2020: Twelve Significant Images

When Ansel Adams said “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop,” the word “significant” probably meant world-class, commercially successful, and genre-defining. For my retrospective of 2020, however, I’m going to use a much more forgiving definition, and look back at the 12 photos that were most significant to me personally.

2020 was year two of learning to make photographs seriously. I ended up with around 1,500 keeper images that I deemed worthy of editing and filing away, out of which around 600 I consider acceptable to show others. These following 12, therefore, represent less than 1% of what I was able to produce this year, but should be a decent reflection of my year in photography.

Image 1: Yosemite Sunrise - New Year 2020

2020 started out with my family at Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park. As the sun rose on a freezing morning, like fireworks, a dash of clouds lit up an intense peach above Half Dome and drifted away. An auspicious, but rather fittingly, fleeting, omen for the year.

Image 2: Deer Bone Diptych

Like many others, I joined the film-photography bandwagon this year. Out of sheer economy, I decided to learn on a half-frame camera, the Canon Demi EE17.

Walking up an oaky hill, our friends spotted an abandoned deer leg, probably left there by a coyote.

The image that resulted was this diptych, juxtaposing new growth oak and gnawed remains. Cliche themes aside, this is the image that hooked me on film photography, and the one that taught me how storytelling can happen naturally, often accidentally, in photography.

I now carry this camera as my daily documentation camera, in effect, replacing my phone. I wrote more about the Canon Demi EE17 on Emulsive.org and the process of creating images like this.

Image 3: Goosepen Redwood in Big Basin

A redwood with a burnt-out hollow center, like the one pictured, is referred to as a “goosepen redwood.” This is because, allegedly, people would add a little fence and use them as a shelter for geese.

Trivia aside, I distinctly remember lying awake on a night in August, listening to the most violent and prolonged thunderstorm I’ve ever experienced. The next morning, we woke to news of wildfires all over the San Francisco Bay Area, including the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, which burned a good portion of Big Basin State Park, where this photo was taken.

The park is still closed, and I haven’t been able to return to this location, but I imagine, more hope, that these old-growth Redwoods managed to survive yet another wildfire. Wildfires have generally increased in their intensity in recent years for a variety of complex reasons, and some warn that the usually fire-resistant redwoods won’t be able to survive these modern fires.

Hopefully this image, taken in March, won’t need to be a record of these trees in their prime.

Image 4: Patio Hummingbird

In early lockdown, birding became a way to experience familiar surroundings from a new perspective. We always knew we had resident Anna’s Hummingbirds near our apartment complex, but confinement was the perfect catalyst to attempt photographing them.

Given the blinding speed and miniscule size of these birds, it quickly became clear that simply walking out on the patio with a telephoto lens was not going to work. A couple of weekends later, success came with a feeder, tripod, manually pre-focusing, a remote shutter, and a lot of patience.

I’ve developed a huge respect for photographers dedicated to wildlife photography – it’s freakishly difficult to do well.

Image 5: Island Among Clouds

Since shooting this image in May, I’ve woken up pre-dawn at least 5 times in order to reshoot these conditions. I’ve been successful exactly zero times.

Image 6: Twins, Masks and a Beer

Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 CF, Hasselblad 500 C/M, Kodak Portra 400

On one of the first rolls of medium format film I shot, is this photo of identical twin brothers sitting on the street enjoying a beer. This isn’t a technically successful photograph – grossly underexposed thanks to my non-existent manual metering skills at the time.

But like the diptych earlier, a story emerges almost inevitably, and it makes me want to work more with people in the future.

Image 7: Stormy Santa Cruz Cliffs

Examining just the process, this is probably my most successful image of the year. From location scouting, the blue-hour shoot, to post-processing, things just came together smoothly. It’s a testament to the care and effort that can (emphasis on can) go into landscape photography.

But is it my best image, process aside? Definitely not. I shot better locations, under better conditions, and made better choices in making other photographs. When those things align with a successful process, maybe I’ll have a chance to make an image truly “significant.”

Image 8: Pismo Dune Sunrise

I haven’t been able to decide how much I should be consternating over the development of a distinctive “style.” Something discussed often, but inevitably, unsatisfyingly by the photography community. While I think something of a style has been emerging over the last 2 years, I haven’t felt a ton of urgency to manufacture one, even today.

Wandering the massively underrated Pismo Dunes in central California, I saw this fairly nondescript sand formation. The red dawn light was soaking into the normally near-white sand, while the cold blues and purples of night lingered in the shadows.

More than any subject this year, I was struck by an intense urge to shoot this scene, and I scrambled down to the right spot to shoot it, right before the light changed.

Maybe this was just a bout of “light chasing fever” (note its cousin “fog-chasing-fever”), but I also think it may have been a hint of an aesthetic I should be chasing more seriously.

Image 9: Badwater Basin Blue

Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 CF, Hasselblad 500 C/M, Fuji Provia 100F

Death Valley, and especially Badwater Basin, is quiet. Not normal quiet, not even run-of-the-mill silent. Stop walking to mute the crunching salt crystals under your boots, and immediately, your ears will ring and your heart will pound in your chest. I think about that quiet almost every day. ⁠Text from this IG post.

Image 10: Reeds in Washoe Lake

This image is the opposite of Image 7. Washoe Lake was an unplanned, unscouted location, visited and shot well before peak light. Process? What process?

And yet, this is probably my favorite image from the year (full-screen it, to do it justice). It could be better technically, but I’m still surprised how lucky I got to find this scene.

Keep trying, I think, is the lesson.

Image 11: Silhouettes on a Lake

Although I love images from genuinely iconic locations like Yosemite or Death Valley, there’s something special about a photo of an anonymous location. It’s a reminder that there’s just so much left to see.

Image 12: Twisted Madrone

Where I live in California, the first few rainstorms of the season are a treat, ending a months-long dry spell, life bursting into action everywhere you look. The Madrone, aka the refrigerator tree, is one of the only trees that survive in a dense redwood forest devoid of light, and even then, just barely.

It’s plain to see just how hard this Madrone, one of the thickest in this Redwood grove, persevered for its share of rain and sunshine. In its death, it leaves a patch of open sky for a new generation of saplings to fight for survival.

For regular updates on my work, follow @arthur.kaneko and @film.positive on IG