This week I put together a collection of images I made at my newspaper this year under the title “2021: The Year in Pictures.” As I was doing it, I got to feeling pretty good about the work I’ve done in the last twelve insanely stressful months.

But it wasn’t always that way. Earlier this month, various news agencies and photographers across the world were assembling similar collections of their work or the work of their entire staff. Looking at them online, it was easy to lose sight of the value of my work, and to throw up my hands and say, “I give up. I’ll never be as good as these men and women.”

Then I circle back to my folder of photos, and feel better about it.

Why is it so easy to forget the work we do, and why are we threatened by those we perceive as doing it better? Wouldn’t it make more sense to appreciate our successes, learn from our mistakes and/or inadequacies, and build on the great ideas and techniques we see in others?

All that aside, I hope my readers enjoy seeing our community through my photographer’s eyes.

So that leads us to my favorite picture of the year. Many of my friends and readers know that my wife Abby has not been well this year, so my picture of the year is of her, happy and pretty at her family’s annual reunion in October.