Steven Bourelle Digital Arts

Earlier this week, photographer Jim Goldstein released his list for the”Best of 2009 Photos” that his readers submitted to his blog, JMG-Galleries.com. I want to thank Jim for including my Top 10 Photos of 2009 on the list.

The list grew 30% this year and is now at 124 photographers. There are some really great photographs and photographers on this list. Enjoy!

Best Photos of 2009

1. Best Photos of 2009 – Jim M. Goldstein | JMG-Galleries
2. Best of 2009 Photo Set – Heikki Salmi
3. Top 10 2009 – Chris Moore | Exploring Light Photography
4. Best of 2009 – Wat Chedi Luang | FocusPocus
5. Best of 2009 – Dave Wilson | News and Views
6. Five For Friday – Favorites of 2009 - Craig Ferguson Images | Cultural Photography
7. Best Photos of 2009 – David Cleland | Flixelpix
8. Best Photos 2009 – Chuq Von Rospach | chuqui 3.0
9. 2009 Favorites – G Dan Mitchell | G Dan Mitchell Photography
10. Best of 2009 – Roberta Murray | Uncommon Depth
11. My Year in Pictures – Jon McCormack Photography
12. Top 10 Photos of 2009 – Steven Bourelle | SierraVisions
13. 2009: Year in Review – Stephen Zacharias
14. 2009 – A Photographic Year in Review – David Taylor | Sixtyone North
15. Best Photos of 2009 – Tony Rath Photography
16. Top 10 of 2009 – Steve Cole Photography Blog
17. my top ten shots of 2009 – Tom Varden
18. Best of 2009 – Mario Batalla
19. My Top 10 Photos from 2009 – Justin Korn [dot] com
20. Best of 2009 – Inge Fernau | Magical Glow Photography
21. My Favorite Photos From 2009 – Brian Auer | Epic Edits
22. Best Photos From 2009 – Janis Janums Photography
23. Best of 2009 – Tim Parkin | Still Developing
24. 2009 Retrospective – Jan Klier | AllKlier Photography
25. Best of 2009 – Jenni Brehm | Changing Perspectives
26. 2009 in Pictures – Hitesh Sawlani | A Visual Treat
27. Year 2009 in pictures – Minna Kinnunen | The Quiet Picture
28. 2009 in front of my Lens – Marcin Retecki Photography
29. Best of 2009 – Peter Carr | Vanilla Days
30. Best of 2009 – Dave Reichert
31. My top favourites from 2009 – Ricky Law
32. Best of 2009 – Joshua Beckman |PhotoVandal
33. 2009 Top Ten – Jessica Sweeney | Quotidian Photography
34. My favourite shots in 2009 – Catalin Marin | Momentary Awe
35. Best Photos of 2009 – Suzy Walker | Reef Beasties
36. My Best of 2009! – Michelle Johnson | My Two Seasons
37. The Best of 2009 – Photographic Phantasy: Photography by Samantha Genier
38. Best of Photos Part I-IV - Chuck Goolsbee
39. Statue of Liberty 2009 – Scott Dunn
40. My Favorite Photos of 2009 – Ed Rosack | Central Florida Photo Ops
41. Best Photos from 2009 – Jim Wheeler
42. Year in Review 2009 – Laurie Ballesteros | Photine
43. Favorites of the Year – Ken Trout | Lunch is Optional
44. Year 2009 in Korwel photography – Iza Korwel | Korwel Photography
45. Best of 2009 – Uschi Gerschner Photography
46. Top Five Images from 2009 and Keeping It New – Mike Cavaroc
47. Wrapping up 2009 – Ivan Makarov Photography
48. Favourite Nine from 2009 – Todd Metcalfe | Daily Grind Photography
49. Favorite Images of 2009! – Allison Pluda | Seneca Creek Photography
50. Best photos of 2009: Non Portrait Pictures – Julie Provost | Julie Loves Photography
51. 2009 in 12 beelden – Jeroen Mentens | FaunaFlora.org
52. Reflections on images of 2009 – Mark Graf | Graf Nature & Wildlife Photography
53. An End of Year Retrospective for 2009 – Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston | Journey of Light Photography
54. Top Ten Photos Of 2009 – Jed Link | Mr. & Mrs. Link
55. YEAR IN REVIEW – TOP 5′S OF 2009 – Matt Graham
56. Ten Best for 2009 – Dan Baumbach
