While most of my photographic output for 2015 was centered around wedding photojournalism and documenting my toddler daughter, I did find myself witnessing some pretty amazing scenes (like a fire-eater in a castle, for example). I had some portrait assignments that produced some images I’m proud of, and came away with some cycling images I like, taken both while riding and on assignment.

Here are my 20 favorites from 2015.

Last year was a big deal for me: My first child was born and I had the busiest year of my career. Most of my work time involved shooting weddings, work that you can see on my wedding photography website. Most of my personal time involved preparing for and caring for an infant. So there’s not much in my annual photographic output to choose from for a “best of” blog post. So I’ll keep it short.

I continued to shoot many pictures with my iPhone. Here are my favorites.

My best and most important efforts of 2013 involved my baby daughter, Lila Jayne. I shot an unbelievable amount of pictures of her, as you might expect. This one is my favorite:

This year’s crop of favorite pictures is a pretty eclectic mix compared to past years of my career. Normally, the list is filled with pictures from newspaper assignments; this year’s list contains just three. In fact, very little assignment work is represented here, unless you count self-assignments, which I gave myself a lot of this year. This was my first full year as a freelance photographer, so the assignment work was varied, the personal work was frequent, and the wedding work will appear on another website. I’m looking forward to 2013, which will see a whole new portfolio for me and hopefully another diverse mix of favorite photos to reflect on at the end of the year.

So there’s a rule for all journalists who work for the Gannett corporation: You’re only allowed to fly in a plane to cover a story if that story is a natural disaster.

So when I was assigned a story on world-famous aerobatic pilot Sean D. Tucker, I had to figure out how to get a shot of him flying without running afoul of the rules.

Now, I don’t mind bending the rules occasionally, but I had already been reprimanded in this job for going flying, and you can only plead ignorance once.

My solution was a couple Bogen Magic Arms, Super Clamps, a remote shutter release and a fisheye lens in the cockpit. Here’s the setup:

This was the first time I had ever mounted a camera in a cockpit, but Sean and his crewman Ian checked my work and approved. I told Sean to press the button as much as possible, especially when he felt the sun on his face — it was an easy task for him, a true professional who’s done this sort of thing before.

In the photo below, you can see the camera setup in front of Sean’s face:

I was a little nervous as Sean flew and I waited for my gear to return, but everything worked perfectly. The photo ran huge on our front page to accompany a feature on Sean and his flight school.

And I also shot a portrait:

Eileen is a wonderful lady who I met when she was just 99 years old. A reporter and I interviewed her at her home, where she smiled huge smiles and laughed as she recalled stories from her past. As we drove away, she rang a bell that hung from her porch roof. Just because. I smiled for a long time after our visit.

So I was thrilled to hear that we got invited to cover her 100th birthday party. It was thrown for her by a friend who had already crossed into centenarian-ism. She bought Eileen a “Secrets of Longevity” book, and everybody appreciated the humor.

At the end of the party, after Tongan dancers performed for her, the guests sang ‘happy birthday,’ and Eileen pretended to conduct an orchestra, smiling the whole time.