Some Statistics From 15 Years of Photography
A herd of elk in Washington’s Wenas Valley.
Back at the beginning of the pandemic, I embarked on a project to finally organize and categorize my extensive photo collection. I have nearly 100,000 photos in Lightroom, but as I generally try to spend as little time as possible in front of the computer screen, I had never bothered to organize them in any meaningful way. The initial decision to fix this was a function of both time (I was stuck at home…) and practicality. I use my images extensively in my job as a community college astronomy and geology instructor, and finding that one specific photo of a rock or lunar eclipse has always been sort of a nightmare if I didn’t happen to remember exactly when it was taken.
The project started off quickly (when I was stuck at home…) but as we re-emerged into the world a few months later, progress soon slowed, and I am just now finishing the project almost two years after I began. While tedious at times, it has also been a joy to rediscover many long forgotten photos. I hope to post many of these in the coming months. As a statistics nerd, it’s also been interesting to examine some of the data on where and when I’ve taken the most photos. For example, here is a graph showing the number of images I’ve taken each year, going back to 2007 (almost 15 years ago!) when I purchased my first digital camera:
It looks like it may have taken me a few years to fully internalize that, with digital, I could take as many photos as I wanted and not have to worry about the cost of film! As you can see, I’ve taken fewer photos this year than I have since 2008, a fact which I was acutely aware of even before making this graph. The drop-off from 2018-2020 is a little harder to explain, as we traveled quite extensively in those years (albeit closer to home in 2020 due to the pandemic). I’d like to think it’s because I’ve gotten better at capturing a good shot on the first attempt, but who knows…
A sunset view of Delicate Arch from 2012. While a somewhat cliché shot, it is also one that’s getting harder and harder to capture as crowds at popular viewpoints get larger and larger.
My project also involved sorting photos by location. As of Dec 2021, here are the top five states in which I’ve taken the most photos:
| State | Photos Taken |
| Washington | 21,154 |
| Utah | 17,188 |
| Colorado | 13,642 |
| Arizona | 8,959 |
| California | 3,779 |
No surprises here: I’ve lived in Washington for most of my adult life, with brief stints in Utah and Colorado. Arizona is where I grew up (and frequently return), while my now-wife lived in California during the early years of our relationship.
Basalt cliffs in Grand Coulee, Washington
Breaking things down a bit more, the specific locations where I’ve taken the most photos are also all found in one of the five states from above:
| Location | Photos Taken |
| Dixie National Forest, UT | 2779 |
| Cedar Breaks National Monument, UT | 2757 |
| Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, CO | 2703 |
| Wenatchee National Forest, WA | 2122 |
| Zion National Park, UT | 2014 |
| Rocky Mountain National Park, CO | 1768 |
| San Juan Mountains, CO | 1695 |
The Dixie National Forest covers a pretty wide swath of southern Utah, so its presence in the top spot is perhaps a little misleading. Cedar Breaks and Black Canyon, while relatively small parks, are places that I worked for several summers or years. I was a little surprised to see Zion National Park so high on this list. While we lived close to Zion during our time in Utah, it was generally a place we tried to avoid most of the year, given the crowds and heat. Apparently we ended up there more than I remembered!
A rare pink specimen of red columbine (Aquilegia formosa) in the Dixie National Forest, Utah.
Sunset from Point Supreme in Cedar Breaks National Monument, UT. (I’m not 100% sure, but I think this may be the first cell phone photo I’ve ever posted on this site…)
In nearly 15 years of photography, I have taken 300+ individual images in one day just three times. Below is a list of my most “productive” (measured by sheer volume that is) days of photography:
| Date | Photos Taken | Occasion/Location |
| 6/11/2012 | 342 | First visit to Great Sand Dunes NP in Colorado |
| 8/7/2009 | 327 | Backpacking trip to Havasu Canyon, Arizona |
| 5/16/2015 | 316 | Black Elk Peak and Custer State Park, South Dakota |
| 4/20/2019 | 282 | Backpacking trip to Willow Gulch, Utah |
| 7/9/2012 | 279 | Yankee Boy Basin, San Juan Mtns, Colorado |
Sunset in the dunes at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. This was definitely a memorable day; the patterns of light and shadows I witnessed that evening are vivid even 10 years later.
