Posted by Photo-John on January 29, 2018
For the past few years I’ve made a “best photos of” article at the beginning of the New Year. There are as many ways to determine your “best” photos as there are photographers and I’ve opted to keep it simple and somewhat automated. Since photography is a form of communication, I’ve left the choosing up to my viewers via Flickr’s “Interestingness” algorithm (visit my 2017 Flickr Most Interesting gallery) and the “Best Nine” site, which calculates and displays your nine most popular Instagram images (below). To see a complete gallery of my best adventure photos of 2017, scroll down to the bottom of this page.
I don’t take a lot of selfies but since the Best Nine come from Instagram and Instagram loves selfies, there are a couple of powder day ice beard photos and one shot of me on my bike – more about that one, later.
This is what two feet of Utah powder does when you dive right in. That’s Colton Rice sampling the goods.
I was happy that so many of my ski photos made it into my best photos of 2017. Utah’s 2016/17 ski season was one for the history books and my job as an Alta photographer meant I had a lot of opportunity to make great ski photos. It’s notable my most “interesting” photo on Flickr (above) happened after Alta got two feet of snow in 24 hours. That was a really, really fun day and I had a great skier helping me get that shot – thanks, Colton!
Torchlight parade and fireworks during Alta Ski Area’s 2016 New Years Eve celebration.
My New Year’s Eve Alta torchlight parade images are always popular and there are two different images in my best adventure photos of 2017. The Flickr image (above) is from NYE 2016; and Instagram has a rough version of my 2017 NYE shot that I processed on my phone and was able to post it before midnight. You can see the final, polished version of my 2017 NYE Alta torchlight parade photo, here.
One of the world’s best freeride mountain bike competitors, Kyle Strait blasts off a big jump during the 2017 Red Bull Rampage competition in Virgin, Utah.
There were a few photos that showed up in both my Flickr Interestingness gallery and my 2017 Instagram Best Nine. My favorite one was a shot of pro freeride mountain biker Kyle Strait at the 2017 Red Bull Rampage competition in Southern Utah. It’s a cover-worthy photo that I really should have submitted to some magazines. Hindsight is always 20/20 though, right?
Mrs. Photo-John, Jenni Curtis Shafer, rides through a grove of huge aspen trees in the mountains outside of Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
I was pleased that three really nice mountain bike shots of my awesome wife and adventure partner, Jenni, a.k.a. #photojennic, ended up in my best adventure photos of 2017. Two of them are Utah fall color singletrack photos – one from the Corner Canyon trail system, just a few miles from our house; and the other from Park City. The third is a shot from an aspen grove in Steamboat Springs, Colorado (above) taken during a road trip, this past summer.
A mountain bike selfie taken with my organic, voice-activated remote control, a.k.a. my wife Jenni. She’s gotten pretty good with the camera and deserves some credit but I still composed the shot, set the exposure and did the processing.
There was even a shot of me on my mountain bike, taken with my “organic voice-activated remote control” – in other words, my wife Jenni took it. However, I still envisioned the shot, composed it, set the exposure and did the processing. Jenni definitely deserves some credit, though. She’s gotten pretty good with the camera and it’s nice to know she’s capable of helping me get the shot.
Of course, there were tons of images that didn’t make it into my best adventure photos of 2017 gallery. That said, I don’t think anything critical got left out. If you like the photos in this article and want to see more, I encourage you to dig in a little deeper into my Flickr gallery and follow my Instagram feed, my Photo-John Facebook page and share them all with your friends. And it goes without saying, if anyone reading this needs an experienced professional photographer for event, ski, cycling, travel or product photos, please don’t hesitate to contact me and let me know what you need. I am available and I’m always interested in working with new people and organizations.
If there’s a photo here you’d like to see hanging on the wall of your home or office, please contact me. I’ll be happy to make prints of anything you see in this gallery. For pricing, check out my Photo-John Fine Art Print Gallery. Some of my best from 2017 are already available on my fine art print gallery. But I’ll be happy to add anything anyone wants.
Wasatch summer wildflowers at their peak in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Last but not least, I’d like to thank all the people who appeared in these photos. Great action sports and adventure photos are almost always some sort of collaboration. So thanks to my wife Jenni Curtis Shafer, Colton Rice, Andrea Konduc, Stephen Messer, Andre Shoumatoff, Johnny Manekin, Sue Kennedy, Kyle Strait, Dusty Ott, Kent Robertson, Logan Binggeli, Aaron Gwin, Rollins Snelling, Todd Winzenried, Alta Ski Area, Red Bull Rampage and Alta Lodge. Without these people and organizations, most of these photos wouldn’t have happened. I’m looking forward to new destinations, adventures and collaborations in 2018!
