, so I guess the end result is that it was still a good year!

January

You can almost always be sure that January will give you the best that winter has to offer. What I mean is snow – it’s nice and there’s plenty of it! When I originally posted this picture of a snow drift, I wasn’t happy about the white balance. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t make it look right so in the end I decided to abandon ”right” and just go for colour and I think this light blue version is far better than the original.

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February

If January is good for the most wintery of winter scenes, then February can a bit of two things – it’s still winter, but you also feel the spring in the air. That’s what it was on this day when the sun was warm on my face but the scenery wasn’t looking nearly as nice as I had hoped for, when the wind had stripped the trees bare of snow. And then I found this pine that still had some snow on it so out came the camera. When I was standing there composing the tree, a gust of wind grabbed some ice crystals and they flew right at me, so I quickly pressed the shutter and hoped for the best. I saw in the LCD that I had caught the flying snow, but I would’ve liked to have some more so I waited for another gust. But of course it doesn’t work that way, so this one picture is all I got.

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March

March is a bit of a mystery to me. It’s a great month for outdoors activity, when the sun is warm and there’s still plenty of snow. Nice as it is, I can’t seem to be able to capture it in camera so my pictures from March tend to be rather forgettable. If my photo of the month is an old door, I guess that says is all? And in this case I can’t even say it was a nice day out. It was windy and cold and the sun didn’t help at all!

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April

2010 was the best April ever. I got pictures of snow and I got pictures of flowers and I got pictures of animals, both wild and captive. I had many candidates for a POTM, but in the end it was quite easy – I just love this tiger! We visited the Orsa Björnpark zoo and I was really interested in seeing the tigers and polar bears, and the visit turned out to be far better than I could ever have hoped for when we saw the tigers up close and the polar bears playing around their pond. Since our visit, they opened a new Leopard Center that currently is a home for persian leopards, but I think I read somewhere that they are also waiting for snow leopards. Snow leopards are my favourite felines so I really hope they will get them, and you can bet that I’ll be there with my camera again!

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May

A good April was followed by a good May. I’m happy with many of my May pictures and choosing the best one was a tough choice. I had a picture of a lily of the valley bud that is currently hanging from my wall as a big print, but I chose this hepatica as my POTM instead. For a very long time I’ve wanted to get a picture of a hepatica with a leaf and now I finally succeeded, so the picture came with a sense of achievement.

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June

No year without an orchid! The early coralroot is a very modest orchid, small and pale and easy to overlook. But when I saw this individual growing in the moss without any distracting grasses or other vegetation around it, it was a dream to photograph it. If I had to show you one picture that best describes my ideal style of photography, then this would be it. KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid!

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July

I squeezed no less than three separate visits to the mountains in July. First one was a one-day trip but I managed to max out my time and got this POTM for my troubles. The second visit was more social than photographic as I was there with my sister, and the third trip was an actual photography holiday but the weather didn’t co-operate with me so I just got a lot of hiking done and not so many pictures. But hiking works, too!

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August

Augusts also tend to be quiet months for me, but this year I did a lot of local exploration and found some nice spots. None the nicer than this little pond where I had a wonderful moment of peace after a stressful summer. As I was enjoying my coffee by the shore and watching a family of swans, I suddenly observed this diagonal cloud formation in the sky that was just begging to be photographed. I only had to take a few steps from the spot where I had my coffee for this composition.

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September

No September without a trip to the mountains! I was expecting beautiful autumn colours and I got them, even if the conditions weren’t always the best for photographing them. On this hike to Lill-Skarven I had a fortune of coming across a herd of reindeer, with this big bull guarding his harem of cows. As if that wasn’t enough, I even managed to sneak close enough to use my landscape lens (24-105mm) and then the sun peaked out to top it all. The picture falls short of the experience, but it will always remind me of this amazing moment.

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October

I did a lot of bird photography during the autumn. The undisputed highlight was this nuthatch that is by far the best bird picture I’ve ever taken and I must say it’s one of my favourite pictures, any category. And that is saying a lot, considering that there’s quite a lot of grain from the high ISO, and then that ugly OOF branch. I managed to get rid of the branch to simplify the composition, but I wanted to show this unedited version now (just did a little bit of cropping). You can see  the edited version if you click the October link above.

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November

Winter started in November and in some places it looked like there was more snow than there really was. I love these low contrast winter sceneries and the only disappointment from this excursion was that it was not possible to walk around on the marsh because the water hadn’t frozen yet. Being there was an almost surreal experience and now I really have this longing to go skiing through marshland with the snow and frost covering the trees.

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December

December might just be my worst month of the year, photographically. I spent the first weekend being sick, the second was ok, and then two weekends (and the week, obviously) in Finland, where photography was hardly on the agenda at all. But then I got this one picture that I actually like quite a lot. The technique is very easy, use a slow shutter speed and move the camera during exposure. Anyone with a grasp of the basics of photography can do this and it’s very forgiving of the gear, too. You can use the sharpest lens and pro camera and the picture will be just as fuzzy as one taken with an entry-level camera and a kit lens, or a compact camera for that matter – I used my PowerShot S95. But even if I like this picture, I’m still not entirely sold on the technique. Normally when I look at other experienced photographers’ pictures, I think they’re better than mine. But then when they use this painting with camera technique, I’m usually just frustrated because to be honest, when you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. So I guess that this is a very personal experience then.