Sometimes you just know. Sometimes it’s in the moment you hit the shutter, but more often I find, it’s the moment the review image pops up on your screen or viewfinder: you’ve caught exactly the moment you wanted to. Or, perhaps something even better than you anticipated.

I always struggle with choosing my photo of the year, because I think of myself primarily as a writer who’s a keen photographer, rather than as a photographer (still less, a YouTuber). Like the majority of DPReview’s readers, I’m a keen amateur always pushing myself to get better. And one of the core photography skills I’m still working on is the ability to select and assess my own images. But I knew, in the moment I’d taken this one, that it was the best thing I’d shoot this year.

And I’m going to fight my inner Britishness and try not to be bashful or stumble about between self-deprecation and false modesty. I got this photo because I put in the work. There was definitely an element of good fortune and serendipity to it, but I got this photo because I made it happen.

There was definitely an element of good fortune and serendipity to it, but I got this photo because I made it happen.

I say this because I took this photo in the midst of a conversation on precisely that topic. I’d flown into London earlier that afternoon and was enjoying a pint outside my favourite pub with two of my closest friends. One of them, a former DPReview colleague, was saying how impressed he’d been with some of my recent portrait photos, the other was teasing (/haranguing) me for not being able to accept the compliment.

As we chatted, another group of people arrived and stood next to us, among them a young woman in a pink top with pink and orange hair and quite striking checkerboard trousers. It was a pretty loud outfit, so quite hard to ignore but it was also, by some strange coincidence, the same shade of pink as the wall of the intentionally Instagram-friendly cake shop opposite us.

I’d say “picture the scene” but you don’t have to, as I apparently included a photo of it in another article, four years ago. This story takes place where the people are standing: the pink wall is parallel with the right-hand edge of this photo. It were a copy shop/reprographics house, back in my day. Photo: Richard Butler

Emboldened by Andy’s kind words (and with no contribution from the beers I’d drunk or the fact I was nearly hallucinating with tiredness/jet-leg), I decided to ask if she’d pose for a photo. The moment I opened my mouth I remembered that, back in the UK, I don’t have an accent working in my favor, but the strength of my “your outfit matches that wall” argument and the promise that it’d only take a moment, was sufficient, regardless.

Unfortunately, and for this I am blaming the timezone change, I’d not noticed how dark it had got. My subject was very game in trying to pull exaggerated poses in front of the matching wall for me, but the light was much flatter and greyer than it’d been a few moments (hours?) ago.

I was just about to give up, when I noticed that the previous shot I’d taken had a distinct orange tinge catching my subject’s outline. The interior lights of the Instagramable bakery were beginning to overwhelm the fading grey light of dusk, and even in my slow-witted state, I knew what to do next.

“Could I ask you to take a step to your right, so you’re more in front of this window?” I asked, repositioning myself so that I’d be shooting from the direction of the glow. Suddenly, there was something: my subject’s face bathed in orange light, with the pink wall still visible behind her, each element working with her intensely dyed hair.

Once you’ve found some nice light, it’s so hard to resist making more use of it. Photo: Richard Butler

Still not great, but at least one of the shots, good enough. I showed them to my subject and she smiled in response. But, more importantly, she relaxed a little. I knew I was onto something, but the familiar urge to keep shooting was being tempered by my promise that it wouldn’t take long, and that I’d let her get back to her friends.

“Can I do one more? More of a head-and-shoulders?” I asked. I don’t know whether the response was an attempt to engage more with the camera or to try to hear what I was saying, but my subject leaned a little further toward me. Further out into the light spilling from the window, suddenly lighting up her eyes. I hit the shutter before anything could change and hoped like hell that eye detection would do its thing.

“Omg, that looks so cool”

The image appeared on the back of the camera, given stunning vibrancy by its HDR rear panel. Pinks and oranges leaping off the screen and eyes directly connecting with the viewer. “I’m not going to get a better one than that,” I concluded, immediately, and thanked my subject for her time, promising a copy of the shot as soon as I could. “Omg, that looks so cool,” came back the response, when I did.

I took another couple of portraits in the cake shop’s high-beam glimmer that evening, including one that my friend likes of himself (which he never does), until I felt that I’d been taking the risk of waving thousands of dollars of borrowed camera around in central London long enough.

There’s a bit of a story behind all the other images I considered for this piece: stories of nice light, photos their subjects have really liked, moments of serendipity. But, particularly if you download the original and view it in HDR, this one feels like it stands out. Sometimes you just know.

Richard’s favorite photos of 2025

It’s partly a reflection of the cameras I’ve reviewed this year, but I find it interesting that three of my potential shots of the year were shot in black and white, and three are HDR photos, either out-of-camera or as after-the-fact conversion.

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