Announcements

My Best Images of 2024: the Nominees

Happy New Year! Once again I’m inviting you, my faithful blog readers, to help me choose my best photographs from the past year. I’ve posted 45 of my favorite images from 2024 below, in chronological order. After you look through these, please use the form at the bottom of this post to list your ten favorites.

The voting deadline is midnight Pacific Time this Saturday, January 4th. Voting has closed.

You don’t have to list your ten favorites in any order; just pick up to ten images. Once the votes are in I’ll post the top ten or twelve on this blog. (The number for each photo is in the caption underneath the photograph. Also, you can click on the images to see them larger.)

As always, I reserve the right to override the votes if one of my favorites gets panned. But I’ve rarely had to exercise this power because my readers have excellent taste. 🙂

Thanks for your input — I appreciate your help!

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Happy Holidays!

Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas over St. Mary Lake, Glacier NP, MT, USA

Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas over St. Mary Lake, Glacier NP, Montana

I made this photograph of Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas back in October, in Glacier National Park, just after the amazing auroral event we watched there. I haven’t had a chance to post this image before, but it seemed appropriate for the season, both for its symbolism, and because this celestial object evokes (at least for me) feelings of joy, wonder, awe, and mystery. We live in an incredible universe, and I feel lucky to experience its wonders every day.

Claudia and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah! We hope you have a beautiful holiday, full of peace, joy, wonder, and the love of family and friends.

— Michael Frye

Giving Thanks

Sun setting behind a small tree, Oregon Coast, USA

Sun setting behind a small tree, Oregon Coast. I’m grateful I get to see so many beautiful moments like this.

It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving in your part of the world, I think there’s value in gratitude – to giving thanks for all the things we have to be grateful for. We really should do that every day, but it’s good to have that reminder once a year.

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Waterfalls, Wildflowers, and Wildlife Webinar Tomorrow


 

Tomorrow, September 6th, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, I’ll be one of the presenters in a free webinar hosted by the Out of Chicago team called Waterfalls, Wildflowers, and Wildlife. I’ll be joining several other instructors from next year’s Out of Great Smoky Mountains conference for this webinar, including Chrissy Donadi, Michele Sons, Dusty Doddridge, Stephanie Johnson, Kurt Budliger, and John Putnam, and we’ll each be sharing ideas and tips about photographing waterfalls, wildflowers, or wildlife.

The webinar is free, but you’ll need to register in advance to attend live:

Click here to register for the webinar.

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Nightscaper Photo Conference: Last Chance for the Early-Bird Discount!

1927 Dodge Graham with gas pumps at night, Bodie State Historic Park, CA, USA

1927 Dodge Graham with gas pumps at night, Bodie State Historic Park, California. In my presentation Complex Lighting With One Flashlight I’ll show how to create rich, complex, sophisticated lighting with just one flashlight – as I did in this photo, lighting the old truck and gas pumps from multiple angles with just one light.

August 31st is the last day to get the early-bird discount on the Nightscaper Photo Conference!

This conference, focused on night photography, takes place September 26-29 in Kanab, Utah. I’ll be making two presentations at this event: Complex Lighting With One Flashlight, and Nighttime Sequences. And I’ll be teaching alongside a stellar lineup of other presenters, including Lance Keimig, Royce Bair, Jess Santos, Matt Hill, Tim Cooper, Rafael Pons, Katrina Brown, and a bunch more. Topics include star trails, auroras, printing, panoramas, deep-space astrophotography, Photoshop selections and masks, planning with PhotoPills – too many more to list them all here, but you can see all the details on the Nightscaper website:

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Join Me at the Out of the Great Smoky Mountains Photo Conference!


 

I’m excited to be joining the Out of Chicago team for another photo conference – this time in the Great Smokies!

I love photographing the kind of intimate landscapes this park abounds in during the spring – creeks, cascades, forests, blooming dogwoods, and misty ridges. I’m looking forward to photographing these scenes, and to helping participants find their own visions of this beautiful area.

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