This One Not Those Three – Fewer Photos

From over 1,300 photos down to about 200, the second sort of photos from my Twelve Months at Hurricane Ridge photo essay was completed today, February 24, 2026. Squint. Squint. Now, it gets tough.

“Digital photos are easy! Take as many as you want!” Maybe that’s true if you want a grand pile of photos. I place constraints on myself: 2 horizontals, 2 verticals, every month, for twelve months. Eventually, the final photos will be (2+2)x12, 48. No month gets favored. All are equal. Don’t overwhelm the viewer. 48. No more or less.

“But, but, but… there are so many more to show!” Sure. But the number of appropriate photos are nearly infinite. I limit it to 48 to keep from overwhelming the viewer, but also to contain my work. Four per month is enough to capture trends. My photo essays are not about pretty postcards. My Twelve Month studies are chronicles of one year at one place.

48 photos will not capture every trend. But I do select the 48 to represent some trends, and trends are more than one data point. Every trend gets represented (ideally) by photos in other months. For the Northern Hemisphere and for a series that starts in January, the series will likely start and end with snow (as conditions permit). Flowers get in there. Migratory wildlife wanders through. From white to green to brown and back to white. Those trends are enough to account for dozens of photos.

And then there are the photos of the place, exemplary lighting, the odd ruin, maybe a person. Fill in as artistry suggests.

But I get ahead of myself. The first cut was to make sure there were enough images for each month. This cut, the second, was to pick singular images from several shots. Bracketing is great, but only one will survive. I also make sure each month doesn’t have too many because the next cut will begin my mental splicing of themes and trends. I don’t start with preconceived notions of trends. I wait until about now, after the second cut, to notice small time lapses, individual images that I deem worth special attention, and making sure landmarks aren’t missed. It would be silly to do a Twelve Month series in Olympic National Park without including Mount Olympus (if it’s visible.)

Some of this sort was simple. Get those snow and flower photos. Down-select from several ridgeline shots. Be glad there was more than enough to pick from.

Anyone else producing such a series can express themselves differently than I do. My photos are cropped in the camera as I take the photo. Otherwise, as with Hurricane Ridge, there’d be lots of panoramas. I zoomed in on individual ridge and peaks to fit my camera’s 3×4 format. I don’t use flash. I rarely use filters. 

What you see is what you get, but not quite.

There is some cropping because some photos aren’t level. Tilted horizons are to be avoided, but after I level the horizon, the image isn’t rectangular and flat, so some trimming will be applied.

One of the joys of digital photography that I will play with is adjusting brightness, contrast, etc. I try to keep it within reason. There are fans of HDR. That’s great for real estate, but not for reality – in my opinion.

And then there’s dust. My camera gets used outdoors. Rain, mist, fog, sand, dust, and whatever speckle the lens, and that shows up. Somehow, my photographer friends maintain impeccable cleanliness. My apologies, but that’s also why I decide to digitally remove such artifacts, if possible. Some shots can’t be saved, and I go back through the selection process as necessary.

All of those alterations come later. The next sweep through will be to select a final 48. In the meantime, and if I remember when I get home to publish this, I’ll include a few that almost made it but didn’t usually because of an errant branch, a scrap of concrete, or a spot of dust in just the wrong place. 

Stay tuned. The work continues. But for now, I’ll take a few days off from photographing the next series. Vacation? Nah. Taxes. So it goes.