Best of 2025 A year Of Chasing awe

As another year comes to a close, I find myself doing something I’ve come to value deeply: pausing.

Not rushing on to the next destination.
Not chasing the next image.
Just stopping long enough to look back.

Photography has given me many gifts over the years — travel, connection, creativity — but perhaps the greatest gift has been perspective. It has taught me how to slow down, how to notice, and how to be present in moments that might otherwise slip quietly past.

In 2025, according to my Lightroom catalog, I captured over fifty-six thousand images. That number still makes me smile. And maybe shake my head a little. But buried within those thousands of frames were a handful of moments that stayed with me long after the shutter closed.

This film, Best of 2025 — A Year of Chasing Awe, isn’t about my “best” photographs in the traditional sense. These images aren’t ranked, and they aren’t meant to impress. Instead, they represent ten moments from the past year that taught me something — about photography, about patience, about wonder, and about how we experience the world.

Some of these images were captured in places far from home:
windswept cliffs in Scotland,
the quiet beaches of the Outer Hebrides,
aurora-lit skies in Norway,
the timeless canals of Venice,
the vast silence of Mongolia,
and the red rock deserts of the American Southwest.

Others were made much closer to home.

Together, they form a kind of visual journal — not just of where I went, but of how I felt standing there. Moments shaped by weather that didn’t cooperate, by waiting longer than planned, by exhaustion, by joy, by silence, and sometimes by sheer luck.

What ties them all together is awe.

Awe has become a guiding force in both my photography and my life. It’s that quiet, grounding feeling you get when something larger than yourself reminds you to breathe, to listen, and to pay attention. I’ve learned that awe doesn’t require epic destinations or dramatic conditions — though those help. Sometimes it’s found in a fleeting interaction, a subtle shift in light, or a familiar scene seen with fresh eyes.

This film is an invitation — not just to watch, but to reflect. To consider the moments that stayed with you this past year. The ones that slowed you down. The ones that reminded you of beauty, connection, or meaning.

If there’s one lesson 2025 reinforced for me, it’s this: travel allows us not only to see the world, but to feel it. And photography, at its best, becomes less about collecting images and more about learning how to notice — wherever we are.

Thank you for being part of this journey, for supporting my work, and for continuing to chase the light, the wonder, and the awe.

— Art

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