It was long overdue, but I finally made the trip to Ireland to visit Erin. We've known each other since middle school. Over 17 years. I feel like I've lived so many lives since then -- new cities, new scenes, new sets of friends. There's something very comforting about being around your oldest friends, even in a foreign country.

After finding a team of horses on a hill, we grabbed Aoife, a folk musician and Erin's roommate. We drove a rented Ford Fiesta through the night and across the country, singing The Cranberries and Sinead O'Connor (Ireland's finest), finally arriving at Martin's house in County Clare. Martin is Aoife's dad and traditional Irish flutemaker. I fell asleep that night to their fiddling and fluting in the kitchen. The next day we hopped the fence so the back entrance of the Cliffs of Moher. The sea hid behind the fog. The grass was lush and green and exactly what I pictured of Ireland in my cliched imagination. The day was another one of those dreamlike experiences that I hope for on every trip.

Words & photos: Bryan Derballa

NYC based photographer and Fecal Face contributor, Bryan Derballa, releases his best of 2012 photo slide show.

Soda streaming, Rhianna ripping off Sandy, live Björk, doggy district, date with Dana and done, Neutral Milk Hotel is still alive, mild winter, Fashion Week for T, feeling too old at Die Antwoord, Incendies, Vice cover, first SXSW, Bonfire Session, Whole Foods raw bar, FADER Fortitude, half-million clicks and Mark II dies, ATX -> SF, Creators at Fort Mason, reconnecting with Micah, Guernville, Ying and Thalia, Goonies beach, 5D Mark III, X100, Olivia's first birthday, The Idler Wheel, K-Swiss in Hollywood Hills, Palm Springs compound, fuck it dude life's a risk, staying at Coachella for one song, Flore, green juice, red juice, home juice, Vic in Syria, Jacob on speed dial, Jill Lepore's New Yorker articles, portfolio book for no one to see, Jansport support, Benny Gold collaboration, Indian Summer the lookbook, Moonrise Kindgom, LOOK3 No. 4, Econolodge crew, Champs, Toronto under the weather, summer camped, Annelise's tent, Koston's party on the roof, cousins in Philly, Mojo bails, Pop Etc, two-mile runs, House of Vans regular, A+J split, Ariel's Wired, Christian Marclay's Clock, Elias and Nikki are fairweather neighbors, night beaching at Tilden, Allen Ying always willing to drive, successfully avoid my 30th, Bnels to the rescue, Holiday Road, Hell Hole holy grail, one more wisdom tooth gone, two to go, Dark Knight Rises along at 10am, celebrity portraits, Mom visits, brings roman candles, Paulie Gee's, Ghost the Musical, Live Through This, vogue knight, Latex Ball, crying a little at Beasts of the Southern Wild, LES park, Retina come-up, Biba's Bachelor adventure, Twisted Falls, Cameron makes the move, Risk podcasting, The Master in 70mm, smoothie perfection, Tool, Skenoto, backflips on the ropeswing, Jacob + Zoe, "In The Air Tonight", photo booth in the woods, S/S 2013, David Blaine at Autumn Bowl, Electrified, working alongside Belleme, fuck ATT, iPhone 5 with no line, Josh + Amy, capture the flag, no-mile runs, haunted house, Fiona live, the endless cough, Callbox Halloween, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Cloud Atlas is everything and more, Superstorm Sandy, exploring, underestimating, understanding, sympathizing, WSJ front page, Teenage Angst, crowdsurfing, conversing with The RZA, Miss Mary Eveyln, Obama the sequel, Juxtapozing, FTW fashion, Palladium lookbook, Domino Sugar factory, stepbrothers with Cameron, Humboldt Hollow dissolves, Jacoby bails, Flatbush Zombies in Flatbush, Thanksgiving for 50, singing ballads, J. Crew, homies with Jenna, London, finally meeting Erin in Ireland, Cliffs of Moher, traditional Irish music, Jansport x Benny Gold round 2, California Coast, Smashing Pumpkins at Barclays, gun control, Perks of Being a Wallflower was better than expected, Coney Island on Christmas Eve, polar plunge, memorable holidays, hard driving me crazy, New Years at the lake in the snow, New Years at the motel.

Christmas Eve. Coney Island. 34 degrees. Perfect. -Bryan Derballa

We started at the Brooklyn waterfront just hours before the storm was to make landfall. A brave few hopped police barriers to see how powerful the winds would be on a pier in the middle of the East River. But walking across the Williamsburg Bridge in the middle of the storm was really experiencing the power of nature. You could feel the bridge ripple in the wind. We ventured back out the morning after the floods. Manhattanites were leaving in exodus. The bridge was more crowded than I'd ever seen it. At night, it was even more surreal. A city that never sleeps was abruptly put down -- no power below 34th Street.

