2021 through my lens 📸

Let me start this off by saying that there was no way I was going to be able to determine the absolute best photographs that I captured during the year 2021. I had nearly 9,000 photos to go through from this year. It would take me ages to go narrow it down to the very best ones.

I decided to find some of my personal favorites and made sure to have at least one image from each month. I let these moments choose me while scrolling through all 8,619 photographs in my camera roll. I had so many great times in 2021, so it is hard to go wrong here.

^{The above screenshot is every single photo in my iPhone's library that was taken in 2021.}

Let's get started...

^{Date: January 9, 2021}

@flowerbaby and I got 2021 started with our first-ever trip to Otherworld in Columbus, OH. This was my favorite photo from that day and was during her brief period of having blonde hair. We were forced to wear masks inside of the building, so it kind of made our photos less than perfect this day. This place was insanely cool still, as you can see from this trippy room. I will probably never witness something as unique and odd as what was inside of this giant art installation. If you want to see all of the creative ideas we witnessed at Otherworld, I highly suggest you check out https://peakd.com/hive-148441/@daltono/otherworld.

^{Date: February 13, 2021}

My parents are a highly fashionable couple. This is clearly proven by this photo from a Valentine's Eve dinner that I was able to go on with them. I think this is one of the best-looking duos that I have ever seen. I love these two humans so much. To get a closer look at that dinner date with three couples in total, check out https://peakd.com/hive-148441/@daltono/nosh-valentines-day-triple-date.

^{Date: February 14, 2021}

I will never forget that it snowed on Valentine's Day in 2021. @flowerbaby and I had reservations at a fancy restaurant in Huntington. We had to really be tough to capture photographs at Ritter Park that evening. It was both freezing and icy where we decided to capture our photographs. Somehow we managed to make it happen. This one of my girl is my favorite from that day, just look how perfect that smile of hers is. You can check out https://peakd.com/hive-148441/@daltono/valentines-day-2021 for a deeper look at our Valentine's Day date together.

^{Date: March 28, 2021}

I'm not sure why I love this photo so much. I desperately needed a haircut, but even that didn't ruin the moment. I was wearing one of my favorite jackets and posing with this beautiful tree. Doesn't get much better than this. @flowerbaby and I were spending some time on the boulevard that day, she had been skating. If you care to take a closer look https://peakd.com/hive-114723/@daltono/first-skate-of-spring-2021.

^{Date: April 23, 2021}

Why I felt the need to show both nipples in this photo, I'll never know. I think maybe one nip would have been enough. Yet here we are, full flash is happening. This was right after a meal at The Pitch with @flowerbaby, at a place called Shawnee Park. I remember freezing my ass off because of the wind that day. If you want to see @flowerbaby's bright red dress, do so now https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/photographs-in-shawnee-park-after-the-pitch.

^{Date: May 25, 2021}

Rewind to one of the best weeks ever during our trip to St. Augustine, FL. I loved this place so much and we had such an awesome Airbnb to stay at. This was in our backyard, which was the perfect circle to do some acro yoga together. You can see by the smiles on our faces that we are having a great time.

I made sure to talk about each day of our trip in great detail:

https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-1-vilano-beach
https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-2-vilano-beach
https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-3-vilano-beach
https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-4-vilano-beach
https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-5-vilano-beach
https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-6-vilano-beach
https://peakd.com/vacation/@daltono/day-7-vilano-beach

^{Date: May 26, 2021}

This was my favorite photo from our St. Augustine trip, so a continuation of the previous image. We relied on my tripod and Apple Watch/iPhone combo to take photos of us together, as we often do. I'd say we did a damn good job for it just being us two there. I miss this place a lot.

^{Date: June 5, 2021}

When I hang out with @simpleeme, we always end up doing something outrageous. We were just trying to have a day of tennis and basketball together and look how it turned out. The photo of him with all the tennis balls is actually legendary. Who else do you know that can dual-wield tennis rackets? You should totally check out https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@daltono/we-went-pro-tennis and be sure to watch the funny hype video that we made at the end of that post.

^{Date: June 6, 2021}

This right here gets my personal vote as my favorite photo of 2021. I am still blown away by @flowerbaby's creativity with this costume she put together. She's just so gorgeous and I love everything happening in this photograph. We had an amazing time at the WV Renaissance Festival, you can see what I mean in this post https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/the-west-virginia-renaissance-festival. I look forward to going again in 2022.

^{Date: June 12, 2021}

This was taken after our early Father's Day celebration. We went to dinner and I surprised my dad with a Cincinnati Reds baseball bat mug. This was a great photo of the three of us together. I love seeing us all happy, but we missed my brother not being with us. Recap this day by going to https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@daltono/fathers-day-2021.

^{Date: June 20, 2021}

This photo ranks near the top of my list for best images of 2021. It was taken while visiting my brother and his fiance in PA. @flowerbaby was proudly drinking her first legal alcoholic beverage (she hated it) while we played corn hole at this beautiful farm. This was a day to remember, catch up with everything that happened by visiting https://peakd.com/hive-187719/@daltono/bulls-head-beer-garden-at-kissel-valley-farm.

