I have a camping trip planned next week to the Colorado Rockies. I’m hoping to capture fall colors and crisp shots. In anticipation, I looked back over the year and pulled out my favorite shots of the year so far. Can you help me decide which is the best one?
Cindy Bruchman 
Omg.. I’ve been through 2 times now, I can’t decide , never being out west.. I have to go with the mnt shots first. , then I guess from those I gotta pick the RIM. . Have fun. Looking forward to seeing what u shoot. We r going to our Mnts this week end, to see the leaves:)
LikeLike
Great, Kim! What mountains are you seeing? You are on the East coast, yes?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, we r going up to the north country.. Not to far in.. ADKS here we come. I’m in New York
LikeLike
I love the Catskills and the Hudson River. Lake George is awesome. Fall is wonderful in NY! Love those orchards. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh wonderful! The leaves here in Canada have already fallen off the trees!! And the last camping trip was beginning of September – so jealous that it is still warm enough down there to go camping!!
LikeLike
Welcome, Xandre! It’s the last possible weekend we could go before Colorado Rockies start getting snow. It should be full of golden Aspens. We got heavy sleeping bags –only predicted to be 65 during the day and 40 at night. I can’t wait!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have a great time!
LikeLike
Wine.A solid cot. A cozy tent. The kayak. Mountains aglow. Best friend Jim. Bear the Dog. What more could I want?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yup! That sounds perfect!
LikeLike
A very good selection, Cindy, so it’s hard to choose. I don’t have mountains here in Norfolk, so they appeal of course. However, I have a thing about cactus plants, so your snowy prickles get my vote.
Enjoy your trip, I am envious.
Best wishes, Pete.
LikeLike
Hi Pete! I hope to post some winners next week. You know how it is–you take fifty for five good ones.
LikeLike
Breathtaking collection. So many to choose from. I have to say ‘Beam Me Up’ is up there with my favorites though. That’s a great capture. Love all the ones from around Arizona, isn’t Sedona beautiful?
LikeLike
Oh, yes, Sedona all seasons is breathtaking with the red rocks. Not too many places in the world that can compare.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I will go with “Red Cacti Blossoms” although I did enjoy your desert snow series.
LikeLike
Hi Allen, I love that one, too. Thanks for your vote 🙂
LikeLike
For me, it’s Butter-finger Bluff, followed very closely by Spring Sprigs. There are a lot of good photographs here, though.
LikeLike
John, I appreciate your thoughts. When the sun shone on the bluff, I could have easily reached out and grabbed a piece. (Butterfingers are my favorite candy bar.)
LikeLike
So many great ones. Beam me up for me. I like it when it looks like the sky is communicating with us.
LikeLike
Alex, true words! I need all the divine intervention I can. 😉
LikeLike
Stunning images, Cindy!!!
LikeLike
Thanks, GP.
LikeLike
how sweeeeet it is. thanks Cindy.
gotta get back there someday.
LikeLike
Take the train ride in Clarkdale. You would love it.
LikeLike
Ooooh, what a collection!! That Snow Clinging to a Prickly Pear Cactus one is most intriguing to me though, that is just super cool!
LikeLike
Unexpected, yes, for the desert? Thanks my friend 🙂
LikeLike
I will go along with my english friend Pete, and vote for the prickly pear cactus in the snow..But I’ll add that I have a personal dislike for vertical photographs. Otherwise, I may have chosen snow in sedonia. the detail on the lilac and monarch is spectacular, but the background was off. the composition on devil’s bridge is excellent.it reminds me of john ford, and i think of his lesson in horizons: “Horizons can be high or they can be low, but there must always be a horizon.”
LikeLike
Hi Bill. Hhmm. A dislike for vertical shots. Ha, ha. Another way we disagree. Most all the shots were vertical. I know how you feel about John Ford, so it’s an interesting perspective about the horizon. The Devil’s Bridge shot: well, if the sun was setting in the north, it would have been a grand picture for which you would have approved. 😉
I’m going to be driving through Ford country on Saturday. I hope I can find a horizon for you and I promise not to take a vertical shot. Okay, that’s a lie. Maybe one will strike your fancy. Can’t wait!
