A Good Crop 2025 - Video Photo Essay

 We've made it to 2025, so it's time for another "Good Crop" photo review!  This year's video has been published to YouTube, give it a look! 

The "Good Crop" concept is based on a Ansel Adams quote:  "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop".   In the spirit of that quote, I try to pick my 12 favorite photos from the previous year. I've been doing this for 14 years now, so I guess that makes it a tradition!

A few months ago, I started a new twist, putting the "crop" into a video-essay, and dropping it on YouTube.  I've done videos for 2022, 2023, 2024 and now 2025.I'll probably do videos for more of the earlier years, if anybody wants to see them!

So here you go, A Good Crop 2025, Subtitled This Didn't Pass Quickly

2026, a quiet start

 Mid 30's, sold grey skies, a bit of a breeze. I had Schon Park / Greenspace North to myself. 

Calm, quiet, peaceful... Nothing fancy, but that was perfect.

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Penultimate Sunset

 12/30/2025, the next-to-last sunset of 2025...

It's been a pretty good year, looking forward to 2026!

That sense of moving through the world slowly

 I continue to play around with ChatGPT, and while sometimes it is simply stupid, there are times when it seems insightful.  Or at least it has learned to flatter me!

This evening, I uploaded a couple of photos from 1977/1978, and asked for analysis.  But also: "I'm especially interested to how the fit with my current esthetic, 50+ years later."

Here's what it said:  

Overall Impression: How These Fit Your Current Aesthetic (50+ years later)

The through-line is unmistakable:

1. You’ve always photographed at walking speed.

That sense of moving through the world slowly — observing, not chasing — is present in both early images and fully matured now.

2. You gravitate to edges, thresholds, liminal spaces.

A forest path. A guitar half in shadow, half in glare. A riverbank. A fading street corner. A parking lot at dusk. Different subjects, same intuition.

3. Your work has always been about presence, not performance.

You don’t photograph spectacle; you photograph the quiet friction between people (or objects, or landscapes) and their surroundings.

4. Over time, you’ve distilled your approach

1977: gentle narrative, more literal.

2025: distilled, minimal, leaning toward metaphor — but the soul is the same.

⭐ If anything, these early shots show that your current aesthetic isn’t a reinvention — it’s a refinement.

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So, what do y'all think?  Insightful, or soul-less BS?

Here's the photos, they've been published here before:

Looking Back...

 

About a week left in 2025, and I'm a bit ahead of usual on reviewing my 2025 photos.  I'll be doing a "Good Crop" post, and a YouTube video.  Stay tuned!

This photo is from my fun little Chuzhao mini-camera, using the b&w setting.  Only minor clean up in Lr

Not so Green-Space

 Glen Carbon Greenspace North, behind Schon Park.  Not so green on the 23rd day of December.  But it was mid 60's on the 2nd (or 3rd?) day of winter, so I'm not complaining!

A Good Crop 2023 - Video Photo Essay

 Yep, another "Good Crop" video has been published!!  This one looks back at 2022... I've been doing Good Crop yearly look-backs for several year, only recently started dong Youtube videos.  I'd be honored if you were to check them out, let me know what you think!!  

I've been working on 2025's Good Crop for a few days now, plan to have it posted around January 1.  Stay tuned!!

A Good Crop - 2022

To see something ordinary

" To see something ordinary, something you’d see every day, and recognize it as a photographic possibility – that’s what I’m interested in."

Stephen Shore

Photo is mine, not Stephen Shore...

A Good Crop 2023 - Video Photo Essay

 I noticed today, that I had never posted here about my most recent "A Good Crop" photo essay!  This one if for 2023.  So here goes:

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Yep, I've made another video essay.  Regular readers (hopefully) know about the ongoing "A Good Crop" series, reflecting back on my 12 favorite photos from each year.  If not, check it out here.

Anyway, I made a Youtube video for the 2023 edition, will probably make similar videos for the other years.  Check it out, comments welcome:

2023 - A Good Crop

t is my intention to keep doing these.  In fact, the 2022 version is ready to post to YouTube, and the 2025 "A Good Crop" is in progress (and will hopefully be ready in early January).  If people stay interested, I have "A Good Crop" sets going back to 2012.

So, enjoy, share, comment...  all that good stuff!

Chuzhao Camera

 My wife got me a new toy this week, a CHUZHAO Digital Camera,  A fun little point and shoot, marketed as a Portable Vintage Camera.  Did I mention it is small?  Because it is tiny.  Very basic, point 'n' shoot, no frills or fancy.  I've been having fun playing with it, though the weather has been COLD the past few days.  Here's a couple of the first photos, with minimal tweaking in LrC (Lightroom Classic).

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This won't be replacing my Fujifilm Compact Digitals (X-T3 and X-T4), nor my iPhone, but is another toy for my arsenal!

Blustery Day Haiku

 

I asked ChatGPT to write a Haiku about this photo, with the clarification: This is Lake Erie on a cold and very blustery day.

Here's what it came up with:

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Cold wind scours the waves 

two empty chairs face the gray,

waiting for calm light.

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A Good Crop 2024 - Video Photo Essay

Yep, I've made another video essay.  Regular readers (hopefully) know about the ongoing "A Good Crop" series, reflecting back on my 12 favorite photos from each year.  If not, check it out here.

Anyway, I made a Youtube video for the 2024 edition, will probably make similar videos for the other years.  Check it out, comments welcome:

2024 - A Good Crop

I just want to be popular...

 I was digging through my various archives today, looking for a specific photo, which I finally found.  But in the process, I came across a post from June of 2020, where I posted my Top Rated Photos at the 365Project site. Which predictably got me thinking, what's that list look like today?

So here you go, file name and date posted:

1.  First Snow - 11/30/24
2. Just Hangin' Around... - 1/26/20 - This was #1 in previous post
3. Northern Flicker - 1/25/24
4. Lost In My Mind... - 2/24/18 - This was #2
5. Frosty - 11/1/19 - this was #3
6. Bluebird - 1/19/24
7. Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - 7/13/25
8. Lost In A Fog - 2/23/19 - this was #4
9. Chickadee In Flight - 6/14/20
10. Robin #1 - 11/29/20

So... what to make of this?  Well, obviously, bird photos are popular at this site, capturing 7 of the top 10 spots.  And all of the new entries since the last time I looks.  Won't change what I'm shooting, but it's interesting to kniw. 

Crossing

 This old railroad bridge is along an unimproved section Nickleplate Trail.  There were originally 2 parallel tracks, this is the one that was not converted to bike/walking trail.  The official one is not far off to the right, maybe 50' or so.  

Beautiful fall day, perfect for a walk!

Throwback Thursday - Fats Express

 Here's one from November 2015, I wonder how I'd shoot this now?  I reprocessed it, primarily
because I used to save everything at 1024 px on the long side:

This was taken somewhere in Belleville, IL.  I'm not sure if I could find it again, or if it is even still there.

Oh well.

I uploaded this to ChatGPT, along with 2 others from Nov. 2015, and asked how it compares with my current work.  It said:

"This is the strongest of the three, and the one most aligned with your current aesthetic. The controlled palette, architectural rhythm, and sense of quiet endurance all anticipate your mature voice. The framing feels deliberate, the tones restrained, and the textures observed rather than dramatized — hallmarks of your present visual language. It’s a clear bridge between your early vernacular curiosity and your later contemplative precision."