Compiling your annual best images for future self-critique

Before January wraps up and we move forward into 2022, I wanted to share a quick idea that was passed on to me in the Photofocus community: Compiling your annual best images and saving them for future-self critique. 

Compiling your annual best images

At the end of every year, social media platforms are covered in “best-of” posts. These posts are where people share their best work from the year previous. I personally enjoy partaking in this trend. It’s a great time to go through your images and pull together a small portfolio of work from the year that was. It’s cause for reflection on a year of creating; a way to critique your own work and growth as a photographer. 

It’s also a way to celebrate images that you’re proud of and share them with your community.

While commenting on one such post, I had a community member mention that he takes these posts one step further. He puts the images into a folder labeled with the year number and saves them. As he’s been doing this for a number of years, he stated that each year he could now go through the folders of “best-of” images and critique his progress on an annual basis.