Show Your Best/Favorite Image of 2014

[Rachel Hollander]

So it's that time of year again when we start to reflect on the past year, including our photography. Let's have some fun and post your favorite image taken in 2014. No critiques allowed, just "great shot" and "WOW".

Post as a reply to this thread, your ONE favorite image that YOU took this year. If there's a backstory then tell us about it and why it's your favorite.

If you want to comment on an image and it is not the last post, just click "Reply with Quote" on the image you want to comment on.

Happy Holidays and a Healthy New Year to All!

The Moderators

[Rachel Hollander]

I’ll start us off. I had a great trip to South Africa with Steve Kaluski and his wife, Alison. While there we met up with several other BPNers. Some meetings were planned in advance, others happened spur of the moment or were a complete coincidence. We shared a sighting with Dumay de Boulle, a coffee with Brendon Cremer and dinner with Stu Bowie, Arno Ellmer and Anette Mossbacher.

We also had our share of great wildlife sightings. It was tough to pick a favorite image but our time spent with one particular young male leopard stands out. We spent an entire morning following the Vomba Young Male as he stalked a herd of impala, only to have him give up within 10 meters of the impala. I think this image shows the leopard’s camouflage off and I just always liked the way he is peering through the tall grasses. Not my best technically (needed more below) but definitely one of my favorites.

Rachel

[dankearl]

May...
Rowena Dell, Columbia Gorge, Oregon.
I went to take Wildflower pics and a Rainbow burst out..


002_7966bpn2.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=147604&stc=1&d=1418789384)

[Diane Miller]

Great idea, Rachel! I just put a "2014 Favorites" gallery on my Smugmug site, but I'll toss out this one. It's too small to really show well here, though. The stars are "tracked" allowing sharpness and low noise at low ISO, and the FG is of necessity composited as tracking would blur it. From the clear air of 8000 ft in the eastern Sierra.

[Allen Sparks]

Here is a dragonfly species I often photograph but on this morning last summer I came across this individual in a field of wildflowers. I usually try for a blurred out uncluttered background but this situation gave the opportunity for a unique BG.

[Stu Bowie]

An excited family of Grey Herons at breakfast time.

[Bill Jobes]

Better late than never. I took this photo just two days ago, and I'd have to say it's my favorite of the year.

The young eagle was a nanosecond away from snagging a snack from the Susquehanna River in Maryland.

[William Dickson]

Shelter from the rain

147623

[Don Lacy]

Some wonderful images so far, Here is my favorite image from 2014 I chose this one because one of my goals this year was to get better at processing and I feel this image is the result of that I could not have made this image 6 months ago as it incorporates several new techniques that I had not yet learned.

[Dennis Zaebst]

This is one of a sequence of photos I captured earlier this year of cormorants at the Anhinga Trail. The front bird had captured a huge fish (looks like it might be a catfish), and the other bird wanted it, so the chase was on! I thought initially it would last only a few seconds, so I had to react fast.

I followed these two with a 500 mm f/4L IS lens in line with a 2x TC. It was so dark on the lake I had to raise the ISO to 2000. The viewfinder was so dark that I was nearly shooting blind, so I had to trust the autofocus on the camera, and it did surprisingly well under the circumstances. Later, as an afterthought, I wished I had set the camera to record a movie of the chase.


In fact, the two chased each other for more than a few minutes, and I had a chance to adjust and fire off several sequences. In the end, the cormorants lost the fish due to the infighting. Good news for the fish, bad news for the birds!

Oops, I don't know how to delete the smaller image. Don't know why this happened! Can the moderator fix this?

[arash_hazeghi]

This one was my fav.

147742

great images everyone. maybe we can sticky this thread?

[Loi Nguyen]

Great shots everyone! Great idea Rachel for posting this thread.

Here is my fav. I love the inclusion of the Snowy Owl habitat and the dynamic banking pose. I had the fortune of having one good sunny weather while shooting this image with Daniel, but the sun also makes it difficult to avoid shadow on the eye. This image is one of a very few frames that I had with the eye well lit.

2014 has been a good year for me personally. Looking forward towards a more fun 2015 with more trips and better images.

Happy holidays everyone.

Loi

[Raybel Robles]

This was my favorite image from this year. Was a completely unexpected image and a funny story. I was getting ready to take a shower when I saw through my bathroom window this Merlin flying to a tree in my backyard. I ran as quickly as I could outside not to miss this opportunity.

[arash_hazeghi]

Great shots everyone! Great idea Rachel for posting this thread.

Here is my fav. I love the inclusion of the Snowy Owl habitat and the dynamic banking pose. I had the fortune of having one good sunny weather while shooting this image with Daniel, but the sun also makes it difficult to avoid shadow on the eye. This image is one of a very few frames that I had with the eye well lit.

2014 has been a good year for me personally. Looking forward towards a more fun 2015 with more trips and better images.

Happy holidays everyone.

Loi

very cool Loi! Just FYI this is not a banking pose, banking is when the bird's wings are perpendicular to the ground when they are changing direction. ( so you can see the top or bottom surface).

looking forward to more great shots!

[Jim Bridges]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=866349263399431&set=a.866344860066538.1073741833.100000730966808&type=3&theater

[Akshay Charegaonkar]

http://i.imgur.com/X8vKsEC.jpg

A male purple-rumped sunbird from my little flower garden in Mumbai, India was my favorite subject of 2014.

Great pics, everyone. And all the best for 2015!

[Marc Mol]

Great idea Rachel :5


My favourite image for 2014 was also one where I was most priveliged to win the major prize in the GLOBAL MARCH FOR ELEPHANTS & RHINOS 2014 photographic competition:

http://www.march4elephantsandrhinos.org/#!competition/c11vt
with the (photo section) prize being 12 nights in lodges/B&B's in RSA, Zambia & Botswana, all expenses/airfares paid safari worth US$30,000. :cheers: :bg3:

I couldn't believe it when I received the news on Dec 2nd, and what a fabulous Xmas present for my wife, Rossana and I.

A herd of elephants cast incredible shadows across the dry Luangwa River floodplain as they journey to the refeshing waters of this dwindling river.
The looming shadows of the herd led by the matriach are clearer than the animals themselves, who seemlessly blend in the textured patterns of the sand below them.
South Luangwa Nat Park- Zambia, taken from a microlight over the Luangwa River floodplain.

Cheers and a Happy Festive season to all :wave:

[Tyler Hartje]

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-b8oglwBpICk/VJscbJz-uTI/AAAAAAAABvM/mt_wNAB4nsw/w1000-h667-no/eagle_coot_edit.jpg

My favorite image this year is this one of a bald eagle with a coot, coming in to land on a perch. It was definitely worth waiting for on a cold winter morning.

[Ian McHenry]

Always feel privileged to be able to watch these beauties from Madagascar.
Orana Wildlife Park: Christchurch, New Zealand.

[Joseph Przybyla]

This is my favorite for two reasons. First, the image as shown is what I envisioned when capturing the image. Soft light, the water background reflecting the soft color of the sky, the gentleness of the bird. Second, because this is a juvenile Woodstork. A species that is so endangered from breeding habitat destruction. The conditions have to be almost perfect for this species to breed. It's nesting sites are deep in the swamps, the water levels need to be high enough to provide protection from ground predators and for alligators to keep the predators at bay. There were two families with juveniles, a sign of a successful breeding season.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome stuff guys...keep them coming!!

Of the owls, "rare" birds, and surprises I've had in 2014 my favorite image of the year is.............a crow! This American Crow offered an amazing opportunity when it perched and fed on this hornets' nest - surrounded by beautiful autumn colours no less!