2024 Wrap Up

Wendy Dembowski

02 Jan 2025 • 3 min read

In 2024, I set a goal to print one photo per month to hang on my photo wall. I chose my best photo each month, hoping to see my skills grow over the year. Some photos were taken during months with a lot of selection. If I traveled during the month, I tended to favor a photo from a trip.

Many months, the photos are from around my home in New York's Hudson Valley. I started by getting prints from shutterfly, but found that prefer the quality offered by Nations Photolab over shutterfly. Barring a major discount, I prefer Nations for prints.

January

Dark-eyed Juncos having a little fight at my backyard feeder during a snowstorm

February

A Short-eared Owl hunts over the Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge

March

A Lesson's Motmot poses perfectly in the light on the grounds of Hotel Belmar in Costa Rica

April

The full solar eclipse from Lake Placid, NY

May

Baby Cottontails on the day that they left their nest in my backyard garden.

June

A curious Red Squirrel in the Scottish Highlands

July

August

A great Egret poses on a log at Esopus Bend Nature Preserve.

September

A Savannah Sparrow is all grace as it nails flies to a new stalk of dried grass

October

A Cooper's Hawk feeling "hawkwrd" as it sits on a branch while a bird watching group ooh's and ahh's at it.

November

A Grey Squirrel peeks out of a cavity in near the Empire State Trail in Kingston, NY

December

A Red-tailed Hawk floofed out against the cold at the Shawangunk Grasslands NWR

I plan to continue doing a monthly print, replacing the prints from 2024 in 2025. This has been great motivation for getting out and using my camera, improving my photography and editing skills, and really taking a look at the photos I get to evaluate what makes a good photo.

Seeing the photos on my wall also serves of a great reminder of nature's beauty whether close to home, or during travels. In particular the 2024 full eclipse was probably the most memorable 3 minutes of the year for me and has made me want to do a bit more eclipse travel in the future.