Top Landscape Photos of 2024!
| Updated on December 20, 2024
It’s that time of year again, where I make a list of my top landscape photos of the year. This year was a bit of weird with my photography. A lot of planned trips that just didn’t work out. In early May I took my dad out to see the Northern Lights for the first time during the epic displays. And in June I kept trying to plan a trip to Canada, but my mother eventually passed away in mid-June, which turned into more of a trip to help with my emotions and thoughts while still photographing beautiful places. But even through all of this, I pulled off a few new favorites!
What are the top landscape photos of 2024?
From Texas bluebonnet season to Colorado fall colors and from a long trip up to Canada to photographing closer at home here in Kansas, I’ve had some fun times this year! Here are ten of my favorite images from this year:
1. Solitude Amongst the Beauty
Location: San Juans of Colorado
Probably my favorite moment of 2024 photogrpahy-wise happened during my annual fall colors trip to Colorado. Some years you get snow. Some years you get great clouds to work with. The four days I was there, we got none. However, the colors themselves were off the charts this years. In places that normally have golden aspens, some turned deep shades of orange and even red. The leaves also dropped earlier than in the past 4-5 years. So when I made my way down here, I was worried the area would already be stripped of leaves. I had one shot. As I drove up from Ouray to Silverton, many areas had already become barren. Even pulling up to this area showed a lot of fallen leaves. But as I walked down to one of the nice vantage points, the aspen groves that needed to have leaves were perfect! They dropped heavily over the next few days, but the still wind made for an amazing evening with this iconic little cabin.
2. Ribbons of the Palouse
Location: Palouse of Washington
I photographed this image on an extremely ambitious trip to the Pacific Northwest and Canada. My mom passed away in June and I knew I just needed to get away and process my thoughts and emotions. I had a week to go wherever and decided to drive clear to Vancouver Island to photograph a tree I had been scouting for a few years. After years of traveling the Pacific Northwest, I had never had the opportunity to visit the Palouse region. This took me near the Palouse region, so I detoured, driving through the mountains of Idaho to this beautiful area. I arrived too late for any real sunset photography, and went up to Steptoe Butte for sunrise. The wind was pretty rough and it was actually pretty chilly up here, but blocking the wind with some shrubs and outcroppings, I photographed scene after scene for over an hour. This was probably my favorite of the entire trip! The way the light came over the mountains in the east and cast a warm glow over the hills was just stunning.
2. Northern Lights over Kansas
Location: Goddard, Kansas
2024 was the year of Northern Lights. On May 10, Europe and other places that turned night before North America began reporting insane aurora displays in places as far south as Italy, India and even northern Africa. By the time it became night here in Kansas, I started seeing aurora displays on my camera within minutes after sunset. I stayed up until 4 a.m. photographing the lights, driving about two hours north of my house. But the best display ended up being just down the street amongst the early wheat fields around 4 a.m. I watched with my own eyes as the aurora danced around the Kansas sky in ways my grandmother used to describe from her childhood on the farm in South Dakota. The next day, reports came in that people saw the lights as close to the equator as Hawaii even! I began a journey in 2015 to capture the Northern Lights in Kansas. My first experience was capturing faint aurora after getting stuck at Quivira Wildlife Refuge in 2017, followed by photographing them again in 2023 and finally three separate times this year. But May 10, 2024 will forever be the grandest of those nights! While it would have been great to have photographed the aurora somewhere epic like the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, I got to take my dad out who had never seen them before. That made it all the more worthwhile.
3. Country Road Autumn Sunset
Location: Flint Hills of Kansas
The Flint Hills are such an underrated region of North America. The gently rolling hills, emerald green in late spring and early summer turn to a beautiful warm color in the fall. While the trees are usually the focus of photographers in the fall in places like New England and Colorado, here in Kansas, it’s the grasses that can make for a stunning autumn season. And this year was no different. I had been a number of years since I had been up to the Skyline Drive area east of Alma. I remembered it being one of my favorite drives. On the evening that I photographed this, I arrived later than planned so I had to make good use of my time. I kept taking sideroads to see what the next hill would look like. Finding a lot of wonderful scenes, I eventually found my way back to Skyline Drive as the sunset began to peak with brilliant pink colors! It was a fantastic evening in the Flint Hills of Kansas!
