A quick recap of our top 5 favorite photos of the year! Enjoy!

Owen’s Five Favorite Photos

July 2022 | Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana

About halfway through our one week float through the Bob Marshall Wilderness we were starting to get hungry. Yes, we had plenty of food, but we were craving something other than backpacking food. After a long day on the river, our friend Chase caught three fish and proceeded to cook them up over a fire. Luckily we had some hot sauce to go with the fish too. I really like the warm and cool colors in this photo and the way everything is laid out. More than anything else though I love the memories attached to the photo (this will be true of ALL these photos). 

September 20222 | Sacred Valley, Peru

During the group trip we hosted in Peru we made a stop at some salt mines in the Sacred Valley. The terraced pools make for a surreal landscape and the sheer number of them is something to behold. Despite that, I was drawn most of all to creating compositions that were a little bit more abstract. Playing around with the lines created by the stone dividers was a ton of fun and we both got a ton of photos like this, but this one ended up being my favorite. 

October 2022 | Arequipa, Peru

After our group trip in Peru, MAK and I visited Arequipa, Peru. Most of the time we were there I was recovering from a stomach bug that got me in Cusco. When I did manage to make it out we toured a centuries old monastery. It was a fascinating place and the architecture was beautiful. It was a great way to rejoin the rest of the world and we could have walked around it all day. In one of the darker rooms there was a single beam of light that came in from the ceiling and when I saw MAK walk through it I made her go back so I could take this. 

October 2022 | Torres Del Paine, Chile

Peter, Linhbergh, Chase and I spent a week touring around Patagonia this year and it was absolutely amazing. We spent a lot of days full of touring Torres Del Paine. On one of those days we hiked up a STEEP trail to gain views of the valley below. After an epic day of hiking and sight seeing this was the cherry on top. From the top there were views all around but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the turquoise blue water of the river. 

October 2022 | Puerto Natales, Chile

This was taken the day after the last one. When we were driving back in to town from a day in Torres Del Paine these lenticular clouds started to form just in time for sunset. We were trapped in the car while losing our minds over the show playing out in the sky. Eventually we couldn’t help ourselves and pulled over to shoot some photos and video on the side of the road. This isn’t one of those photos. MAK happened to be out with her group trip watching this same sunset down by the water and nailed this beauty with a gorgeous reflection. It’s way better than anything we got!

MAK’s Five Favorite Photos

August 2022 | Pictured Rocks National lakeshore, Michigan

Similar to Owen’s, all of the images that are in my top five of the year have some pretty potent memories attached to them. This photo was taken after a full day of hiking in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and it happened to be our seven year wedding anniversary. We always try to do something “big” or “epic” for our anniversary and I have to say, this was an incredibly epic day. This photo was taken on 120mm (medium format) film on my Mamiya 645. I got the camera early in the year and it felt like it was taking me longer that I wanted to get images I was proud of out of it. Finally, on this roll, my vision and the final result lined up. I remember getting the scans back from this roll while we were in Peru and being over the moon to finally feel like I was nailing shots with my new camera! Also I’m a sucker for a good self portrait!

October 2022 | Patagonia, Argentina

This year I’ve fallen head over heals for photographing wildlife. After getting our Sony 100-400mm lens in Alaska, I’ve had time to get to know the lens and be able to feel really capable while shooting with it. I love the feeling of intimacy that I can achieve with this focal length, particularly with subjects that we rarely/never have intimate experiences with. Every time I use it, I feel like I’m walking away having been able to really observe an animal in detail and get a better understanding for them as an individual and as a species. While in Patagonia I had one animal, more than any, that I wanted to photograph. The Magellanic Woodpecker. In our over two weeks of being there I didn’t see a single woodpecker. However, on our last hike as we were coming out of the mountains, we came across three woodpeckers together in one area! None seemed phase by my presence and even came closer to me as I was shooting! This image is of a female. I love that she looks like a Dr. Seuss character. The dense forest made for the most incredible compositions. I love the way the beam of light was highlighting her facial features. The whole images reads like something straight out of a fairytale.

June 2022 | Wind River Range, Wyoming

This photo looks and feels like a dream. A dream that was a pleasure to live through, to photograph, and look back on. To this day, I don’t fully understand why this image turned out the way it did. The light in the background looks whimsical due to the VND (variable neutral density filter) that I had on my camera for shooting video. Usually I take it off when I’m taking photos but for whatever reason, I left the filter on and love the image that I got because of it. The picture was taken while we were out filming a packrafting trip that we made into this video. That trip was an absolute blast!

August 2022 | Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan

This picture was taken on the same roll of film as the portrait of me and Owen on our anniversary. Again, it felt good to finally be nailing the photos on this camera! This image is also special because of how magical this day was. We decided to backpack the entire through hike with our packrafts just so we could paddle this 4 mile section of the lake shore to see the name sake “Pictured Rocks”. It was one of those classic perfect days. The weather was perfect. The water was warm. We were both so enthralled with the scenery. I think a lot of my favorite photos are from times when I felt endlessly present. That was absolutely the case for this image. There was no place in the world I would have rather been than right there with a camera in hand. There is also something thrilling about having a medium format camera out on the water! ;)

September 2022 | Machu Picchu, Peru

This one can easily speak for itself. You never forget when you see a place like Machu Picchu for the first time. When in the presense of this place, it’s palpable how special it is. The setting of Machu Picchu was breathtaking and it felt as if a single image couldn’t properly capture it or its scale. I took a series of four images and stitched them together into this panorama. I love the leading lines of the terraces, the person in the bright yellow poncho all leading up to settlement itself. Still, this image doesn’t do this place justice and if I’m being really honest, none of our images do. This is just the kinda place you need to see in person to fully appreciate it.

Thank you all for being here for another spectacular year. It has been a pleasure to share the wild ride with you all. Here’s to another year of beautiful and memorable images! See you in 2023!

Love,

MAK & Owen