Favourite Picture of the Year

With the year drawing to a close it's time to look back (as well as forward) and try and pick out one photograph that I regard as my own personal favourite. No easy task. If you go to my Facebook page you will be able to see my four favourite pictures taken in Oslo, and each of those is in a way worthy of holding the main honour, but here, having to choose just one picture, I have gone for a photograph taken just a few weeks ago when the first big snowfall came. The picture is taken from a footbridge crossing a road outside of Oslo where I used to live, and it's both a bridge and a view that I have known since childhood. The straight road always and the way it stretches into the distance always seems to represent to me a metaphor of life –its opportunities and the forward-going draw of time. This year, I turned 50, which I found a surprisingly tough "achievement", so the road sign here has a very personal connection. Indeed the whole photograph is very personal as it expresses "me" as I am right now. Hopefully, it's also quite a nice picture to look at. It's rendered in monochrome, but the colour versions I took looked very much the same, for the day was dull and grey and the little green of the trees was so subdued and dark that they appeared almost black. Besides, I've always felt that snow and trees always look best in black and white! Next year, I shall try to post pictures more regularly (that's a resolution!) and I hope also to expand more into portraits –an area of photography I have always been a little cautious about so far, but now feel confident to explore more. I also have a number of series-projects that I shall be sharing pictures from as the year goes by, and now and again dipping into my archive to find some interesting pictures of old. In the meantime, may I wish you all a very Happy New Year, and thank you as always for bothering to drop by to glance at these myriad pictures of mine.

Location: Rykkinn, Norway