My 5 Favourite Camera Photographs Of 2024

It’s that time of year again! Another year has passed and that means it’s time for my yearly overviews. It is safe to say that 2024 has again been an amazing year for my photography. I started out the year wondering how it could possibly become more exciting than the year before and somehow it does. Thinking back to this year, it feels fulfilling and fills me with gratitude.

This year has been the busiest in my photography career, possibly even in my entire life. I visited two new continents where I explored Patagonia & Antarctica, two of my bucket lists locations. I have also never guided as many photo workshops as I did this year & got to meet incredible people along the way. My work at the series of eruptions at Sundhnúksgígar in Iceland was published multiple times in international media, I helped produce a documentary, my photography received international recognition, and I developed a 12+ hour video course with a good friend. It feels like I have been going non-stop until this well-needed Christmas break.

Just like last year, I am publishing 3 different blogs: this one about my favourite camera shots of the year, one about my favourite drone shots of the year and, finally, my classic ‘Year in Review’ blog.

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My Five Favourite Camera Photographs Of 2024

Let’s kick things off with my 5 favourite camera shots! This year I upgraded my backup stills camera to the Canon EOS R5, which means I now use two Canon EOS R5‘s. I have also added one more lens to my kit, which is the Canon EOS RF 24-105mm F/4. My other lenses are still the Canon RF 100-500mm and Canon RF F/4 14-35mm. But enough about gear, let’s dive into the photographs!

1. A Once-In-A-Lifetime Encounter In The Arctic

For those who have followed my journey this year it will come as no surprise that this is my number one pick for this list. While hosting a photography workshop in East Greenland last Summer, we encountered this lone polar bear. I took hundreds of images during this lengthy encounter. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced. To see this beautiful creature up close, undisturbed in its natural habitat, is something I will never forget. Out of all the images, this one really stood out to me because of how well the polar bear lines up with the curves of the ice beneath and behind him. If you’re interested, I wrote a lot more about this encounter in my East Greenland blog which I published earlier this year.

2. Getting Close & Personal

I have only briefly shown this image in a story on my Instagram. I captured this image just a few weeks ago during a winter photo workshop which I run every year with my friend Mads Peter Iversen. One of the locations we visit multiple times on this workshop is the so-called Diamond Beach. It’s a tricky place to shoot because of the dynamic scenes you are trying to capture. The ice blocks on the black sand are incredible but they move. On top of that, you really need to watch out for sneaker waves and possibly chunks of ice being propelled towards you. I never keep my eyes off the ocean when shooting there. With this shot, I wanted to do something different from the classic single-ice-block shots you see so often. I used a larger ice block as a foreground element which had a sharp edge pointing you to another ice block in the background.

3. Revisiting An Important Shot In My Photography Career

One of the most important photographs for my photography career was the first time I managed to capture the northern lights above an actively erupting volcano in 2021. That shot propelled me forward internationally but it also started the idea of writing my first book and more. It’s safe to say it was a pretty significant moment for me personally. Ever since that evening, I have been wondering whether I would see that combination again and this year I finally did. Not just once but twice! The shot I picked for this list is one I captured in April, almost exactly three years after the first one.

4. Weathering The Storm

This year, I again hosted a puffin-focused photography workshop in the north of Iceland. While last year, we were blessed with beautiful sunny nights, there was none of that this year. However, that meant I could finally take some other photographs I had been thinking about. One of them was this image of a puffin sheltering itself inside its feathers. This bird was very comfortable with me being close by and didn’t move one bit.

5. Turning It Up To Eleven

This fifth image is one I captured during my first visit to Patagonia. While that morning didn’t look great, with lots of clouds, it felt like it wasn’t meant to happen. Sunrise had already happened and we didn’t get any colors on the mountain. But then suddenly, it was like something twisted a dial and turned everything up to eleven. The landscape began to change into a vibrant red hue and turned what was a quite dull scene into one of the most incredible scenes I had seen on that trip.

6. A Natural Vignette

Well, it was very, very difficult for me to stick only to five photographs so I included a sixth one as a bonus. I could not make this list without at least sharing one image from the Antarctica expedition I was on this year.

I spotted this penguin rookery several hundred meters up on a steep mountain side in the Lemaire Channel in Antarctica. I thought this was so incredible because their only predators live in the water. There’s absolutely no need for them to waddle all the way up there to create their home to be safe from predators. What really stands out in this image was that it was completely surrounded by pristine snow which gives this image a totally real and natural white vignette.

What’s Next?

After all these camera shots, it’s time for my other camera: my drone. Next up will be my top 5 aerial photographs of 2024. Believe it or not, this was even more difficult, especially after that unexpected eruption last week. Stay tuned!

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