Looking for a bit of closure on the old year, I can sum up my photography in 2010 with a few stats:

• I kept about 7500 photos taken in 2010. That means I surely took more than 8,000 photos but probably not 10,000 – I don’t delete 25% of my photos. (Every one I kept has one or more tags for organizing and finding them later.)
• With Merri’s help, I’ve rated 221 photos as 4 out of 5 stars; there are 12 photos with 5 stars – the best of the lot. All of these have appeared on my Flickr pages or my Picasa albums.

I take photos every day and the environment around me is my most frequent subject, including roadrunners, hawks, and many other birds, as well as bugs, flowers, sky, and the wonderful New Mexico landscape. However, four trips account for many of the photos I kept, including Florida in May, Colorado in June, and DC in October (for a visit and a wedding). The lion’s share of the best photos came from 12 days in Guatemala at the end of February and the start of March. Among many great subjects, I experienced the chance of a lifetime to photograph a male resplendent quetzal in flight. That may not be the best photo of the year, but it is a shining example of being ready for the right time in the right place – and being lucky.

Rather than tell you more about these pictures, let me show you what I consider the twelve best of my 2010 photos:

Oh, and the second edition of my book, Digital Cameras & Photography for Dummies, came out in November (a couple of the Guatemalan photos made it in the book).

Best of 2010