Best of 2012 in Andy Marfia Photography

2012 is done, and thus so is my Best of 2012 flickr set.  Onward to 2013!  These are my favorite photos uploaded in the past year-- most were taken in 2012, and all are in or around Chicago.  Thanks to everyone who commented here, on flickr, or anywhere else.  Your support is appreciated.

This was an interesting year for social media and myself.  I had a brief, public tiff with flickr over their new design, but this ended positively.  I signed up for a 500px account but have yet to use it.  I tweeted a lot more, and even uploaded the occasional photo to Facebook.  One of my photos was sucked into Pinterest even though my photos aren't supposed to be shareable via Pinterest-- this led to a sale, however, so I can't complain too much about that.  I started using Instagram and then stopped using Instagram when it became Evilgram for a few days.

One thing that stayed the same: I posted 240 photos to flickr in 2012, which comes out to 4.6 per week, and tried to update this blog at least once a week.  That's down a bit from 2011 but fairly consistent to year's past.

A few photos to call attention to...

I've never taken any photos of the Chicago Air and Water show that I cared for before this year, mainly because I've never wanted to deal with the crowds at North Ave Beach.  This shot was taken north of the main event, near Montrose Ave:


Nikon D7000 w 70-300mm lens, 1/1250sec at f8, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.

2012 will always be remembered in my mind as a year of protest in Chicago, from the NATO protests dominating the spring, to the Chicago Teachers Strike in the fall.  This shot was taken at a protest at Rahm Emanuel's house in Ravenswood:


Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm lens, 1/200sec at f8, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.

A healthy dose of abstraction still dominates many of my photographs.  Some beach balls float through the air at the Pitchfork Music Festival:


Nikon D7000 w 105mm lens, 1/2500sec at f4, ISO160. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.

While the east coast was dealing with Hurricane Sandy, we were lucky in Chicago and only had to contend with larger than normal waves.  This guy decided to use it as a backdrop for a self portrait:


Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm lens, 1/1600sec at f8, ISO640. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.