2017 was a year of travel, school, and tons of fun behind the lens. This year I started my last year of college (what?!?), turned the big 21, and became more serious about photography and portraiture. Below are some of my (many) favorite pictures from 2017, some for quality and others for sentimental value.
The year started off with a kick-ass Caribbean cruise with the family! Joe and Chip's girlfriend, Heidi, were able to join us which was SO. MUCH. FUN. This definitely started the year off right. I only have photos from when we weren't FloRiding, buffeting, dancing, or swimming (which wasn't a whole lot of the cruise...), but they are still some of my favorites!
I began taking more pictures of everything, including landscapes which isn't something I typically like doing as much. I do, however, like making panoramas. I must have gotten that from my dad who likes to manually stitch images together. Luckily I use a fancy software that does it for me. Here is my absolute favorite panorama I took this year. You can see more landscapes and panoramas here.
My portrait work became substantially better over the year through taking senior pictures, graduation pictures, couples shots, engagement portraits, and family photos. As spring approached, I did several senior and graduation shoots.
One of my favorite sessions was doing joke senior portraits with my older brother. We chose a lumberjack theme to surprise our momma, and boy was she surprised!
One of my favorite sentimental pictures is this photo capturing Mom and Chip right after he graduated. The day was perfect with Colorado blue skies and so much pride swarming about.
With summer came a new camera that was an upgrade from my little Canon Rebel. Looking back, I absolutely loved that camera and still do. I feel so thankful to have learned how to shoot on such a small DSLR that was easy to take everywhere with me. Lower image quality forced me to take better photos; I couldn't get away with anything but clear focus and good composition if I wanted the final product to turn out good, and for that I am thankful. I am extremely thankful for my new spiffy camera body though!! It was an early 21st birthday present from Mom and Dad, and holy moly do I LOVE it! Here are shots from my first shoot using it.
And of course, 2017 brought with it my first wedding! Looking back, this was still one of the best days ever. I had no idea what to expect and was so nervous going in, but it turned out to be a really great time as I got to combine portraiture with documentary style photos to capture an entire day.
2017 also brought opportunity to travel. One of the first places I went (besides on the cruise) were the Sand Dunes and the Paint Mines in southern Colorado.
The sand dunes were perfectly outlined in snow when Joe and I visited! See more about our trip (and see pictures from the paint mines) here.
Summer meant Joe was in New York City for an internship, but I got to visit! One of my favorite days of the entire year was spent with him in Atlantic City while visiting him. I have another blog post on this here.
I tried to take lots of pictures this summer, from the mundane places like just down the road from my house to mountain tops to far-away cities.
The start of this last semester (my last fall semester of school ever!!!) meant taking more portraits up at school. It's so fun to see how far my work has come even from the beginning of this year and how much my style has developed. My favorite portraits I took came from these past few months.
I love seeing all the photos I took through the year! What were your favorite parts of 2017 and what are you looking forward to most in the upcoming year? 2018 for me holds graduation, the beginning of a full-time career, and the start of real adulthood (crazy!!). Can't wait to see what my favorite photos will be from this upcoming year!
