This is the photo which started it all twenty years ago. I’d finally been able to enter the world of photography, something I’d wanted to do since I was a teenager. Digital photography had become a thing, and the production company I worked for had a most amazing photographer on staff, a man who I referred to as an “Encyclopedia Photographica”. Mike has been a wonderful mentor and encouragement to me, and thanks to him I hit the ground running. In fact, he got me into the line of work which became my vocation and my career, and I still haven’t gotten even with him for that! (j/k)

I was actually going to title this post “Not with a bang…” in reference to the T.S. Eliot poem “The Hollow Men”. 2025 has been one of the lowest years of my life, and 2021-2024 weren’t spectacular, either. But I have a new lease on life, as they say, and I’m poised to make 2026 one of the best years ever. So instead, as I ventured out with my camera for the first time in nearly four months, I determined it would be fun to look back on my New Year’s photos of our beloved capitol building since I started the blog exactly two decades ago.