As with many things these days, I am a bit late to the party.  Let me be the last person to wish you and yours a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.  While 2014 saw many positive events for me, it was as challenging a year as I’ve yet had.  I’m a pretty open book and tend to speak candidly here as I have found this blog to be a collective journey in many ways, and on top of that, a bit of a personal diary in that I can vent, ramble on and air my praise or frustration to the ether, while sharing with the community that frequently stops by to keep me company.  In a weird way, that is supposed to be a thank you for stopping by.  Thank you for reading my ongoing ramblings and thank you for the continued interaction and support.  I love photography, I love writing, and this blog enables me to do both.  If it were not for you, I’d just as soon be talking to a brick wall about my passions which of course would quickly pin me as a crazy person, so thank you for allowing me to hide that from my friends, wife and children.

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Firstly, thank you.  For the brick wall thing, but also because I’ve really appreciated getting to further my passion through this site’s content which is largely driven by questions, comments and conversations I have had over the years with you.  Yes, you.  While my real life responsibilities currently limit my ability to actually interact with the world in a physical, real sense, I am able to hold onto whatever sanity I may have in large part to making cyber friends with you guys and gals, so thanks.  Also to my wife.  My awesome and mostly, ever understanding wife.  She’s the one handling the real work while I take breaks to nerd out on the computer, so cheers to Mrs Squeeze.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased one of my wrist straps.  It has been a fun side project for me that has provided me with just a little working capital making Mrs Squeeze happier about me sitting in front of a computer, or conversing with her from behind a camera for the last 5 years.  I have dropped the price of these for the new year, and if you’re interested in getting one for that new camera you got over the holidays, please feel free to check them out here.

Thank you to Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons for the continued monthly photo challenge project.  We have really enjoyed seeing the greater community grow and hope that it has been an enjoyable way to get some of your photography out there.  If you’re not yet submitting, or perhaps don’t know what I’m talking about, we hold monthly challenges based on a theme chosen by the previous month’s winner.  At the end of the month, Heather, Mat and I choose our three favorites from all the submissions and open up votes on both of our sites.  Those votes run for 5 days, after which we tally the totals and showcase the winner on both our websites along with announcing what our new monthly theme will be.  We are also coming up on our one year anniversary of these monthly challenges, and the second semi annual vote where we take the 6 monthly winners and open up a public vote for you to choose which image you feel is the most enjoyable of all/supreme mega champion, with our first semi annual winner, Billyburg, receiving software, a wrist strap and our undying adoration.  Hopefully I can pull together even more free stuff this time around, so please stay tuned and submit!

Thank you to Andrea (Ale) from 43rumors.com, alpharumors.com and mirrorlessrumors.com for his tireless work and selfless promotion of us lowly photo bloggers.  Many of my reviews and articles are linked through his sites which is how many of you have found me over the years.  If you’ve not visited his sites, I’d suggest dropping by.  There are daily posts about informed whispers, upcoming cameras, lenses and system stuff along with a constant stream of user reviews and articles much like mine being written from all corners of the globe.  A great way to interact with a large, international community.

Thank you Stefan from Canonwatch.com for showcasing my article comparing the killer EF 135mm f/2 L USM lens and the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 which almost cracked into my top 5 posts of the year!

Speaking of, these are the most popular posts from 2014.

1. The GX7 vs OMD EM5 – Battle for my affection, Round 1!  I stirred the pot a bit with my IBIS comparison on this one 🙂 and I stand by my findings.  While over a year old, it has continued to provide either a justification or whipping block for arguments either way.  I had no horse in this race, and really compared these two cameras to see which was going to suit me better.
2. Olympus 75mm f/1.8 all it’s cracked up to be?  This is a two year old post that still garnered more hits than any other (but one) article I’ve written, all year.  I guess I need to try and recapture some lightning or something.
3. Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 Review  At the time I wrote this, I had a hard time finding any actual user reviews on this often overlooked little lens.  I guess it seemed to strike a bit of a chord with others looking for something similar.
4. Panasonic Battle: GX7 vs GM1  Another of the comparison articles pitting camera versus camera.  That these two have the same sensor and internals, I figured I should try to figure out why they tested differently on DXO.  I’m still not entirely sure.
5. Panasonic GM1, mine’s smaller!  This first look pulled in more interest than my actual review of the camera, or maybe people just mistook my self deprecating stance after accidentally stumbling across it while searching for porn or something.  That’s probably it.

Thank you all.  I really enjoy doing this, and continue to enjoy interacting with all of you guys and gals.  Mrs Squeeze and I have found that multiple kids equals an exponential amount of work as parents and carving out time to write and review can be challenging sometimes.  Our two rambunctious boys continue to teach us that nothing is safe, nor will we ever have a truly restful day, ever apparently.  We kinda knew what we signed up for, and blame nobody but ourselves and self inflicted reality, but I’m sure most parents can attest, with kiddos, life refocuses quickly and constantly.

While we had a challenging year emotionally with one of our little guys scaring the absolute crap out of us with a very serious seizure (of which he has seemingly fully recovered and shows no sign of recurrence… fingers crossed), along with other familial maladies happening at an alarming rate, I can say that there seems to be a very welcomed and optimistic glow at what seems to be the end of this tunnel.  I am happy to be starting a new year, and just wanted to take a few minutes to thank all of you.

Here’s to not taking ourselves too seriously while enjoying any and every positive thing that life may throw at us.  Little moments and all of that.  I hope everyone is happy and healthy, and if not, here’s to hoping that we can remedy that in the coming year.  Photography has certainly acted as therapy through various points in my life, which is one of the reasons I love it as much as I do.

Cheers and happy shooting in 2015!

Tyson