Why You Should Make a Yearly Year-In-Review Photo Gallery

It’s that time of year again, where your Instagram feed is flooded with everyone’s best nine photos, courtesy of sites like 2017 Best Nine. And while it’s great that there’s an algorithm that can count the likes and spit out the “best” photos, there’s some merit to making a yearly compilation of photos that you like best rather than some software.

Most years, I make a blog post about what I thought were my best photos from the year. It’s a yearly marker to figure out where I am at in my photography and where I can do more the next year. This year, with Instagram rolling out its new gallery functionality, I didn't even need to bother with the blog post this time.

This is not to knock sites that do this automatically for you, but if you take a look at what I thought were my best photos of the year, it’s clear from 2017 Best Nine that my Instagram followers disagree, preferring mostly cute pictures of my son, as you can see here:

It also, unfortunately, can’t figure out if photos were taken before 2017 and merely posted later.

So take the time to make a post about what were the most important photos to you this year. Then do it again next year. And the year after that. You might be surprised with yourself and your personal growth (or not).

What did I figure out about myself from this yearly exercise? I made it a goal to shoot more sports this year, and while I accomplished that goal, I realized that I did that at the expense of more personally satisfying photography, such as landscapes. Next year, I’m hoping to double down on 360-degree photography and strike a balance between sports and personal photography projects. I gave a couple of my 360 photos an honorary mention for this year, though I’m hoping to think 360 more for this coming year.

Do you have a favorite image from this year? Share yours in the comments below and make a resolution to yourself about where you want to go with your photography for next year.