LikeLiked by 1 person
it isnt an innate dislike, i have just been so conditioned by various aspect ratios of movies, that a vertical frame feels unnatural. do you remember this book? it was my introduction to vertical photography.http://www.amazon.com/Skyscrapers-History-Extraordinary-Buildings-Revised/dp/1579129420
i have a theory which, like most of my theories, is probably a crackpot one, that when movie when from 1:33 to 1:85 and scope pulled the curtain out to an even wider aspect ration, we lost some of our vertical vision. there may be something in the idea that a lifetime of watching rectangular images has compromised our upwards gaze. but obviously it hasnt yours. your vertical images are gorgeous.
LikeLike
I get your understanding now–I think it is a spot-on theory–like looking at squares all your life and someone makes you look at a circle and it’s foreign. I guess I like verticals because it goes against that horizontal grain. I hate cropping lines that clearly are vertical. I like shots that have your eyes go up and down or down and up or if there are chunks of of colors and textures in nature that command attention. Anyway, I will check the link. Thanks, Bill.
LikeLiked by 1 person
sometimes the hardest part of writing a review is watching the movie.
LikeLike
I don’t have the time to write reviews very much. Especially for a mediocre or bad film. You are far more devoted to the cinema than I. I flog myself to write the novel. It’ll take me ten years, at this rate, to finish it. I have a few film reviews coming up for blogathon entries. Oh, by the way, are you still game to do the Lincoln guest spot for November? You do the old version, I’ll do Spielberg? Just an aspect, you don’t have to write a review. If you have changed your mind, no worries.
LikeLike
I’m game for Lincoln, unless there is something you would rather do for Nov.
LikeLike
Do you have any ideas? I wouldn’t mind a film noir. Something from the 70s or 80s. I would like to be inspired.
LikeLike
there are so many, i just watched night and the city yesterday, and was inspired..but there are 100 more just as good.
LikeLike
How about if we take a look at film noir like your Criterion classic, Night and the City or perhaps Gilda, and I’ll look at L.A. Confidential as neo-noir and make the Gilda connection with Kim Basinger?
LikeLike
i will have to decline on aesthetic grounds. i feel that if film is to be considered an art form, the genres must be as strictly defined as those in the fine arts. LA confidential is a $35 million GQ crime film, and has more in common with the Oceans 11 remake than with a noir. And Gilda falls more into the femme fatale sub-genre that sometimes , as in detour and out of the past, has noirish qualities, but not here. gilda is a slick, glossy romantic thriller from columbia studios, not a source of film noirs, which were the products of the second tier majors studios RKO. and Warner brothers as well as poverty row independents. If you are interested in more of a general femme fatales then and now comparison, leaving film noir out of the equation, i could take the 40’s and you could take the 90’s….and we could examine some of the similarites and differences, leaving the general discussion open to whatever films different people want to being into it, not confining it to two pictures only. would that work, or am i being too much of a snob?
LikeLike
You are the biggest film snob I know, Bill. 😉 I love your idea. I don’t like restrictions and this topic is fascinating. Femme fatales it is. Can we open it up to “classical” and “contemporary”? That is, I hate being restricted to the 90s when there were stellar ones in the 70s and 80s, too, and a few new ones worth mentioning.
LikeLike
sure. i just said the 90’s as an arbitrary secade. ill take 1930s-50’s, and you take 1960’s- present.. i think the 60’s was when the femme fatale began to undergo changes. what do you think?
LikeLike
Can I vote for all of them?
LikeLike
Oh, Don, 🙂 you made my day!
