Favorite photos of 2007

I downloaded some 18.7 gigabytes of digital photographs onto my hard drive in 2007. At this point, I can't tell you how many pictures I took, nor do I intend to count them.

While my hard drive-clogging encounter with my camera produced a few print-worthy images last year, I favor many average pictures for a different reason.

I don't value every picture for its photographic quality. Many of my photographs don't rise to that level. But I still enjoy gazing at them because they represent more than art to me.

This picture of the Georgetown ditch camp is the first of several such photos. I took it last year on a Saturday trip to the Airport Flat area in Eldorado National Forest.

I discovered the ditch camp during our first camping trip to the South Fork Campground in 1994. At the time, South Fork was a free campground. We camped there each year until the Forest Service concerted it to a group campground in the late 1990s.

One of the more interesting sights in the area is an old camp along the South Fork of the Rubicon River. Today, it's rundown (and appears to be under renovation). But it the camp was full of water ditch maintenance workers back in the early 1900s. Anytime workers gather in one place, they need to eat. My guess is that this building was the kitchen, dining room and general assembly hall for the camp.