^{Date: July 13, 2021}

This was our second beach trip of the summer. Just something about all of the color and the natural smile on my face here, makes me fall in love with this photograph. This mural was right below our balcony at Daytona Beach, FL.

Again, I recapped each day of our trip like I did with St. Augustine.:

https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/day-1-in-daytona-beach-fl
https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/day-2-in-daytona-beach-fl
https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/day-3-in-daytona-beach-fl
https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/day-4-in-daytona-beach-fl

^{Date: July 17, 2021}

I got to pose next to this Tyrannosaurus Rex while wearing my @flowersaur T-Rex tank top. This was at the beginning of one of the longest days of my life. It's not easy dancing your ass off from afternoon to midnight, but we did it and it was one of the best times of 2021. You don't want to miss my full description of this day https://peakd.com/hive-164853/@daltono/bsaayeiv, which also includes a video and music.

^{Date: July 20, 2021}

@flowerbaby hates this photo, but I absolutely love it. She looks so sophisticated and is sitting in one of the rarest locations I've ever been. This blog about Prabhupada's Palace of Gold in West Virginia is full of amazing photography, go back and see for yourself https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/prabhupadas-palace-of-gold. It was so damn hot that day and we had zero coverage from the sunlight thanks to being on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

^{Date: August 29, 2021}

This is the funniest photo in my end-of-the-year post. @flowerbaby caught me mid-sneeze while I was posing underneath the New River Gorge Bridge. Now is your opportunity to go back and see the rest of this day in my Fayette Station blog https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/fayette-station-new-river-gorge-bridge-wv.

^{Date: September 4, 2021}

Our second time ever going paddleboarding was a huge success. It always makes me a tad nervous to bring my phone out on the lake, but we do what we must to capture amazing photographs like this one. Feel free to go back and see everything else we did this day at Sutton Lake https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/paddleboarding-at-sutton-lake-again.

^{Date: October 9, 2021}

I'm so lucky to have a girl that loves me this hard. We wore matching rave outfits to celebrate my 29th birthday and go see Ghastly. It was a really exhausting night, but I wouldn't change a thing about it. Go and see how much fun we had https://peakd.com/hive-164853/@daltono/we-wore-matching-rave-outfits-for-my-29th-birthday. Unless you don't like booty pics.

^{Date: October 16, 2021}

This right here is the most swagged out I got all of 2021. The suit jacket is one of my favorite fashion items that I have ever owned. @flowerbaby and I both stood out as the dopest people at the Dracula ballet that night. If you are curious about her bat-themed outfit, go see for yourself https://peakd.com/hive-150329/@daltono/charleston-ballet-dracula-the-seduction.

^{Date: October 23, 2021}

I don't often wear suits, pretty much never actually. October of 2021 was different though. Twice in one month, I got to dress up fancy and I am not complaining about it one bit. This photo has my brother Chez and his fiance Kristian along with @flowerbaby and me at a friend's wedding. There are so many killer photos inside of the blog for this event https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/jakes-wedding-with-the-family, I dare you to go look.

^{Date: October 30, 2021}

Halloween 2021, do I really need to say more? Go and see more awesome shots of @flowerbaby's witch costume and my Reaper costume https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@daltono/halloween-2021. I promise that you won't be disappointed.

^{Date: November 13, 2021}

Our first ever visit to Wizardfest, this day was so much damn fun. The butterbeer that we are drinking together in this photo was divine. I wish I was drinking some more of it right now actually. If you like Harry Potter, go and see the blog for this day asap https://peakd.com/hive-129496/@daltono/wizardfest-year-3-in-ironton-ohio. You may find out a secret about this photograph.

^{Date: December 11, 2021}

Matching kitty Christmas sweaters for me and @flowerbaby. This was the perfect opportunity to pose with the 30+ Christmas trees set up downtown. This photo was taken just before we left with my mom to go visit her dad. You will see those two in the next photo, meet me there.

^{Date: December 11, 2021}

My one-of-a-kind mother and papaw together is the perfect image to wrap all of this up with. They both have a sense of style like no other. I'm glad I inheritated that trait. This was such a fun night and I highly suggest that you go and see what all went down https://peakd.com/hive-174580/@daltono/we-went-to-an-early-christmas-dinner-hosted-my-papaws-lodge.

It looks like 2021 was unforgettable 🌟

I can't believe I did it. I actually managed to go through all of my photos from 2021 and select some of my best moments. This took much longer than I expected it to, but it was time very well spent. Having a blog like this makes my memories last a lifetime and beyond. It really is such an amazing opportunity to have a community and family to share my life with. I thank you and love you all.

Shoutout to @derangedvisions for putting together such a fun contest. I hope 2022 is great for you and your family dude. You are an awesome person and I appreciate having you as a digital friend. Hopefully one day we will meet and make some memories in the real world.

My NFTs: https://inji.com/@daltono/nfts