Culling and Calendars

Blacktail Overlook GTNP

So I finally finished sorting through all 8,000 shots from my month long excursion through Montana and Wyoming.  I hope as time goes on I will find myself taking less pictures but having more "keepers".
After sorting and discarding, I deleted over 3,000 that were either out of focus or didn't make any sense (I had a lot of pictures of my shoes while hiking or the seat of my truck..) and of the remaining 5,000 I have about 300 I really liked.  For me one of the hardest parts is deleting pictures I took. I always think somehow I had better save it for a later time, that some "magic" will happen if I keep it buried on my hard drive and that when my post processing skills improve I will be able to turn it to a masterpiece!  I am beginning to realize that junk is junk, no matter how good I get at Photoshop. 
One of the main reasons I needed to get my pictures sorted was so I could find some for this years calendar.

For the last several years I have published a calendar of some of my favorite shots. It started as a way to share my pictures with family and made a nice little Christmas gift to them.  The first year I had 25 printed, last year 50 and each time I had more requests than calendars ( it's amazing how popular you are when you give free stuff away! ).  So this year a friend gave me an idea, have the calendars printed with the shift schedules for the fire department and sell them to coworkers, that way people could use them as their calendar and also give them to family and friends who are always wanting to know when they work.  I asked around and there was enough interest in them that I'm having 100 printed up.  All the proceeds from the sale of this years calendars will go to the Longmont FireFighters Charitable Organization.

The calendars are at the printers now and I should have them available by Thanksgiving, If you interested in purchasing one or have questions send me an Email .