Best of The Week Photos

These are this week’s award winners. Horse Looking at Me from Vienna Austria. Pond Reflections from Lettuce Lake in Tampa Florida. The color image is The Platzjabbeck from Cologne Germany. It is a puppet that appears at the top of Town Hall every hour and sticks it’s tongue out at the town below.

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Photographer of The Year 2024

I have always considered myself to be a better monochrome photographer than a color photographer. Most of that is just experience. When I started serious photography in 1973 I couldn’t really afford color film. That makes this award even more special.

in 2022 and 2023 I won Photographer Of The Year for street photography and architectural photography with Noir Magazine . This year I won Photographer of The Year for Color Photography with Universe of Color Magazine for my picture of the oculus in The Pantheon in Rome. These awards are chosen from hundreds of thousands on entries submitted during the year. See the full yearbook here.

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Return To Nova Scotia Part One—Peggy’s Cove

In 1982 my wife and I visited Nova Scotia. Mostly we camped except for three nights in an inexpensive motel outside Halifax Nova Scotia. Through the yers we have traveled extensively only occasionally returning to previous locations. However, we vowed one day to return to Nova Scotia and this year we did just that. The population of Nova Scotia was just 971,395 in 2019 not much of an increase in 40 years since in 1982 it was 859,038. One of the reasons we were eager to return was the population density and friendliness of the people. In that regard it remains unchanged. 

On our previous trip we stopped in the small fishing village of Peggy’s Cove on our way from Lunenburg to Halifax. We were the only people there when we stopped. Peggy’s Cove is still beautiful but now crowded with a tourist center, restaurants and shops. Unfortunately in 2005 Swissair Flight 111 crashed 8 km (5 mi) off the coast of Peggy’s Cove. This tragedy cause a curiosity boom and a lot of tourists. 

It is still a beautiful spot and worth the trip and the area outside the tourist center is still quite rustic and undeveloped. 

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Fishing Boats 1982
Boats and Gull 1982

Photographer of The Year —2023

For the second year in a row I received a Silver Camera Award and selected as Photographer of The Year by Noir Magazine. 310 photographers were selected from over 85,000 members with submissions of almost 200,000 images. It is quite a selective group.

This years winner was The Wrigley Building in Chicago Illinois. Last year’s winner was the model and the cyclist. Both are available for purchase on my commercial site.

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My Top Ten Images of 2023

2023 was a special year for us. Early in the year we traveled to Australia and New Zealand for the first time and experienced Summer in January! I took almost 1000 images and sure many were bracket exposures and multiple angles but it is still difficult to pick the ten best images. So I may revise this topic but here are my current selections for my best ten images for 2023.

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The National Aviary

Last week we returned to the National Aviary for the first time since the COVID Epidemic. We happily renewed our membership and were a little giddy to be back with our avian friends. We were wondering if some of the flamingos were the baby chicks we saw years ago. here are a few images from our recent visit.

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This Month’s Best

Proud to once again to be selected to be included in The Photo of The Month contest at Noir International Photography Magazine. This month’s winner was taken at the covered bridge at McConnells Mill state park in Pennsylvania.
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The Wilds

On our way back from Chicago we had a wildlife adventure and visited The Wilds in Ohio. The Wilds is comprised of almost 10,000 acres of reclaimed strip-mined land. It was donated by AEP and is located in southeastern Ohio, in the foothills of Appalachia. It was created by Jack Hanna and is managed by the Columbus Zoo.  The Wilds has been involved in the reintroduction of a species once extinct in the wild and is creating prairie habitat for wildlife species that have disappeared from their former ranges.

There are a number of adventures you can embark on including an amazing zip line over the preserve. We opted for a two hour tour in a customized open air bus that holds about 25 people. You can stay overnight in luxury yurts or in a deluxe lodge. It was a wonderful experience to be this close to the animals and see so many endangered species being cared for and learn about the successful breeding programs.

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Manderley Sheep Farm

During our recent visit to New Zealand we had the opportunity to visit a working sheep farm. The Maderley Family Farm is located in Little River near Christchurch New Zealand . It was one of the best tours I have ever experienced.I always wanted to see dogs herd sheep ever since owning Deuce our Border Collie. Ross and Mary Millar run this farm and welcome you into their life.

Except for shearing season they run this farm and about 3500 sheep by themselves with the help of their wonderful dogs. The tour included a complete demonstration of bringing the sheep off of the mountain and then putting them back up there. Using only two dogs, a herder to bring them down and a barker to send them back up. They then demonstrated the shearing process and afterwards invited us in to their home for tea and fantastic sausage rolls and biscuits.

If you have an opportunity to take this tour, do it! You will be happy you did.

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The Chicago Botanic Garden

We recently visited the Chicago Botanic Garden. A fantastic outing and too big for one day. You could spend most of the day looking at the model railroads alone. The trail to see the entire garden is over two miles and it does not include all the side excursions you can take. Next time we visit we will make sure to get to the Japanese Garden.

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