It’s this one:

Why this one? For several reasons. One, it’s a whole mood; they’re beautiful flowers, but they’re already beginning to fade and wilt, a reminder that beauty is transient. Two, the light and shadow here is almost painterly, which is partly due to how it’s shot and partly the magic of Photoshop. Three, the photo is well composed. Four, I took it with my phone camera and feel pretty smug about coaxing a photo like this out of it (again, Photoshop helped). Five, as soon as I took it this song started playing in my head, no doubt due to the similarity of this photo and the cover of the album the song is on:
So, yes. All of those reasons. I hope you like it too.
As long as we’re on the subject of photos, here are some other photos I took this year that I believe have not previously showed up on Whatever this year. Enjoy.
— JS