2016: Our favorite images of the year
Usually we like to announce our favorite images of the year in late December, but somehow we didn’t manage to do that last year and totally forgot about it in early 2017. I was busy working on the new editions of my travel guide books and Steffen also has a big new hobby which makes him neglect almost everything else. He is eargerly designing maps and doing some programming for OpenStreetMap. But now during our Easter Holidays we finally looked through our last year’s images and picked out our personal favorites. These images were all taken during our trips to the US Southwest in February/March, to Iceland in September and to Spain in October/November.
It was supposed to be an “El Niño year”, but we were a little bit disappointed by the Poppies (rather sparse in most places besides Peridot Mesa) and also by the non-existant wildflowers at the Algodones Dunes and at Organ Pipe National Monument, but we enjoyed the colorful shores of Lake Mohave as well as the crazy flower fields at Carizzo Plain National Monument. And – nothing can beat that! – we were extremly lucky to witness a “superbloom” at Death Valley National Park. Wildflowers were practically all over the place, covering the main valley near Badwater and Mustard Canyon. And they seemed to miraculously grow out of nowhere, popping out from within deep cracks in the mud. etc. And what a sweet fragance! We really wish the images from those flower carpets could transmit their fantastic smell to the viewers too!
Our second photography trip in 2016 took place in September. We spent 15 days in Iceland. It’s still our favorite island, despite getting more and more crowded and more and more expensive. But as long as the Icelandic Highlands are still a solitary place, we still feel at home there. All you have to do is rent the right SUV to be able to cross some (deeper) river fords. And we definitely can’t get enough of those (out of this world!) colors at sunset or at night as soon as the aurora borealis starts to dance all across the sky. It’s true madness!
By the end of October we revisited some of our favorite coastlines in Europe: Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia. But this time the weather we encountered there was rather “icelandic”. Cold and really nasty – so totally different than it was in October 2014! And even the Spanish people were surprised about the dense fog which seemed to cover the whole coast forever (or at least for days…). But as the idiom goes, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. In our case this happened in the woods behind some lovely cascades we found by chance, and where for a very short moment a light beam fell right throuh an arch into a cave-like formation (see image above).
And now after all these introductory lines, we would like to show you
all our other favorite images of 2016 in no particular order:
(please click thumbnail for enlargement and a short description)
These are our favorite images from 2016. If you are interested in additional information, you might want to read some of the following trip reports from last year (in English):
- Best Places for Northern Lights Photography in Iceland
- Selfoss Waterfall in Northern Iceland
- Oh my God(afoss) – What a sunset!
- The Slot Canyons of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
- Font’s Point in the Anza-Borrego Desert
- Cottonball Basin Salt Flats at Death Valley NP
- Superbloom 2016 at Death Valley National Park
- Evening light on the Ibex Dunes at Death Valley
- Checkered Lilies – Wildflowers in Dresden
Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for stopping by and cu next year!
Isa & Steffen
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Allesamt großartig!! Wenn ich mich für ein Foto entscheiden müsste, den primus inter pares sozusagen, dann würde ich das mit den Wildblumen aus den Spalten des eingetrockneten Bodens wählen. Es ist so optimistisch und symbolisiert, dass sich das Leben nicht unterkriegen läßt.
Viele Grüße
Peter
Hallo Peter,
das ist wirklich eine schöne Formulierung! Glaube, das Death Valley hätte Euch letztes Jahr auch sehr gut gefallen!
Wenn’s nach Steffen geht, wären wir auch nächsten Winter schon wieder dort (und im Anza, der ist ihm auch so ans Herz gewachsen). Aber mal sehen!
LG auch an Dagmar,
Isa
PS: Hoffe, wir sehen uns im Sommer dann!
Mal wieder eines schöner als das andere, eine wirklich beeindruckende Auswahl !

Ist schwierig, da einen Favoriten zu wählen, aber ich würde mal sagen die Death Valley Blumen, der Selfoss und Dimmuborgir gefallen mir am besten.
LG, Tilman
Hi Tilman,
der Selfoss ist wahrscheinlich auch mein persönlicher Favorit. Aber neben dem Höhlenbeam und den Mud Cracks.
Wünsch Euch ein schönes we!
VLG auch an S&C,
Isa