My Top 10 Photos of 2025

I thought that after 14 years of creating this end-of-year blog post that I'd change its title.

I was going to change the title to My Best Photos of 2025, as I've entitled the last two years of similar videos on my YouTube channel, but that title begs the question, is that the best you can do?

Maybe it is. After taking photos for more than 50 years, I find that I'm still learning.

This year, I'm going to change things up from previous years. I started writing this post in January of this year. Whenever I had taken a photo that I thought was pretty darned good, I've added it to the draft of this post. As the year progressed and as I took more pictures, I'd add and subtract photos.

I didn't have to choose my best shot from each month. Some months would have no photos that made the list or there would even be some months where I didn't pick up a camera at all; others, perhaps two or three photos from a single month were good enough to rank among my best.

And quite often, as you'll see in this list, some photos are from one event or one trip.

I kept moving photos around, changing the order and removing photos until last week, when I thought I had my top 10 images of the year. This is what I've come up with.

Now, some are NSFW. Keep that in mind as you scroll down. Some of my photography involves nudity. Just be thankful that it's not me getting naked.

Here is number 10 in my list: Cocoi Heron

I don't think that I have ever seen so much wildlife outside a zoo as when DW and I were in the Amazon basin of Peru, in May. Reptiles, primates, rodents, insects, and birds, among others. The birds were especially plentiful, and while we did capture images and sounds of 70 different species of birds in Costa Rica, last year, it seems that we saw and heard even more in Peru.

When we were visiting Sandoval Lake, we had the privilege of sitting on a boat while our guide, Donald, leisurely paddled us around. Armed with my Nikon D750 and a 200-500mm f/5.6 lens, I was able to zoom in on some wonderful birds, such as macaws, caracaras, and more. But the shot that is one of my favourite is of a bird that looks very similar to a common bird that we often spot while kayaking the lakes and rivers of Ontario, the Great Blue Heron.

The bird in this shot, however, is a Cocoi Heron. We were able to get close enough that the large bird filled a great amount of my frame, and when it took flight, the motions of its wings were spectacular. 

9. Enhanced Railway

Earlier this year, as DW and I were hiking a trail in Ottawa's west end, we came across a railway line upon which we could walk. I had my Nikon D7200 on me in case I saw anything interesting.

And while the tracks in a wooded area appealed to me, there was much that could have been improved: the light of the midday sun, for example; the time of day in general; even the time of year and the weather could have been better for the shot. But I composed the shot and took it, anyway.

As I looked at the captured image, I had a vision for how I wished the shot had turned out. So after I did some preliminary edits, I used an AI tool to bring my vision to life before making more manual edits and getting the final result.

Here is the AI-enhanced photo that immediately became a favourite of mine.

8. Ira Balan

I started 2025 by attending an artistic nude photo shoot with Ukrainian model Ira Balan. We wrapped her in fabrics, in rope, in jewelry, and sometimes, in nothing at all. We used high-key lighting on a white background and low-key lighting on a black background. We even used smoke, as this photo shows.

I manipulated the photo to extend the smoke and background beyond their limits. And I really like the results.

7. Lucy

Ira isn't the only model that I spent time with, this year. New Zealander, Lucy, visited Ottawa and was invited to join my photography meetup group. It was the first time I had been in the studio in the RA Centre, near Billings Bridge: the former racquetball court-turned photo studio gave us a high ceiling from which large backgrounds could drape.

As with Ira, we shot both high-key and low-key images. But it was the low-key images that really stood out to me, including this shot, where a thrown piece of fabric almost looks like wings.

6. Whitewater

This one almost feels like a cheat. It's not strictly a photo but rather a frame from a video clip. But as I recorded my journey through a set of whitewater rapids on the Jacques Cartier River, in the Laurentians, I did so knowing that I'd create a still from the footage.

I just like how this frame captured the action: the water splashing around me and my kayak and my concentration as I negotiated this rough section of the river. I used this frame as the thumbnail for the YouTube video that I made of this trek.

5. Riley Jade

It seems that I went to a lot of model photography meetups but I only attended three this year. Two of them involved using fabrics while a third was centred around motion. In this low-key shoot, we had our model, Riley Jade, move while we snapped away. She danced, jumped, and twirled, and we used all sorts of flashes, including strobes.

I took all sorts of photos of Riley to demonstrate motion but my favourite series of images that I captured involved her moving around in an orange skirt. As I composed the shots, I decided that for this series, I would keep the skirt orange--though I punched the colour--but render Riley, herself, in black and white.

It wasn't until I had completed the edits on all of the images (and it was a lot of work for each one) and had seen them all, side-by-side, that I came up with the following image as my favourite. And it's one of my best shots of this year.

4. Machu Picchu

It's hard to believe that one of my bucket-list destinations isn't my absolute favourite photo of 2025. But I truly found that photos of this Incan wonder could not do justice to the breathtaking majesty that I beheld with my own eyes. To truly see the beauty of this city in the clouds, you simply must go and see it for yourself. While you can.

What made Machu Picchu special for me was the mist that was allowing the site to play peek-a-boo. I was able to capture so many variations from the same spot, and when it came to choosing the best of the series, I went for one that doesn't quite copy the millions that have been captured by other visitors, and to one that I applied a monochrome filter.

3. Ira (again)

As beautiful as Machu Picchu is, my camera didn't quite capture the beauty as much as it captured Ira. Though, it was close--oh, so close.

Ira is so talented. She had set up a full-length mirror, out of view from the camera, so that she could see herself as she set up a pose. And once she was ready, she'd face the camera. There were so many amazing photos to choose from and the decision on the best shot from the photo session was so difficult, but it came down to this one.

Our photo club founder and organizer for this event, Mike Giovinazzo, held the sheer fabric to the side of the backdrop while Ira covered herself in it and leaned into it, stretching it behind her. There's almost a sense of motion to the shot.

And that look on her face. Those eyes.

2. Maras and the Andes Mountains

As I said, I loved the countryside of the mountain ranges of Peru. I wrote about this place in a blog post, in May, as I was still going through the vast amounts of photos that I shot during our vacation. This one, of the flat plains contrasted before the peaked Andes, with a storm brewing overhead, is still one of my favourite shots of the entire trip. I couldn't take my eyes off this stunning view.

1. The Saguenay Fjord

DW and I have been privileged to be able to travel around the world. We've been on the opposite side of our planet from home and we've now been in both hemispheres. And while seeing the beauty of far-away lands with our own eyes is wonderful, there is still so much beauty in our own country that we haven't explored.

Late this summer, we made a trip to the Laurentians and were wowed beyond expectations. We were able to kayak in the Saguenay Fjord and see the hills rise up, but for me the true beauty of this region was viewed from above, at sunset. Looking up the Saguenay River from L'Anse De Tabatière, you are treated with this view:

I applied some white balance and a filter that brought out the blues that were naturally captured in the shadows, making this one of my best photos of the year, if not of all time. It's almost like a painting.

So those are my top-10 photos of 2025. What do you think?

Thanks for supporting my blog and I hope that 2025 has been good to you, and that 2026 will be even better.

Have a Happy New Year and continue being awesome!