This past year has challenged us all. For me, tests ranged from training new knees to a fair amount of travel – for both fun and duty – and angst over the news, of which I read too much.
But as I looked back over my pictures from 2025, I found people doing what they do, a few new additions to my favorite wildlife photographs, and a bunch of landscape and scenic pictures that make me feel good. While my roots are in documenting people, and later, the wild, I live within a monumental landscape shaped by dynamic weather. Like the tidal river I called home for 30 years, these mountains, valleys, canyons, creeks and broad skies have captured my heart, providing daily glimpses of awe. I’m compelled to capture these moments.
Still, people draw my eye, from our expressive, 3-year-old grandson Freddie to a chalk-art festival in Florida to our own small-town parades and protests. I found folks doing things that seemed to mean more than the moment recorded. I also wandered into the wilderness, paddled muddy shallows amid willows and stalked our backyard to document wild animals doing their things. I climbed mountain trails, crawled over deadfall and spent hours with my tripod in rushing streams to feed my obsession with flowing water.
I had a great experience documenting the Beckwith Ranch north of our town, which you can see in this gallery. And that prompted me to jump in my car and drive north five miles when the Northern Lights slid south in November.
I hope you’ll enjoy these two-dozen photographs and we all find fresh moments of awe in the year ahead.
Click images to enlarge into a slide show.
Freddie’s pulls off his new sunglasses to take in another present on his 3rd birthday.Chalk and tempera artists take over downtown Lake Avenue in Lake Worth Beach. FL, for the late-February Street Painting Festival.A tattoo artist poses in front of his shop (Solid Image) as chalk and tempera artists take over downtown Lake Avenue in Lake Worth Beach, FL, for the late-February Street Painting Festival.Ann Marie Donohoe gives her all to a volley during a pickleball tournament at Silver Cliff Community Park Fun Day.A man dressed as Uncle Sam cajoles members of the crowd during Westcliffe’s July 4th parade.With his substantial sidearm handy, a man on horseback joins Second Amendment activists in Westcliffe, Colorado’s, July 4th parade.A pistol-packing woman holds a banner for the Sangre Sentinel, which supported Second Amendment activists in the Westcliffe’s July 4th parade. After a dozen years of providing a “different view” on local and national issues, it ceased publication in the fall.Two girls join the throng on Main Street for Westcliffe’s July 4th parade.A trio of Custer County residents watches October’s “No Kings” march on Main Street in Westcliffe and Silver Cliff, CO.Marchers on “No Kings” day in Custer County prepare to turn around on the west edge of Silver Cliff, CO, and march back down Main Street through Westcliffe to the Bluff Park.A participant in October’s “No Kings” march on Main Street in Westcliffe and Silver Cliff, CO, pauses with others at Bluff Park and before the group disbanded for the day.A mother American robin feeds her growing fledgling, teaching it to feed itself, in the lawn at the Hacienda de Smith in Westcliffe, CO.A great blue heron stalks the muddy bank of a low Lake DeWeese on a July morning north of Westcliffe, CO.Venable Creek flows over rocks and through a litter of yellow aspen leaves on a fall afternoon in Colorado’s Sangre De Cristo Wilderness Area.The Greenwater River flows toward confluence with the White River, past the Baxter cabin near Mt. Rainier, WA.One of many waterfalls along the trail at Dogwood Canyon Nature Park in southern Missouri.A September storm moves across the Wet Mountain Valley, silhouetting Round Mountain and Westcliffe, CO.A a grove of yellow aspens light up a hillside below Horn Peak and a cloudy sky near Westcliffe, CO.Yellow maple leaves glow in light from above around an ancient spruce along the Fred Cleater Interpretive Trail, near Greenwater, WA.Cooper, Sage Dog and Janet wander the Fred Cleater Interpretive Trail, near Greenwater, WA, during an autumn drizzle.The recently renovated Seattle waterfront and sports stadiums form a foreground for massive Mt. Rainier.Early December snow, paired with an overnight rime frost across Westcliffe, CO, provide a foreground as ice fog and storm clouds rise from Horn Peak.An October sunset reflects in clouds over Colorado’s Wet Mountain Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Range.The northern lights, rare at lower latitudes, glow spectacularly over Beckwith Mountain, as viewed from the Historic Beckwith Ranch north of Westcliffe, CO.
Cookie Consent
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By using our site, you consent to cookies.
