As promised, 2018’s top eleven photographs, since every year I’m blatantly unable to reduce the list to just ten. Also as promised, for once I haven’t waited for over a year to post them.
Saturday night in Zhengzhou
Unusually for me, an iPhone photo, upholding that tired adage that the best camera is the one you have with you. An evening stroll near the Songshan hotel, with some American and Australian colleagues from the International Cerebral Palsy Genomics Consortium. The advertisement is, I think, for some traditional medicine products.
Katie and “Mirror Image”
An equestrian friend and her equestrian friend, out schooling the cross-country course at the Caledon Riding and Hunt Club. Taken with a wide-angle lens while standing quite close to the end of the jump, an approach I hadn’t tried before.
Hummingbird in flight
A female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, the only species we get in southern Ontario. I’ve stalked these little birds unsuccessfully before, but a bit more effort than usual resulted in this photograph. It’s hovering near a feeder, just out of frame to the right.
Tim Hicks Ban / Get Loud Tour
Guitarist from the Tim Hicks band at the Boots And Hearts festival showcase concert that opened Toronto’s Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. My first experience shooting from “the pit” in front of the stage. It’s great fun.
Young Monk, Shaolin Temple
On the Zhengzhou trip, our gracious hosts laid on a sightseeing excursion that included a visit to the famous Shaolin temple and Kung Fu school. The light was too challenging for many of my action photos of this performance to work out, but I liked the chill attitude of this young monk as he paused between flipping head over heels and wrapping himself into a pretzel.
Rinus Veekay, Pro Mazda, Toronto
At this year’s Honda Indy Toronto I chose to cover Pro Mazda, one of the support series. Dutch driver Rinus “Veekay” van Kalmthout had a banner weekend, winning both races. Here, he’s celebrating while standing on top of his car. Rather than showing the car and the inevitable cluttered background, I instead chose this clean sky approach. He’s lit with a little touch of fill flash to get some light under his hat brim.
Barrel Racing, Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
The rodeo is the highlight of the final day of the “Royal”. It’s particularly challenging, combining fast action with truly dreadful lighting. I have a lot of shots like this one, but the combination of the horse looking to camera and the rider looking “around the corner” makes this one work for me.
Robert Megennis, Princes’ Avenue, Toronto
Pro Mazda series driver Megennis powers down the front straight at the Honda Indy Toronto. Shooting through the debris fence at this location is a popular choice, with every photographer seemingly giving it a try in recent years. With a wide-angle lens and a slow enough shutter speed, it’s just about possible to make the fence disappear.
Lamborghini Huracan GT4
The first big racing event of the year in these parts is the Victoria Day Speedfest weekend in late May at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. I’ve photographed Pirelli World Challenge races from this corner many times, but never zoomed in on a wheel detail mid-race like this. I love this car’s shape, graphics, and day-glo highlights.
Ferry, Chao Phraya River, Bangkok
I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at a Computational and Systems Biology conference in Bangkok in December. One evening out with my host and good friend Dr. Jonathan Chan took us to the new IconSiam mall, where the riverside walk affords lots of opportunity to photograph the endless boat traffic. Bangkok is full of examples of classic Thai styling applied to modern conveniences, and I liked this ferry as an example.
Canadian Cowgirl, Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
One more from the Royal. The Canadian Cowgirls are a show team who are a very popular fixture at the rodeo. While waiting for celebrity guest Amber Marshall to make the autograph-and-selfie rounds, I took the opportunity to capture this nice moment, while trying to show the density of the crowd at the rail.
And there you have it – 2018’s top eleven. 2019 is already well in the works, you can be sure of that.