New Years is right around the corner. A blank sheet of paper if you will. Lots of people will be looking back over 2016 and setting goals for 2017. There will be the usual “lose weight”, “quit smoking”, “be nice to the neighbor” and so on. I’ll probably make some “resolutions” too. After all, a little introspection is a good thing but I tend to think of this week between Christmas and New Years as a time to wade through a whole year’s worth of photos.

Most of my pictures are of the snap shot variety. I grab the camera and try to capture a moment, maybe something to share here but every now and then I try to get that special picture. One that makes me say ahhhh.

It gets harder and harder to get those special pictures. Everybody has a camera and everybody thinks they are a “pro”. Just this kind of atmosphere raises the bar.

I’m reviewing my pictures for that special , indefinable quality that makes them a “cut above”. I want to find the 10 best.

They have to be in focus, with lots of pixels so they can be blown up to gallery print size, and they need to be special in some way.

So for the next few days I’m going to share my pictures as I search for those special top 10.

Some of these are pretty good but I don’t think they will make the cut. We’ll see.