A small cascade along Havasu Creek, Arizona.
Cumulonimbus clouds tower over Black Elk Peak, the highest point in South Dakota.
As far as animate objects, I have taken more photos of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) than any other animal (followed by elk, yellow bellied marmots, mule deer, mountain goats, and, in an aquatic twist, ochre sea stars.) The sheep were a fixture of our drives to and from Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park while living on the Front Range of Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Big Thompson Canyon, Colorado
I could bore you with a detailed breakdown of the geologic features that I’ve photographed, but perhaps that is best saved for another day…
Top 10 from 2014
As in past years, with the coming of the New Year I decided to take a look back at all the photos I took in 2014 and select some of my favorites to share with you here on the blog. Between finishing graduate school (yippee!) and making a permanent (for now) move from the Pacific Northwest to Colorado, I had less time to devote to photography than in previous years. Nevertheless, picking out my favorite photos was difficult as usual and a good reminder that I was fortunate to have the opportunity to experience and photograph a a number of new places in the past year, from the coasts of Olympic National Park to remote alpine basins in the Rocky Mountains.
Without further ado, here are my ten favorite photos from 2014 in chronological order. Here’s wishing you all a healthy and happy new year!
1. Tulip Fields at Sunset, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, Washington
Held annually in April, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is a must see for any spring visitor to NW Washington, photography buff or not. On weekends, especially sunny ones, the tulip fields that spread out across the Skagit Valley about an hour north of Seattle are overrun, making photography difficult. Fortunately, I lived only about a half hour away and was able to visit on a less-busy weekday evening in order to photograph the picture-perfect bulbs in their prime and without the crowds.
2. American Bison, Yellowstone National Park
I’m going to come clean: this is the only photo on this list taken from the confines of my car! I was departing Yellowstone at the end of an impromptu day-trip to the park while attending a geology conference in Bozeman when I spotted this solitary bison along the road. Fortunately, no vehicles were coming up behind me so I was able to grab my camera and capture the glow of the late afternoon sunlight and the diffuse reflection of the bison in a pool of late-season snow melt.
3. Milky Way, Airglow, and Light Pollution from Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington
Living near Seattle doesn’t exactly do wonders for one’s chances of observing rare celestial events. What’s one to do? Get above the clouds of course! I was thrilled to be visiting Olympic National Park during the peak of the Cameleopardalids meteor shower in May. In order to get an unobstructed view, we made the drive up to Hurricane Ridge just before midnight in hopes of catching some meteors. As you may recall, the meteor shower fizzled spectacularly but all was not lost: I was able to capture this panorama of the summer Milky Way emerging from the disgusting Seattle light dome (over 50 miles away as the crow flies) as it rose in the west. Despite the light pollution, I also managed to capture the ghostly green glow of an atmospheric phenomenon known as “airglow” (which I’ve written about previously) and the low lying clouds smothering the Elwah River Valley several thousand feet below.
4. Giant Green Anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica), Olympic National Park
I developed a slight infatuation with seeking out and photographing marine life during my two years in Western Washington. Timing trips to the coast with some of the lowest tides of the year helped me discover a wide variety of anemones, nudibranchs, sea stars, urchins, and much more. Anemones were perhaps my favorite group to photograph, their neon-colored and delicate tentacles waving back and forth in the surf.
5. Panorama from Hole-in-the-Wall, Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park
Rialto Beach is one of the most popular spots in Olympic National Park…for obvious reasons. The short 2-mile hike to Hole-in-the-Wall was one of my favorite experiences this year. Once reaching the famous rock formation, we found an nearly entirely overgrown path that led us up to a viewpoint on the crest of Hole-in-the-Wall, getting us away from the surprisingly scant Memorial Day crowds and immersing us in expansive views of sea stacks, rocks, and islands along the Olympic coast.
6. Summer Wildflowers at Ice Lake, San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Despite my ravings about Rialto Beach in the previous photo, our trek to Ice Lake in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado was hands down my favorite hike of the year, and one of my most memorable ever. My only regret about this day was that we weren’t prepared for an overnight (or at least a hike back to the car in the dark!), which means I missed out on what was surely a epic sunset from the basin. Click the link above for more photos of this spectacular place.