4. Crested Butte Cabin Colors
Location: Crested Butte, Colorado
This was actually a request from a past art collector who really wanted a nice photograph of this iconic cabin south of Crested Butte. I’m glad I stopped here, as this old cabin is not long for the world. Each winter, locals wonder if it will finally collapse. Thankfully I was able to document it during fall colors this year as a testament to it’s beauty.
5. Panoramic Texas Hill Country
Location: Texas Hill Country
Bluebonnets in the spring down in Texas is such an awesome experience. While each year is different, 2024 was one of the best years in a long time! Many areas in the Texas Hill Country region were exploding with bluebonnets. I made an early morning drive along Willow City Loop near Fredericksburg a must do while down there. I had been twice before on years where this area didn’t thrive as well, but thankfully, was rewarded with a great display amongst the ranch fences, while a windy sunrise gave a little color to the sky. The wind made it a little more challenging, but in between gusts, I managed to pull off a few good shots, including this one.
6. Teter Rock Aurora
Location: Flint Hills of Kansas
If May 10, 2024 was the main attraction, October 11th was the encore! While the aurora didn’t last quite as long or get quite as far south as in May, it still produced some stunning displays of the aurora across the world. If May 10th had never happened, this would easily have been the best display I’ve ever seen in my life. I went into this one with a bit more of a gameplan, stopping at a few iconic places in the Flint Hills, including an old favorite in Teter Rock. I spent a number of hours driving around before finally heading home around 1 a.m.
7. Spring at Waterton Lakes
Location: Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada
This photo was taken on the same trip as the beautiful Palouse region shot from above. I arrived at Waterton Lakes National Park after being unlucky in Banff getting a great shot. Having never been there, I wanted to explore a bit, then attempt to get a photograph of the famous Prince of Wales hotel that stands atop a large hill in front of the lake with the imposing mountains to the south. The Prince of Wales hotel was built in the 1920s and is an iconic location in Canada. Wind was pretty bad, so photographs at the edge of the lake were super choppy. I decided to walk up the hill behind the parking lot to get a view from above. It was only a third of a mile or so to the top, with the highway right there. As I began the hike and came over a small grouping of brush, I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at a grizzly bear not more than 100 feet ahead. It looked up at me for a minute, but seemed more interested in the ground shrubbery. So I conceded the hill to the grizzly and drove around the park looking for another view. Eventually I found this spot. While it had a lot of dead trees in the photo, these were from a fire a few years ago. Many times, wildflower growth is pretty amazing in past fire areas. This was no exception. It made for a nice image and I still managed to get the iconic hotel in the background.
8. Grinter Farms Sunflower Sunrise
Location: Lawrence, Kansas
Most years I try to make it up to Grinter Farms to see how the sunflowers look. They were beautiful this year! I actually wanted to come back a few more times to try and catch some clouds in the sky, but had to make due with only one shot. This was photographed at sunrise as the sun was just coming up over the horizon and casting a warm glow on the yellow flowers. Sunflower fields are always one of my favorite places to visit in the summer here in Kansas!
9. Lupine Majesty
Location: Kebler Pass, Colorado
As part of my trip in late June, I wanted to swing by Crested Butte, as it was having a banner year for early season flowers. The lupines around town and up on Kebler Pass were remarkable! This open patch near Kebler Pass was just magical. This was the final evening of my trip after my mom passed and getting these moments amongst these beautiful blue lupines was just an amazing treat. Lupines have always been my favorite flower, but this just added to my love for this beautiful flower.
10. Like a Dream
Location: Muleshoe Bend, Texas
This was another beautiful location in the Texas Hill Country this past spring. The bluebonnets put on an amazing show at the iconic Muleshoe Bend area of the Texas Hill Country. The morning I spent here was ultra foggy. I walked the paths for almost three hours before the sun burnt off the fog and became too harsh. This was maybe an hour after sunrise as the sun was just trying to make it’s way through the fog. It was an unforgettable morning and a nice walk through the beauty of the Texas Hill Country.
Honorable Mention: Sibling Love
Location: Waterton Lakes National Park
This amazing moment happened mere minutes after being turned back from the grizzly bear down the road. I was scouting locations and happened to look up and see two young foxes playing along a hillside right next to the road. I proceeded to spend 20 minutes photographing the siblings rolling around in the dirt, pouncing on each other and just having a blast. It was a moment that made my soul happy to watch. Before leaving, a third young fox showed itself on the other side of the road, watching it’s siblings play on the hillside. It made for an amazing evening!