As 2014 draws to a close here in the next hour, I took some time to choose my personal favorites this year.  A lot of great things happened for me this year and I am very happy to share some of them with you all.  Without the support of such a wonderful family, none of what I do would be possible.

My son Joshua recently turned 10.  DOUBLE DIGITS = SERIOUS BUSINESS.  I gave him a used Fuji X20 as he is super-excited about learning the art of photography with dad.

My daughter Talia turns 8 in two days.  Both she and Joshua LOVE to go hiking and look forward to our adventures.

My amazing wife Amber has been my wonderful companion now for fifteen years and has a birthday in……well…an hour and fifteen minutes from now.  Happy Birthday baby!

To start off the year, I took a quick three day trip up the Crowsnest Highway in Canada just to do some exploring and made the below image of me walking down the black-as-night road with the Milky Way rising above the fog bank.

Later in the spring, I was experimenting around with using a campfire as rim lighting and made this image below from our campsite on one of the hills surrounding Priest River, Idaho.

In June, I served as the DP for Scott Gardenhour’s short film, “The River”, shot in Priest River, Idaho, a film intended to help revitalize and rediscover small-town America.  The two images below are some of the stills I photographed that went into the production (reproduced here with permission).

In the fall, I made a trip back to Central Montana toward the Missouri breaks area and made my personal favorite of the year below.

Central Montana has a lot of hidden treasures.  As many of you know, I have a special fondness for old structures that are being reclaimed by the elements.  This last trip was very fruitful and I also captured these two images below.

Finally, I made this image of the waters at sunset along Admiralty Inlet from the shore of Bush Point in Whidbey Island, Washington – one of my favorite places in the world to be!

For the last few thoughts of 2014, I will leave you all with this:

When someone recently asked me the question, “What motivates you to make great
images?”  I was surprised how quickly the answer came to my head and it is beautifully simple:

If my work brings a little bit of joy into someone’s life, then I have succeeded.

Here’s to 2015 and all of the good things that will come!  Happy New Year!

Ben