57. Top 10 Photographs For 2009 - Seung Kye Lee – fine art landscape photography
58. My 10 Favorite photos of 2009 – Alex Budak | Unpopped Collar
59. Best Photos of 2009 – Dave Hammaker Photography
60. My Best Photos of 2009 – D. Travis North | Shutter Photo
61. Favourite Pictures of 2009 – Janne Moren | Janne in Osaka
62. My Best Photos of 2009 – Michael Spivak | Developing The Fixer
63. 2009 Favourite – Marc Hodges | sevennine
64. NZ Opera: Macbeth behind the scenes – Alexia Sinclair
65. The Best of ‘09 – Porter Watkins
66. Respect - Paul (Slimeface) Tarin
67. Best Images for 2009 – Giovanni Russello | GRGalleries
68. Happy 2010 / Best of 2009 – William Neill Photography
69. Top 10 Photos of 2009 – Digital Kloc Photography
70. Best Photos of 2009 – Dave Schumaker
71. Best of 2009 – G. Kaltenbrun | gZphotoGraphs
72. Favourite landscape photographs from 2009 – Jonathan Martin-DeMoor | Silvicola borealis Images
73. Top 5 of 2009 - Jim Maher | Jim Maher Photoworks
74. Favourites 2009 – Chris Gin
75. Best Photographs of 2009: Globetrotting – Justin Shifrin | J. Stuart Studios
76. Best 10 of 2009 – Duffy Knox | The View Through My Glass
77. Best of 2009 – Rian Castillo | Digitized Chaos
78. Best of 2009 – Rick Goldwasser
79. Best of 2009 – Jeremy Brooks
80. My best from 2009 – Massimo Belloni
81. Favorites of 2009 – Pat Ulrich Photography
82. Best Photos of 2009 – Nick Fuller | JadeGreenImage
83. Best of 2009 – Stig Nygaard | Rockland
84. My Fave 5 from 2009 – Greg Russell Russell
85. Best Images of 2009 – Peter Cox Photography
86. My Favourite Photos of 2009 – Daniel Loshak
87. Favorite photo – Lacey Smith | Lace’s Photography
88. 2009 Year in Pictures - Lane Hartwell | The Post and Review
89. Ten More from 2009 - Ann Torrence
90. Best of 2009 – Ken Snyder
91. Best of 2009 – Simon Ponder | Simon Says
92. TOP Photos of 2009 - Gary Crabbe | Enlightened Images
93. 2009 Top 10 – Steven Scherbinski | Randomness
94. Looking back, looking forward - Kevin Ebi | Living Wilderness Nature Photography
95. Best of 2009 – Todd Heckert | Great Lakes Exposure
96. MY BEST PHOTOS of 2009 – Sean Willis Photography
97. Best Photos of 2009 – Andre Maltais | Maltphoto
98. Top 9 of 2009! – Jenna Stirling
99. 2009 in review, the photo version – Sam Bloomberg-Rissman Photography
100. Favorite Photos from 2009 – Ron Niebrugge | Niebrugge Images
101. Niner for Zero Niner before Zero Niner of Zero Ten - Jay Goodrich Photography
102. Best of 2009 – Prajit Ravindran
103. Photos of 2009 + Flickr Set- Carl Donohue | Skolai Images
104. Top 12, 2009 – John Fujimagari
105. Top 10 Photos of 2009 – Mike Criss
106. 2009 IN REVIEW – Kriz Cpec | kRiZ cPEc Photo Blog
107. My Favorite Photos of 2009 – Greg Lato | latoga photography
108. Best of 2009 – Andree Oulmann | On Linden Way
109. 10 Favorite Pictures of 2009 – Chris Williams | Hidden Light Photography
110. Your Best Photos From 2009 – Gurbir Singh Brar | Fotovala
111. Landscape Photography My Best of 2009 – Steve Sieren
112. Best of 2009 – Torsten Curdt
113. Best of 2009 – Stefan Neuweger | addicted2pixels
114. Image Picks from 2009 – Neil Corman Photography
115. Jahresrückblick (fotografisch) – Steffen Goethling | Lens-Flare.de
116. Best Photos of 2009 – Mike Reys |pl?dys
117. My Best Photos from 2009 – Terri Jacobson | Greyhound Gardens
118. My best photos of 2009 – Bryan Villarin | All Narfed Up
119. Best of 2009 – Heidi Donat
120. Best of 2009 – Pedja Pavlicic
121. Best of 2009 – Matthew Sallee | IAmMatt
122. Best of 2009 – Go2Grl
123. 10 Top Photos of 2009 – Gavriel Jecan Photography
124. My Top 10 Photos for 2009 – Neil Creek Photography

