A Warm Summer Night – My photo of the year 2025

When I read about sharing my photo of the year on 35mmc I immediately thought of this image from a community event on a warm August night in Iowa. Early this year I decided to try to get back to my photojournalism roots and volunteered for a staff of a pair of weekly papers. This was from one of those assignments. And it had the most comments on the gram – so if it is touching others enough to comment felt like the reportage was working.

While I had been at newspapers for over 25-years before being downsized out, it had also been 25-years since I had done an assignment before this year, as I was in management for about 15 of those years. The challenge of the newspaper assignment is you have to get decent photos every time. I have always enjoyed that challenge all the way back to high school yearbook days. But, to just add to it, I also wanted to primarily use my digital rangefinder and manual focus lenses for these commissions in order to really learn my gear.

That’s one of the things I like most about 35mmc – the community appreciates the craft of an image, and at the same time have interest in why the photographer might chose a particular piece of equipment. One does not take from the other, and no drama. In that vein, I also started writing reviews for 35mmc on new lenses this year. A 28mm pancake and an 18mm, and taking the later into the pressure of the assignment just added to the what I found out about the lens. Enough reminiscing about the year, this image of fun was with the good ‘ol Zeiss 50mm Sonnar, a ten-year staple of 35mmc.

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