The 23rd Photographers' Lounge Salon: Your best ever.

Its pretty simple, and doesnt require any interpretation. I want to see the photograph that you consider is your best, EVER. THis can be from any time in the past, or even from the present if you are doing what you consider to be best for you. The subject matter is irrelevant, as is the gear.

Let's end this salon on Monday, February 15th (yes, its 2 weeks. A month is too long for me to even remember to come back and check on things)
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Rules are simple................

1. Either take a picture that matches the nominated theme or select one from your portfolio. You must be the photographer that created the picture in order to enter it.

2. Only one entry per salon, please. If you want to withdraw an entry and replace it with another, that is OK, but you must make it clear in the post containing your replacement picture that this is what you've done. You can add or change the title and add to the edit line to let everyone know.

3. The decision of the curator at the end of the challenge is final - don't give him/her a hard time about it: this is just a friendly photo challenge, after all!

4. The person who submitted the chosen picture will assume the responsibility of curator for the next Salon Challenge and as soon as possible post a message in a new thread in the PL Photo Challenges forum, with details of the new theme. Don't forget - that opening message must include a copy of these instructions, which also double as the rules.

5. The curator can't enter his or her own salon.

6. Please, don´t be shy...Participate and have fun!
 
A little Fuji X-T1 fun with Nikkor 300mm f4.5 from my front porch
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That's a wonderful challenge, Sue because you force me to think why a specific photo qualifies as my best. I am typically never happy. So my easiest answer would be to say that the best one is the one that I still have to make, but that would be a silly answer. So I'll try to think hard.

BTW: I am also very, very curious what you consider to be your best photo. The series about the firefighters immediately spring to my mind but you've made so many great ones.
 
The greatest lesson I have learned is that what I think is "good" is not necessarily what others think is "good"; I am regularly surprised by the reaction to photos I post on 500px and Ipernity. The things I really like and expect to capture the imagination of others often don't, and the ones that I don't rate particularly highly myself will garner most favourable comment. Hence my point above about self-editing!
 
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I don't know if it's my best but it is one of my favorites. This was taken in part of the Philadelphia train station that was connected to the convention center. I really liked the contrast of the mural of the old time excitement of train travel with the solitary man just waiting below. Taken with the Pentax Q.
 
Best

Hard choice but I have two contenders both taken within weeks of each other on the same roll of film and with a Halina Paulette Electric way back in 1969. Both have been reprocessed.
The Montreal Metro shot was a discovery while wandering around, whereas I distinctly remember waiting for the people to walk into the frame in the Central Park shot. In addition the NY Central Park shot is the one I chose to have printed and framed for myself this last Christmas so I suppose it’s the one I enjoy most and is therefore the one I choose.

 
Covered bridge in Akron Ohio, near Peninsula. No longer exists, replaced. Shot in late Spring 1975 with a Brownie 620 cardboard camera, Kodak 620 film, ASA/ISO 100-125. The camera does not have a real lens, just a toy magnifier lens mounted in the camera. Shutter is ~1/20 sec., shot on a barstool on the road for stability. The 'aperture' is ~f22 as I recall, although a smaller aperture was built in for brighter light. The camera had a piece of glass mounted in front of the 'lens', which I removed. This image was scanned from an 8x12 print circa 2002, using a cheap HP scanner.

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This is more or less impossible. When I've made photo books at the end of a year, I have trouble getting down to 100 of my "best" (which usually just means favorite) shots of that year. Whenever I've tried to put together a 10 best collection, I just start randomly picking once I'm down to about 25 or so. I have a memory of a street shot I took in 1976 before I knew what a street shot was, that may very well still be my best photograph ever. I loved it, everyone who ever saw it loved it (including some really high level photographers and art professors). But I haven't seen a print or the negative since about two moves ago, so I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

That said, even though I don't do all that much street shooting anymore, I still sort of fancy myself a street shooter and most of my most satisfying shots are street shots. And of the street shots I've done in the past 5-6 years, this has to be my favorite. As with all of my best street shots, there was a LOT of luck involved, but the luck happens when you're out there enough, and I was. These are a group of kitchen workers in Positano, Italy, taking a smoke break on the back steps "alley" behind their kitchen, with the restaurant entrance out on a much busier street. I was walking down the steps behind them, and knew I had to get this shot as I was passing them. My camera wasn't really set up for street shooting, so I had to take a couple of seconds to get it set and focussed, which allowed the first guy to see me taking the photo and give me a sort of bemused look. While the rest of the guys kept talking and taking a break. I think this shot is a lot of why I don't do as much street shooting anymore - I don't think I can ever top it...

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Nikon Positano-6-2-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr

-Ray
 
This is really, really hard...

I'm going to go for one of my older shots. I'm picking it because it was one of those times when everything came together for me pictorially and technically. It may not be my absolute best, but it is up there... The camera was a screwmount Leica; I'm not certain which but probably a lllc (I have a llD today but I think this was prior to my owning that). The lens was definitely a 5cm Elmar f3.5. The film was Kodak 400CN. Focus by rangefinder, exposure by Sunny-16, timing by eye. He had two goes at getting the hat from his foot to his head, So I had one "practice run". This shot, for me, embodies the "decisive moment" because there was nothing automated about any part of it - brass, glass, light-sensitive chemicals, hand and eye. Proper photography.
 
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