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This image was made when I still lived in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. I happened to see this sunset in the side mirror of my truck while I was driving. Luckily I had my camera with me, so I made a quick u-turn and sped to an area to photograph it. I had shot a lot of pictures of the sunset when I realized that this would make an awesome panoramic picture. I fired off the three shots that make up this image just before the colors began to fade. Two minutes later, the sunset was over.

I try to always keep the possibility of a pano in mind when I’m out shooting. Many times I’m so caught up in the moment that I forget about panos, that’s what almost happened in this image. Other times, I’ll see the scene and know right away that I’m shooting a pano, (The header image for this site is an example) .

When I shoot a pano, I like to keep the picture count down. I try to make the pano with less than 5 pictures. I feel 3 or 4 are the perfect number. The main reason for this, I don’t care for long, skinny panos. I like my images to have some width to them. 3-4 pictures creates a nice width to the pano.

It’s important to remember to overlap each picture and try to keep the horizon as level as possible. I actually find it easier to keep the horizon level if I hand hold the camera while shooting panos. Of course if your shooting at slow shutter speeds, this is impossible, so make sure your tripod is very level.

I use the free program AutoStitch to stitch together my panos. It does an amazing job of aligning the images and matching the colors and contrast. Of all the pano programs I’ve used, and there have been many, AutoStitch is the simplest and best. Unfortunately it’s only for Windows, sorry Mac folks. There is a program for Macs called AutoPano Pro, and it uses the AutoStich engine

So, the next time your out shooting, remember the panoramic image. Some amazing images can be made by combining a few pictures together.

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With winter’s cold having settled itself into the Midwest and no end to it in site, I thought I’d share with you how I keep my hands warm in the coldest of temperatures.

This is my third winter in Wisconsin and I now know how important good gloves are for winter photography. For my first winter here, I had a pair of Black Diamond fleece gloves that are wind proof and very warm, but working the camera with them was cumbersome so every time I touched the camera, I took them off. This led to some very cold hands. In fact, one time I was probably on the verge of frostbite since I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.

Since I love those gloves and didn’t want to replace them, I decided last winter to see if I could adjust and shoot with them on. I found that I could do it, but I also found that my thumb would bump buttons on the back of the camera and change  settings without me knowing it. It became very distracting having to double check my camera settings all the time. I also discovered that if these gloves got wet, they were useless.

This year I decided it was time for a change. While we were on vacation in California I found a pair of gloves that I thought might work this winter.

The gloves I bought are made by Red Ledge. They are wind proof, water proof and very warm. They are actually fingerless mittens that have a fold back top. The top is secured in the open position by very strong Velcro. The thumb also folds back on these gloves.

The first test for these gloves was this fall. While shooting fall colors we had some temperatures at or near freezing. The gloves worked great, but I was concerned about my bare fingers sticking out. It wasn’t bad at 32 degrees, but once the temps dropped into the single digits and the windchill went below zero I wondered if these gloves would work.

I thought about this a lot during the fall and decided to look into some thin glove liners to wear under the mittens. While at the Bass Pro Shops store one day I found some liners made by GameGuard. They’re made for hunters, but they work great for photography too. They’re thin, cotton gloves with very small rubber beads on the palm. Because they’re thin and fit snugly, you can feel your camera controls perfectly, and the small rubber beads help you keep a hold of the camera.

Last Sunday this glove combination got put to it’s first real test. We were out photographing the ice shelf along Lake Michigan (See photo above or the rest here.). The temp was 18 degrees with a windchill of 3. How did the gloves do? Awesome! My hands never got cold. The couple of times my fingertips started to get cold I just flipped the mitten top down and they warmed right back up. I had no problem working the camera controls or changing lenses and because the thumb top flips up, I didn’t have to worry about accidentally changing settings.

I don’t know if this combination would work for everyone, but it seems to work well for me. So if you’re going to be shooting out in frigid temperatures this winter, you might want to consider a glove setup similar to this.

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