This is one of the posts I look the most forward to every year... and quite a year it was for us! In 2010, we officially had 147 shoots and took approximately 120,000 photos. This marks our 174th blog post of the year. Over the course of the past year, we've had roughly 370,000 visits to our site from 180,000 different people in 172 different countries! We've put 20,000 miles on our work car, and a bunch more on our frequent flier card (ok, we don't have a frequent flier card). In the process, we made some great friends, got reacquainted with some old ones and learned a whole lot more about people, photography and of course ourselves. We've been incredibly fortunate to have been blessed to do so many great things with so many great people.
Over the past year we've nearly frozen to death, nearly overheated to death and nearly fallen to our death... all in the name of cool photos. We've swam in oceans, rivers and streams, climbed mountains, hay bail piles and reservoir walls. We've shot cliff-jumpers, newborns, elderly, newlyweds, sports teams, bands, 'D' list celebrities and karate experts. We've shot in fields, forests and campgrounds and on ice-skates, canoes and the Empire State Building. We even had a few photos go viral! We've just been so privileged to experience so much with so many people.
On a more personal level, we had some big milestones as well. We welcomed a new niece in the summer, visited a place (Hawaii) that we've always dreamed of going to, taught our first major workshop and a bunch more. And especially important (to me at least), Amy finally was able to join me as a full-time employee/boss :).
Thinking through all these things really floods me with emotions. But more than anything, the emotion I feel is gratitude. Gratitude towards God for keeping us healthy and inexplicably giving us these chances... and gratitude towards YOU, the readers of this blog. To repeat a story I've said before on here: When I started this blog, I was getting 2 hits a day, one from my parents and one from Amy's parents. Throughout the years, we've been able to rely on word of mouth referrals because we have so many incredible people that read this and pass it along to other people. The fact that you guys are willing to invest even a few minutes of your life into our work means so much to us. I'm still amazed at the fact that anyone would care to look at, comment about, or share our work.
More than that, now that Amy and I have both made this our entire living, I can truly say that without YOU we wouldn't have a business, our home, or many of the experiences I mentioned above. I hope I come across as sincere when I tell you that EVERY SINGLE ONE of you has a huge impact on our lives. From those of you who just visit and increase our Google ranking, to those of you who comment and help our clients feel special, to those of you who share our work with friends, relatives and others. We owe a huge and tremendous THANK YOU to every single visitor of this blog. We love you guys and we love that you allow us to do what we love. Thank you, thank you, thank you...
So, with all that said, here's a collection of some of our favorite photos from 2010. We're taking the next week off, so feel free to come back often. There's at least one shot from every one of our 147 shoots in here and some extras that we just had to include. I whittled this video down from nearly 900 photos to the 236 that made the cut. Thank you to all the people who appear in this and have shared their lives with us... Oh, and I'm sorry if it goes quickly, but the original was 24 minutes long, so we had to cut it to 9 to keep things moving :)
So, finally, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you faithful and first time blog stalkers. If you missed any of those 120,000 photos, here's a brief summary of what you missed... (P.S. If you want to watch in HD, click on the HD button in the video frame).
Hoffer Photography's Best of 2010 from Tony Hoffer on Vimeo.
It’s fun to see Senior photoshoots out of you and Amy… Tony ! Now you know whey they (Seniors) are my most favorite subjects I shoot. Good job on you both ! Super fun for Erica.
nicely done good sir.. Immensely talented.