Having just finished a 365 project, I had more than my usual number of photos to choose from this year. Usually, I end up choosing only from my travel photos. That's when I take my camera with me. But this year, between my project to take a photo a day, family pictures, our trips to Southern Africa, up the Columbia River and a few other random shots, I think I had more than 2,000 photos to choose from.

I am going to start with my eight honorable mentions and then count down from 10 to 1—my best shot of the year...in my estimation. But I would love to hear what you think of my choices in the comments.

Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE... don't look at my photography on a phone. Please...

Number 10—Dawn on the Chobe River

I took this one while out in a small boat with just myself and the amazing Gibson who insisted on taking me out on a pre-dawn bird watching cruise even though I was the only one who had gotten up and been ready. A number of the photos you are about to see in this top ten came from that two hour cruise on the Chobe between Botswana and Namibia. I took a lot of sunrise and sunset photos in Africa. They are almost always great. This was my best because I had the boat (which is kind of a river taxi starting it's run) as a focal point.

Number 9—Hippos in the Chobe

There were two major wildlife highlights of our Africa trip. First, we spent five days on the Chobe River, then four days in the Kruger Park area of South Africa. Many of the folks we were traveling with preferred the Kruger part of the trip to the Chobe part. I (as a photographer) liked the Chobe better. This is a great illustration of why. Almost all of my Kruger-area photos are monochrome, basically brown on brown. On the Chobe, we saw that brown along the river's shores and in Chobe National Park, but there was also the blue of the river and the green of the grass on the islands that dotted it. This shot of four hippos surfacing behind our boat just worked for me. And I learned something about hippos during our days at Chobe. Did you know they don’t swim? They walk on the bottom. They are also very dangerous. Gibson did not want to be too close to them, because they could easily slip down and up under the boat we were in.

Number 8—A dark street in Bellingham

We had gone north to Bellingham, Washington, to meet our friends Jayesh and Lisa and see an anniversary presentation of mine and Jayesh's favorite movie, "The Princess Bride." There was even a live question-and-answer period with one of the stars, Cary Elwes. We stayed at an excellent Airbnb on a very dark street in Bellingham, and when I went out to walk Keeley, I saw this shot. So I ran back in to get my Nikon and came out and got this shot. This is a really good example of a shot I never could have gotten with my phone. It takes a manual setting to be able to get this kind of photo.

Number 7—Birds in the trees on the Chobe

This is another shot from my pre-dawn cruise up the Chobe with Gibson on our last day on the river. He took me near Victoria Falls (just on the other side of these trees) and asked me where I would like to be. He was just awesome and got me right to wear I could get this shot—so many birds.

Number 6—My best product shot ever

I know some of you will wonder why I included this photo of my phone, watch, and AirPods. I have taken hundreds of product photos over the years for business. I have never been able to get the lighting the way I wanted, and on this one, I think it’s perfect. It was kind of a fluke because I had forgotten to take a photo that day and got this at the last minute. If Apple needs a new photographer, I am available ?.

Number 5—A sentimental favorite portrait

Every other Thursday morning, we have to leave the house while our housekeeping service comes in to clean. We could stay, but then we would have to pen Keeley up in our guest room, and she barks the entire time. So we go out and run around. Keeley loves to go for rides. For this shot (which I took on our 26th wedding anniversary), we were in the library parking lot, and I had just come back from grabbing a book when I saw this scene. The love of my life and my furry girl. My favorite portrait of the year.

Number 4—My best lighting

This shot of my granddaughter’s school play is one of the things I love about photography—light. Real photography is all about light. There is a great quote from (I believe) Ansel Adams that says, “New photographers obsess about gear—what lens to use, what camera to buy. Once you have a little more experience, you start talking about composition, color, and clarity. But a true photographer only cares about one thing…light.” This light blew me away.

Number 3—Cheetah

It’s kind of funny that my last three photos are all of animals. We start with this shot, which I was worried about cropping so tightly. But it’s the cheetah’s eyes that make this shot better than any of the rest of the wildlife photos I took in Africa (except one). Just in case you are wondering, I was about 10 feet from this guy when I took this shot.

Number 2—Our Girl

This was the day we got her, and it’s the best action shot I took in 2025 I keep coming back to it again and again, making it my favorite shot of her all year. She changed our lives. She made them so much better. We can’t imagine not having her.

Number 1—The mighty buffalo

On that early morning bird-watching cruise with Gibson, where I shot photos seven and ten, I got this photo. We were cruising back to the Zambezi Queen when we saw this gigantic water buffalo. He was standing on the bank of the Chobe, and Gibson turned the boat and put it right in front of him. Gibson told me the guides consider these majestic animals the most dangerous in Africa, not because they are so big but because they are so erratic. Lions, elephants, and hippos might be stronger or more fearsome, but the guides know what they will do. If they are eating on the side of the river, they will keep eating, but a water buffalo will attack you at the drop of a hat. This guy moved, and we moved away pretty damn quick. But what a shot. Pure power.

The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it! – Ansel Adams.

Here it is. The last post of my 365 project in 2025. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to not taking a photo today. Not a single one ?. But you know I will probably be taking some in the not-too-distant future. I love photography. For all of you who have been following along faithfully, all I can say is thank you for your words of encouragement. I will be back to do another 365 in 2035. See you then...or the next time I travel.

Actually, there will be a post tomorrow. I always end a year and start a new one with my top 10 photos from that year. So far, I have it narrowed down to 18. So you might get eight honorable mentions and the top ten.

Big News for this website

One more piece of big news (that I hope you never actually see happen) is that I am moving this blog to a new server. I have been with WordPress.com since I started it in December 2018, but they recently raised their prices. I also host other URLs I own with the web hosting company Bluehost. I have now moved the entire blog over to Bluehost. That means that right now, as you are reading this on WordPress.com, there is a duplicate version on Bluehost. All I have to do, sometime between now and January 14, is click a switch, and it will move my URLs over to the new service. You shouldn’t have to do a thing, and I hope all my current subscribers will still receive their notifications. More about this just before it happens. If we somehow lose you, go to www.jimbellomo.com

So, here's my final three photos for 2025. My favorite of these is last night's dinner when we were joined by our forever neighbors, Jayesh and Lisa, to resume our annual New Year's Eve tradition.

You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.   ? Ansel Adams

Only two and a half weeks until New Year’s! YEE HAW! Here are another seven shots, with my favorite being today’s weekly (or should I say Christmas) Keeley. I hope your holiday season is going well, and we look forward to a busy time ahead—starting with my birthday dinner at Brian and Michelle’s tonight, Mason’s Christmas concert in Olympia on Tuesday, my birthday on Thursday, the kids coming over next Saturday, and Christmas soon after.

Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location. – Joe McNally

Being only three weeks away from finishing this project is quite a relief. If you are one of my few readers who are not yet retired, just know that if you think that once you retire, you will have a lot of “spare time,” that’s a fallacy. At least I don’t. When I started this project, my thought was, “I’m retired, I will have plenty of time.” But to be honest, I have never been so busy. I am constantly asking myself how I managed to do this project the other three times and run a business. I still don’t know.

Here’s this week’s batch of photos. I think the last sunny day was my favorite of this week. We’re about to experience a whole week of rain, which they’re now calling an atmospheric river. You know those. It used to be just a storm, but now it moves so slowly and dumps so much water, it’s like a river.

A good photograph is knowing where to stand. – Ansel Adams