This one’s getting framed and hung in the bathroom!
I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures. There’s something fun about capturing even the stupidest of moments for all time… even if your thumb’s in the way of the view. Unfortunately, for most of my life, I either didn’t have a camera, or didn’t have the money to supply the camera I had with the necessary supplies to take pictures back in the Stone Age… you know, when you needed actual rolls of film.
Polaroid’s been around longer than you think.
I got my first digital camera in September 2009, and a better one four years later… and over the past decade I’ve turned into a picture taking fool with a Photobucket account full of more uninteresting photos than you can shake a selfie stick at. Well, they’re not all uninteresting…. at least to me. And some of them are actually quite pleasing on a broader level too. I’ve probably taken close to 10,000 pictures in my life, some of which have overcome my tendency towards shitty photography to become my favorites. And your favorites too since I share so many of them on this blog…
Say “Artificial Cheese Product!”
So where is this post leading to other than bragging about how unprofessional of a photographer I am? Well, I’ve been hinting for a while that I’ve been in the process of creating two countdown features for my blog. One already debuted Monday, so you know what it’s about. The other is going to showcase the cream of my photo album crop…. and it’s going to be a real big one.
Bigger is better!
Beginning this Friday and running EVERY DAY until New Years Eve, you will be treated to Evil Squirrel’s Top 200 Photos I’ve Ever Taken! You’ve seen many of these on my blog in the past, though there will be a few I’ve never uploaded here before. And to be honest, trying to rank 200 pictures out of many thousands is not that easy… so the exact ranks may leave something to be desired. But overall, the photos I show off will get better and more amazing as the year wears on and I reveal what I believe to be the best photo I’ve ever taken on December 31.
It won’t be this one since I didn’t take it… but whoever did should make it THEIR #1!
A few rules to clarify that went into my extremely disorganized and twice cat-sabotaged method of putting this massive countdown together over the past two months. First, if I have multiple good photos of the same particular scene, only the best one got consideration. Photos were judged by me based on the picture’s ambiguous “it” quotient. That is, these pictures won’t be particularly artsy looking, but there’s something interesting about them… whether a visual aspect, their backstory, or just something odd that made them such a particular favorite. With two notable exceptions, I am also disqualifying the photos I’ve taken for Shelf Critter Theatre and other blog projects involving my toys since many of them were intentionally posed to look funny.
Dude, does this scene look posed to you?
I will still be running my usual weekly features while making these countdown posts every day… though I’ll probably be cutting back on some of the filler I usually post. Most of the photo countdown posts will not be long…. maybe a couple hundred words at most like my Saturday Squirrel features. And I think you will enjoy seeing my extended photo lineup I have queued up that will contain plenty of squirrel and cat photos to please the critter loving masses, and hear some of the stories behind The Nest’s signature images…
Oh, this is going to be so much fun!
The madness begins in two days!
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
That sounds like a REALLY good idea. I tend to take a lot of pictures that look a lot alike, so deciding which one to post takes some significant agonizing — except no one but me would be able to see any difference at all. I probably need to stop taking 200 pictures of that heron and a few pictures of other things, too.
I have a tendency to keep snapping away…. especially with squirrels, because from one instant to the next, you never know what they might end up doing… and the shotgun approach increases the odds of getting something neat. My early albums in particular are loaded with redundant shots, literally an entire page of 18 photos might have the exact same looking thumbnails…
yes yes yes! that is a good idea…you can even take photos from flashes I look forward to photo day ;O) I only use my phone this time after my trooper canon eos is retired… it saw too much sh*t I think, but maybe I can do a worst foto day… oh wait thasts what I do since my cam is no longer my cam-rade ;O)))
Both of my cameras are about shot as well. The old flash one has a battery that won’t charge anymore, and the newer one that takes better pictures lost its ability to keep the date and time… so every photo I’ve taken the past year and a half is dated January 1, 1980.
that is great… back to the beloved 80’s ;O)))
I love looking at other people’s photos. I have so many silly looking ones myself, I know it’s hard to pick favorites. Looking forward to seeing what you post! 🙂
It should be fun…. probably more fun once I get into the upper half of the countdown and the really good ones. But slogging through the good but not great ones will only make those later ones seem so much better!