LikeLiked by 1 person
alternatively, and what i think might be a more engaging idea as it relates to the whole, is to invite a few more guests into the initial postings, each one selecting one example from one decade. then the contributors can respond as they wish to anything, adding whomever or whatever they like into the mix. So I will take either the 40’s or 50’s. You take what you like, and other s who would like to guest will chose their decade. It could be called Evolution of the Femme Fatale…Would that fit your scheme?
LikeLike
I think it sounds great and a lot of work. So, nope. I would like to keep it simple. If we halve it, we can still call it the evolution of the femme fatale and all my wonderful followers will be sure to contribute. 🙂 Let’s do it!
LikeLike
ok
LikeLike
Amazing photos Cindy. You have a real knack for composition. And you’ve inspired me to get outside and actually USE my new camera!!
LikeLike
Sweet! It’s great for me; I get bored easily and I like to give myself a photo assignment and see what shots I come up with. go for it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anxiety is such a pain in the backside. I want to go out but my brain keeps making excuses not to go. Ahhh mental illness, always fun!!
LikeLike
I find it relaxing, the quiet movement, the positioning, the thinking about the composition–and I find it near impossible to relax. Maybe you could post some? I’d love to see shots of Australia!
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are a few photos on my site, under the photography button at the top of my site. I’ve posted a few photos of my surrounding area but I haven’t gone out in a while. Its just getting hot here now though so I’ll probably go out more and get some good shots. I love the camera I got, its one of the few pocket cameras with a viewfinder, which was a necessity for me
LikeLike
I’ll take a look when I get back from holiday.
LikeLike
Cool 🙂
LikeLike
Fantastic photos, Cindy!
Kind of a toss up between the snow crusted Cacti. The Monarch Butterfly. Amelia and the Peonies.
LikeLike
I don’t know what it is about Peony Poppies. They just look fake. I’m instantly drawn to them. Kids, wind, and bubbles. Feels like summer. Thanks for your vote, Kevin!
LikeLike
I haven’t been to Sedona in years and years. Love that place. Breathtaking photos!
LikeLike
Thank you, David, for saying so!
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘Night and the City’ (Dassin’s original) is a great noir, and it is shot in London! I must get the remastered version one of these days.
LikeLike
I should, too.
LikeLike
The last. Sharing these shots with my boy.
LikeLike
Re: the sunny ledge. He’s asking how tall it was from the bottom (not of the photo but the actual base) to the top that we see in the pic.
LikeLike
Hi, Diana! Sorry, I’ve been out of town and just now only saw your entry. How kind to share my pics with your son. The ledge was about 30 feet out. I liked the little red blossoms trying to compete with the magnitude of the bluff.
LikeLike
Vertically, it’s about 200 feet.
LikeLike
I love the prickly pear one, the reflection one and the one with the light through the clouds.
LikeLike
Thanks, Abbi, I appreciate your vote!
LikeLike
Amelia blowing bubbles. Who can resist a precious child as subject matter, Cindy.
The red cacti blossoms on a ledge. Makes you wonder how you got up there!
Flowering century plant. The details and almost a rare feeling I get when I look at this brilliant yellow image.
All are beautiful, Cindy, though. 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you! I agree, the innocence of blowing bubbles in the summer from and the soft cheeks of a child–it hits an emotional nerve with me and instigates fond memories from childhood.
LikeLike
This is tough. I like your swallowtail on lilac and Beam Me Up, but the ones of the red rocks are outstanding, too. Hard choice.
LikeLike
Great! I’m glad there were a few that appealed to you. Thanks, Brenda!
LikeLiked by 1 person
They all appealed to me, but you keep asking people to pick. 🙂
LikeLike
I like to hear the answers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So many beautifully stunning photos, Cindy. You truly have a gift.
I’m so loving the bubble blowin’. Caught my heart.
Cheers!
LikeLike
Hi Shelley! My granddaughter is the bubble blower. I love her cheeks. Congrats, by the way, with all your lovely accomplishments with the book. I tried to comment on last Sunday’s post, but it wouldn’t let me. Hope you will stop by from time to time. Cheers 🙂
LikeLike