Best of 2009: Stay Tuned

"Brigham Young's Andrew George (88) is piled by fans and teammates after scoring the winning touchdown that put the Cougars over University of Utah, 26-23, in overtime during an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah."

It's hard to compile a collection of favorite photographs from the year. So many different things photographed, lots of failures and lots of successes.

Well, I wouldn't say hard. The real difficult part is narrowing down a large number of images into a smaller number, and then that small number into something reasonable. So on and so forth.

As for my pictures, I keep everything. Every image from every shoot. But I also keep a file of toned, transmitted photos. That way I can find something I shot quickly, and if I need to, find the date it was shot, so I can then go to my archive and pull up the full raw take.

This year to date, I've transmitted more than 2,000 images to clients and employers. Now that number contains re-toned photos, sequences and more.

I like to say I had a good year shooting and feel like I grew a lot. I had a lot of failures and some successes. I was lucky enough to travel around the world and work some amazing publications. And I am even more fortunate to have landed a job.

While I have been shooting for a couple years now, I am marking 2009 as my first full year as a professional.

Why? Because at the start of the year I was no longer a student and was working full-time as a freelancer. I then moved to Utah in August to start at the Provo Daily Herald and have been working there full-time since. So this has been my first "full year" of shooting.

In coming days I am breaking down my favorites into three posts: NON-SPORTS, SPORTS and ABROAD.

The "Non-Sports" will be news, features, portraits and singles from stories.
"Sports" will be sports. And "Abroad" will feature images from my travels this year.

I could have narrowed down my favorites into 10-12 images in each category, but for now, I am putting up ALL of my favorites.

Enjoy. Feedback welcome.