Hey this is a great idea! I’ve always been interested in what people think their “great photos” are…..I remember someone at work showing me a photo of their kid who had just lost his two front teeth – bloody gums, etc. – she said “isn’t this the BEST photo of Tommy EVERRRRRR?????” and I was at a loss for words.
Pam
OMG! That’s great, because one of the photos in the very first week of this countdown is going to have people at a loss for words as well! That means I ranked it near the bottom of my favorites, of course, but I think most people wouldn’t have taken the picture in the first place… let alone thought it was something to preserve for a lifetime!
A great idea, I love to watch, a wrong word?, photos, so here I am waiting. It is like seeing the word through your eyes.
There should be a lot of interesting things to watch over the next 29 weeks. And you’re almost guaranteed at least one squirrel and one cat photo each week…
Great idea. I applaud your ability to decide which of your photos are the best. I’m at my dithery worst when I try to sort through my thousands of photos.
It was a rather long drawn out process that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone who values their free time. Hopefully the results will be worth the many hours of slacking I put into this…
Woo-hoo! Being a voyeur at heart, this is the best news I’ve read all week. Looking forward to Friday and seeing just how you roll when it comes to photos!
Well, I do have a few photos in this countdown that actually satisfy the voyeur description, as the subjects were unaware they were being photographed and preserved on my blog for all time. We shall see what there is to see…
Ooh…black tape over the eyes to protect the guilty…er innocent?
Perhaps. And maybe black bars elsewhere to protect…… OK, they’re not those kind of pictures!
Ha! For a brief moment I was nearly giddy. 😂
Squeals with piggy excitement. (Of course not as excited as that squirrel – snorts and rolls with piggy laughter) I can’t wait my evil friend!!! Let the good times roll. XOXO – Bacon
Unfortunately I did not include any of the naked selfies Bashful took while he was here. I do have some standards of decency I actually adhere to…
Snorts and rolls with piggy laughter. That is probably a good thing my evil friend. XOXO – Bacon
Cool, I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us!
That sounded sarcastic, it wasn’t meant to. It’s the dusty photo archive!
It actually didn’t sound sarcastic, but I wouldn’t blame anyone who did raise an eyebrow at such an endeavor as this. I will try to make it as entertaining as possible, especially as I wade through all of the crappy pictures near the bottom…
Looking forward to your continuing pace of abnormality! Nice to have somewhere where, while things do change, the standard stays the same.
The standards are very low around here, and changing them would be too much work…
But you have two main things in the running of your blog. Frequent posting and humour.
Sounds like a fun new feature! I love fun photography. 😛
It will be the most fun photography that doesn’t involve fake mustaches or glasses on a stick…
I like the idea of replaying photos. I also like to think of my own favorite posts. There are a few that are some of my “best.” Thanks, ES for your reminders. So much better than having to take new best photos!
This should be a lot fun! I have some pretty weird photos in my archives. One of the weirder ones is a photo of a dirty spoon because the coffee and creamer dried in this beautiful star pattern somehow. My husband has a photo of cat crap because Frosty left a pile in the shape of a smiley face by the toilet one night. It will be interesting to see what interesting things reside in your archives!
There should be a wide variety of interesting things to come over the course of this countdown. Most of it I’ve already posted before… but the ones that aren’t recurring pictures I use over and over again will probably seem like new. I just hope there isn’t anything that will piss off Antifa again…
LOL! I know! Their threats were so terrifying! 😂
Can’t wait to see your Photo prowess (?) is that the right word?? Love the squirrel with the breadstick, did you take that??
That is not my photo… just a viral picture I found on another squirrel themed blog. It would be my surefire #1 is it was mine!