At the end of the year there are again a few numbers and data-facts from me. Last year, I already answered some frequently asked questions about the photographic yield in this article - and based on this, I will now update the numbers every year in the last blog post and give a review.
Definitely unexpected is the number of produced images with 557, which I could show you in a total of 34 blog posts 😃
Already last year this number was very high with 464 at that time and I was absolutely sure that I could not top that. But unfortunately, this year was of course still marked by the pandemic and since thus on most days (in the home office) the driving times fell away, I was able to photograph a lot with regard to the sunset times especially between April and October. In particular in the high summer I am almost every evening from 20 o'clock again outside to the sunset. In addition, there was an extremely productive winter (January-March), in which even here in NRW from 700m altitude many snowy days gave some motifs, in this period I could already implement 8 image series.
By the way, I was asked in January, how many releases are behind it - unfortunately, I can no longer precisely trace, but certainly over 100,000, so I have shown (with the 557) less than 0.05% of the images in the blog. Especially in the wildlife area you also produce a lot "waste". Alone from the recent 15 days Norway-trip I have brought about 18,500 images, that was mainly due to the many "creative pics" and flight shots of sea eagles.
No matter what comes next year, this year should definitely represent the peak 😅 And 71% of the shots were taken in areas close to home - in the Bergisches Land, in the Sauerland, in the Ruhr area and in the Eifel. Divided into the different "genres" of nature photography, I have moved mainly in these areas:
This year was very balanced in the different genres. Only in macro photography I was not on the road at all - this is usually the case in the years when I have very good motifs in the summer in succession in the area of supertele photography. The graph also shows quite well how varied the photographic year was - it's tremendous fun for me to go off with the telephoto for one series and to reach for the wide angle again for the next series.
Now a look at the "yield". If you are interested, I have described in last year's article how a "days of action" etc. is defined more precisely.
The days of action were again very high, even at the highest level since 2016, I was able to go on 138 days with the camera. Accordingly, the number of images produced has also grown to the 557 mentioned, although my demands on a picture tend to increase every year.
If I now put the images in relation with the days of action, I come to the following average per photo day:
Strangely, the number has again increased significantly from 3.5 last year to now 4.0 images per day of operation this year. But this is more of a coincidence and has to do with the selected photo projects.
Just consider: if I would invest next year for example one month, in order to photograph in Mongolia snow leopards, then I would have with 30 days of action days perhaps 5 decent pictures - thus a bad ratio, but for it possibly a very special quality of the photographs. In this respect, such numbers are always to be taken with a grain of salt 😉
Here are all the numbers again in raw form:
So that's to the numerical facts of 2021.
This year some series subjects came as an absolute surprise and I would like to share my personal Top5 series with you - with these are connected very special experiences on site:
1. "Trees are alive" from February.
2. "Between flowers and apple trees" from April
3. "Hunters of the night" from September
4. "The art of Norway" from October
5. "Fascination of Dwarf Beeches" from November
Away from the photographic yield, the year had a lot of light and shadow for us. After we had to cancel it before, we could finally get married and spend a wonderful honeymoon and we are more than happy about it.
But there were also shadows. In addition to the pandemic, which affected us all, our good friend Detlev unfortunately passed away. He also always enjoyed looking at the nature pictures in this blog and I would have loved to tell him the latest stories from our travels this year. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible and we miss him very much.
I thank you very much for your interest in this blog, wish you a good start into the New Year and above all the best health for 2022, because that is the most important thing.
With best regards,
Thomas
PS: the last picture this year was not taken by me, but by the Norwegian nature photographer Steven Henrikson, on a special night of our honeymoon.
