It’s that time of year to be thinking about calendars again! Would you like to help me choose which photos I decide to use in the Lenspiration 2024 Calendar?!

Each year’s calendar can only have 12 photos in it. And that’s not very many! I sorted last year’s landscape photos and came away with over 100 new possibilities. That was far too many to show, so I kept cutting away until I narrowed them down to 26. Add these to a database of 39 other photos I’d taken in previous years, and you get a total of 65 calendar possibilities! I like all of them. Narrowing them down to 12 is going to be very hard! So, I’d love your input. I want to know which ones are your favorite!

I’ve displayed all 65 photos here in this survey. Go in and let me know which ones are your favorite no later than Thursday, September 14. On Friday, I’ll sort through all your responses and post another blog post that shows the best and the worst rated photos from the survey! I’m looking forward to hearing your perspective.

As you go through the list of candidates, you’ll run across this one. It’s candidate #9. A gorgeous golden hour just outside the entrance to Madera Canyon in Arizona.

Desert Seaweed
Madera Canyon, Arizona
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The reason I was in Arizona was to teach a Photo Class at AFHE, the State’s homeschool convention. Since Donald and I had flown, we decided to make the most of our plane tickets and do a little exploring the following week. We brought all our camping gear and found ourselves south of Tucson at an epic birding spot called Madera Canyon. I tried to keep up with work during the day, and take pictures in the morning and evenings. Interestingly, you would think that July in Arizona would be unbearably hot. And it is. If you’re in the wrong place. But here, at a higher elevation, and in the middle of monsoon season, after the daily rainstorm it would be quite pleasant. And rain was also a good thing because that meant clouds at sunrise and sunset! Great for photography.

This particular evening, I hiked out to shoot the most notable landscape photo that presented itself, viewable from our campsite.

I tried a couple different things to use in the foreground.

It was hard to get the feeling of depth because the color of all the plants in the foreground was the same.

Satisfied with the fact that I had photographed that view to the best of my ability, I painstakingly made my way through the brush to the closest hill. I figured from a hill I could get better view of the surrounding wilderness when sunset came around. It seemed like every single plant out there had throbs on it! The local wildlife didn’t seem to mind though. 🙂

I made it to the top of the hill eventually. Most of the time I’m really rushing. But this time I had left myself enough time, and I wasn’t going far, so I had the time to sit down and rest a bit, look for multiple angles, and compose a few different perspectives.

After the sun went down, the original view behind me turned pretty amazing. It was a very satisfying evening.

There are a lot of new photos I’ve never displayed before in the list of 2024 Lenspiration Calendar candidates. Take the “survey” here and let me know which ones are your favorite by Thursday, September 14!