Welcome to the end of the year! We made it another turn around the Sun. Again, I had duck for Christmas dinner and took part in the Emulsive Secret Santa. It was a lovely surprise to find my santa was a friend, so my present was great and just what I wanted, film, a book and a print.

I put my details in to the Instagram Top Nine website and these are the photos it said were my top ones for the year.

It’s an interesting selection. A few of them are among my personal favourites for the year, especially the Marilyn and pigeons in flight. I would never choose self portraits though, seems a bit vain.

So here are my personal top photos from the year. I have screen shot them from instagram rather than go back through all my folders and negatives. They are in no particular order.

This was taken with a homemade pinhole camera with pin from realitysosubtle. The fact I made this multiformat camera myself and it worked well meant so much to me. I need to get out and use it again. The film used was Rollei rpx 100 and it was developed in Pyro-510.

I love this photo and it turn out exactly as I envisioned. The fact it was taken on a Yashica 44 with Kentmere 400 cut to 127 adds to it.

I love photos of sheep. This shot was taken with an Aka Relle that I fixed, with Wonderpan 400 film.

This shot was taken on a borrowed Mamiya RB67 with very expired Kodak Tmax 400 developed in Rodinal. I love the composition of this shot and the fact that I changed the seals on the camera to make it happen.

This is another image that came out as I envisioned, which is rare for a double exposure. It was also a lovely day out. So the combination of the experience and the image puts it high on my list. It was taken with a Yashica A on expired Fuji neopan 400 developed in Rodinal.

This is another shot I chose because of the composition. The legs are actually my friend’s…not a child’s. It was taken with a Rolleiflex Old Standard with Ilford pan f developed in Rodinal.

I chose this shot as it was taken on a trip away with these two photo buddies, it was a lovely weekend. This image was taken on a Contax 137MA that I fixed with one of the buddy’s hair dryer…they have longer hair than me. The film used was a gift from the other buddy, Silver Screen Negative, so it was a very ‘buddy’ experience that made this shot possible.

This is the only digital shot from this year. It was taken on an infrared adapted point and shoot. I chose it because this year, well the last 18 months, has been awful in terms of weather and I haven’t been out on my bike as much as I would like. I hope the new year brings a change to that.

Finally, this shot taken on one of my favourite film experiences ever. Taken with a Canon A1 on Agent Shadow pushed to 3200 developed in Rodinal. The model is miss_isabella_bliss. What a super day and I was so happy with the results.

And that’s it, my favourites from the year. My next post should be about my plans for 2025, wow, never thought I would see that. It feels so space aged. I really am old 😉