7. Ice Lake Panorama, San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Did I mention Ice Lake was spectacular? It snagged two of the coveted spots on the top 10 list. That means you have to go.
8. Circumpolar Star Trails from Escalante Canyon, Colorado
Photographing star trails is a bit more complex in the digital age than it was with film. This was only my second legitimate attempt, but I was happy with how it turned out. Extremely long single exposures suffer from a variety of maladies so this photo is actually a composite of over 100 consecutive 30″ exposures (for the stars), and one 3″ exposure for the foreground juniper which I illuminated with a headlamp. In post-processing, I had the pleasure of removing more than a dozen aircraft which passed overhead during the hour or so it took to gather the series of exposures. I elected not to remove the two meteors (astronomical objects flashing through the frame are fine by me) but I’m looking forward to doing some more star trail photography from places not on major transcontinental flight paths.
9. Exclamation Point, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado
I love this photo because it exemplifies how the canyon got its name. Despite being taken at 10 o’clock in the morning, the narrow gorge carved into dark Precambrian metamorphic rocks remained shrouded in shadow, while its surroundings (and portions of the canyon bottom) are basking in the bright, mid-morning sunshine. This photo was taken from an overlook on the remote and seldom visited North Rim of Black Canyon, which offers the most spectacular views into the narrowest portion of this amazing gorge and is truly worth the effort to visit.
10. Waving Aspen and Grasses, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
I didn’t purchase any new camera gear this year, but was the recipient of a 9-stop neutral density filter for my birthday, a filter I’ve been wanting to experiment with for a while now. That filter allowed me to take this photo, a 30″ exposure at f/22 in broad daylight, and capture the motion of a colorful aspen and meadow grasses waving in the wind on a autumn day in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Top 10 Images from 2013
So this is a taaaaad late, again, but since my shameless self-promotion retrospective was somewhat popular last year, I figured it was worth making another post highlighting my favorite images from the past year, even if it is now nearly a month into the new one. In honor of 2012, I chose my 12 favorite photos. This year I’ve chosen just ten, so as not to head down a road where this post gets ever so slightly longer and more agonizing to read each year.
As was the case last year, some of these photos you may have seen already if you follow me. Including some new images wasn’t difficult though, considering that I took an average of 1478 photos per month this past year, yet averaged just 1.5 posts per month. That adds up to 17,736 photos in the past year (a 221% increase over last year!). With the end of grad school in sight, hopefully I’ll be able to share photos more frequently this coming year, but for now I now humbly present my favorite (not necessarily for technical quality) 0.05% of the photos I took in 2013:
1. Mt. Baker, Washington.
One of the things I dislike about the Pacific Northwest is that there are so many damn trees everywhere that even hiking to the crest of ridges and mountains in search of an expansive view is often a futile endeavor, especially in the lowlands. Unless that is, your summit has had the pleasure of being clear-cut in the past decade or so, in which case you can see halfway to Alaska (if it’s clear…). I was surprised to find myself in one of these clearings on a January hike outside Bellingham following one of our biggest snowfalls of the year and took advantage by taking in a nice view (and some photos) of Mt. Baker and the foothills, alas one complete with more of the aforementioned clear cuts in the foreground.
2. Monarch Butterfly, Pacific Grove, California.
The town of Pacific Grove, California loves their butterflies. Monarch butterflies specifically. So much so that an image of one can be found on every street sign. In March I visited the official Monarch Grove Sanctuary where thousands of monarchs flock to reproduce each year. While I don’t doubt this claim, on my visit I saw about a dozen butterflies, none of which where in range of my camera. I found this one downtown, along the beach, in a much more accessible location. I’m not sure what this guy is eating but it looks delicious.
