2016 Year-in-Review (Belated)
Well, I normally put up a year-in-review thread on one of the last couple of days of the year. I planned to do the same this (well, last) year, and had everything selected and ready to go...but I couldn't get on DU. Thanks to the hacker attack of last November, I needed to revise my password...and the security e-mail from DU simply didn't arrive. It took me until 1/4 to actually get the system to reply to my request and send me that confirmation -- and, until then, I was unable to post, period. Since I already did all the selection work, I figured I might as well post something, even if it seems a bit pointless to do so now that New Year's Eve is long past.
As usual, I have two rules: 1) a photo per month, which 2) can't have appeared on DU before.
In January, shooting from the observation deck of the Columbia Tower, I got a different perspective on Seattle.
When my attempt to shoot Snoqualmie Falls at high-water came to nothing in February (thanks to way too much spray), I settled for a black-and-white study of rock and water.
Thanks to last winter's El Niño, tulip season came unseasonably early, in late March rather than April. As usual, this shot was taken in the Skagit Flats.
Similarly, the rhododendrons of May bloomed in April, instead.
I have taken many photos of the city from Kerry Park (as has practically every other photographer who's ever set foot here), but I found this shot from May notable in the way Mount Rainier hovered ghost-like in the background.
I have taken many photographs of Snoqualmie Falls (and posted many here), but my visit in June was the first time for shooting the fall from its base.
July, of course, is a time for fireworks...and, sadly, possibly the last time I'll be able to attend the festivities while feeling truly proud to be an American. 
In August, I took my only trip to Mount Rainier; as atmospheric conditions were not what I hoped for, I was only able to come away with this rather minimalist and abstract view of the mountain.
September's image came from early evening at the Des Moines (that's Washington, not Iowa) marina.
I already posted several images taken in October at Whatcom Falls; here's a vertical composition from the same trip.
November was hard. Very hard. Putting it simply, I had no real desire to go out and photograph nature. Aside from a couple of dispensable iPhone photos I took at the very end of the month, the only image I thought appropriate was a "studio" (i.e. computer desk) shot I took, several days after the election, to be used as a social-media avatar.
Since I began the year with a photo that included the Space Needle, it would only be appropriate for me to conclude the year in a similar manner, right? Of course, December's photograph isn't of the REAL Space Needle, but on the replica a neighbor built on his roof as a pièce de resistance for his usually-spectacular Christmas light display (which, this year, was featured on an ABC special about elaborate holiday lights).
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I got an inexpensive Amazon Essentials tripod yesterday. Hopefully it will be good enough. Will give it a try this weekend. Thanks! 
I am particularly fond of your May photo.......Mt. Rainier is phenomenal!
But they are all gorgeous.
Late or not, I love them. Thank you.
