Choosing favorite wildlife images from the thousands I take during a given year is a challenge for me. But a challenge I appreciate.
Frequently I judge an image by the difficulty required to capture that subject rather than by the photo's aesthetics. An image of a colorful songbird taken in my yard is usually easier to obtain than say, a shot of a big, mature whitetail buck sporting large antlers. So, I would tend to lean toward the deer image, all else being equal.
Sometimes I can't help but rate a wildlife image by its potential value, or salability. For example, since there are numerous magazines published for the deer hunter, a frame-filling picture of a whitetail buck has a greater potential to sell than does an equally stunning image of, say, a great blue heron, because there are far fewer markets for heron images.
Another factor that tends to sway my decisions one way or another when choosing a favorite image is by the amount of suffering I went through to obtain that image. Did I freeze my butt off on a below-zero morning to seize that special shot? Or did I try to ignore a swarm of mosquitoes and crawling ticks while attempting to sit statue-like in a blind on a hot summer day, rivulets of sweat running down my back?
And, of course, we all have our favorite animals, special maybe only to us, or at least not to a broad audience. A mediocre picture of that particular species may hit home where an outstanding image of another subject, one that elicits an inordinate reaction from most viewers, does little for us.
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With all of the above in mind, and more, the images on this page are some of my favorites from 2018. Happy New Year.
BILL MARCHEL is a wildlife and outdoors photographer and writer whose work appears in many regional and national publications as well as the Brainerd Dispatch. He may be reached at bill@billmarchel.com . You also can visit his website at BillMARCHEL.com.