3. Golden Gate Bridge Fog and Sunset, San Francisco, CA.
This was one of the few shots on this list that actually had some degree of planning behind it. I had recollections of a good vantage point of the bridge from trips to San Francisco made pre-camera toting days. Fog had been rolling in and out of San Francisco all day but it seemed to be a thin layer and I surmised that if I could get above the clouds, I might be treated to a dramatic view of the bridge’s towers poking up above the fog where they could intercept the last rays of sunlight. As you can see, that’s pretty much exactly what happened. It’s incredibly satisfying when hunches work out that perfectly. I only wish I had possessed one of these suckers so that I could have increased my exposure time and smoothed out the rapidly moving fog. If anyone is looking for a belated Christmas present or a donation, hint hint…
4. Blood Star, somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington.
While I like this picture enough to have a 5×7 framed on my bookshelf, it was the experience associated with it that makes it worthy of inclusion on this list. Back on Memorial Day weekend, I headed out to the Olympic Peninsula (oddly enough, not to look at sea stars but rather the Elwah River restoration project) and happened to stumble across some epic tide pools one misty morning. We’re talking sea stars comparable in size to small children, anemones and urchins the size of bowling balls, and masses of gargantuan mussels sufficient in size to keep the aforementioned sea stars fat and happy. Despite it being a holiday weekend and one of the lowest tides of the year, there were only a smattering of people wandering around the tidal zone. I spent several hours taking photos in a steady rain while balancing the need to keep my camera dry AND myself from slipping on kelp and splitting my skull open on jagged basalt. Several groups approached me during this time and asked me if I was local and how I had found about this place. After responding “Uhh, not really…” and “the Internet”, I proceeded to have a few nice conversations about the incredibly diversity of marine life in front of us. What was interesting was that each and every group urged me to keep this location a secret before continuing on their way. And given that other spectacular tide pools in Washington have suffered from over-popularity, I’m going to honor that request.
5. Snake eat Snake.
Any year in which you get to photograph wildlife eating other wildlife is a darn good year in my book, even if it is only two snakes rather than say, a mountain lion taking down a deer in full stride.
6. Sunset at Gunnison Point, Black Canyon National Park, Colorado.
If you ever want to visit a National Park in the summer and don’t want to feel like you’re at Disneyland, you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere more spectacular than Black Canyon. Think you could go to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite and have a major overlook all to yourself at sunset in mid-summer? Think again. In case you didn’t notice, lurking just above the far right horizon in this photo is the 2013 Supermoon for an added bonus.
7. Lightning and the Big Dipper.
I had to include at least one night sky shot in this list (its part of my contract). Neither subject here (lightning and the Big Dipper) is particularly interesting on it’s own, but I think together they make a nice pair. I really would have loved a wider-angle lens on this one; I had to wait about an hour longer than I would have liked for the Big Dipper to rotate into the field of view of the cloud tops, and by then the best of the lightning storm was past. I also wish there was something more interesting in the foreground but achieving that would have meant leaving my front porch, something that I was very loath to do on this particular evening for obvious reasons. As nice as a intriguing foreground would have been, being alive to share this photo is even sweeter.
8. Collared Lizard, Dominguez Canyon, Colorado.
I’ve come across these flamboyant lizards more than a few times in the southwest. Normally they peace out as soon as you get within 10 yards or attempt to intimidate you from coming closer by launching into their patented push-up routine. This one seemed to want his picture taken though. Almost motionless for several minutes, I reeled off a couple dozen shots trying to get the focus just right.
9. Sunset from the Sign, Ouray, Colorado.
Another shot that involved a fair bit of planning. Ouray, CO might be about the most picturesque town this side of the Alps. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, some yahoos thought that a big metal, light-up marquee advertising one of Colorado’s most famous natural wonders (Box Canon) would somehow be a good idea. Thankfully, the lights on this metal monstrosity have since gone dark and nowadays the sign is barely visible from town unless you know where to look. But the sign’s location on a precipice above town makes for a great sunset vantage point, especially following an intense summer thunderstorm which left some wispy clouds hanging around the amphitheater to catch the last rays of sunlight.
10. (Golden) Western Larches, North Cascades, Washington.
Since I just wrote about this trip a few months ago, I won’t say much here…other than that I hope you enjoyed these photographs, and I would love to hear your comments or criticism in the comments below! Happy (belated) New Year!
Zach Schierl Photography 