We rode through canyons of darkness as these monolithic buildings carved out black rectangles against the sky. There were signs of life here and there but mostly just the headlights of cars navigating the dark streets without traffic lights. After four days, the power was restored last night. New York City is slowly returning to normal, but the unfortunate residents along Jersey's shore, Staten Island, Red Hook, and Rockaway have a long way to go. -Bryan Derballa

I'm mixing two different sets of photos here--each terrifying in their own right. The first is from a couple years ago, when I found myself in an abandoned church in Brooklyn in the middle of the night with some friends. We found these creepy rooms upstairs and spooked the hell out of ourselves. If I wasn't with friends, it would have been downright horrifying. More recently, I had an assignment to shoot a torture-style haunted house called Blackout. This time I was alone. No friends. Just a naked ballerina, disease-ridden whore, and other menacing characters. Sweet nightmares. -Bryan Derballa

Magician and endurance performer David Blaine decided to stand on a small platform in the middle of seven Tesla coils firing bolts of electricity at him with no food or sleep for 73 hours.

I jumped on the project and started shooting the tests in an old maritime warehouse that used to house the Autumn Bowl. Then we moved to a pier in Chelsea to stage the event. It was a lot of work and a lot of electricity, but David survived and so did I. This is what I've got to show for it. -Bryan Derballa

Again with the backstage and runways. I shot another season of Fashion Week for New York Times T Magazine and was house photographer for J. Crew and Derek Lam. It was another week of trying not to be noticed by anyone, while trying to notice everything. -Bryan Derballa

During SXSW last spring, I holed up at the FADER Fort shooting all the performances for the first three days. At some point during the War on Drugs, the shutter in one of my cameras died. I plugged it into the computer and found out that I'd taken 550,000 photos in the three years I've owned it. That's a lot of photos, but I'm happy to have a handful of good ones. -Bryan Derballa

Asher Levine designed the outfits including the puppy fleshlight. Kristof Wickman and Danny Durtsche built the sets. All I did was snap the pictures. All the dogs did was run around like animals. Especially the bartender who kept hopping over the bar to attack the strippers. We had fun and they had fun. I think. -Bryan Derballa

There's a lot of beeps and lights. I don't care much for beeps but I like to photograph lights. I shot a couple of the events for The Creators Project in Brooklyn and SF. It's an interesting collision of technology, art, and music. As far as tragically hip events go, this is one of my favorites. Bryan Derballa

This time last year, in the middle of one of New York's snowiest winters, I boarded a plane to Brazil to work on a project with my good friend Cameron, who after two years in the Peace Corps in Mozambique was fluent in Portuguese. The project was about people living along the Amazon River. This is not that project, but rather the moments in between, the friends we made, the shit we jumped off of.

We knew the Amazon River had its share of dangers -- piranhas, cayman, anacondas, stingrays, fish that can swim up your urethra. But it was so hot all the time and the water was so inviting. And none of the people we met seemed to warn against it. On the last night of staying with a family in the floodplains, we asked the patriarch, a grizzled fisherman with a big belly and toothless smile that grew up on the river, if he was ever afraid of getting in the water. He said every time, and proceeded to show us a hole in his thigh courtesy of a stingray. Then the whole family laughed at us for our recreational use of the Amazon River.

Another season of Fashion Week in NYC. Photos: Bryan Derballa

I shot a campaign that trolled through a few cities last month. These are the after-hours photos. In Miami we got a glimpse of Art Basel. Then stopped off at the aquarium in Boston. Spent most of our time in Austin at the Whole Foods. Blew through SF only slowing down to catch the sunset. And bombed hills in Echo Park in a minivan. -Bryan Derballa

Contributor and NYC based photographer, Bryan Derballa compiles his best photos of 2011.

Cold, snow, more snow, boogie board, San Francisco, shot down, Bush - "Comedown", Baker Beach at twilight, WSJ day shifts, "Finding Emilie" on Radiolab, last minute to trip to India, Nike, cricket, missing Tahir, The Forever War, next stop Brazil, Rio at night, server switch nightmare, Cameron takes care of me, acai bowls, boat down the Amazon, floodplains, Sabá, sleeping in hammocks, avocado and guarana shakes, water buffalo, Mubarak ousted, Danilo and Matt move to Humboldt Hollow, 31 hours to New Zealand, surf contest, Corey Lopez, surfing Rere rockslide, retracing old steps, sleeping at the playground, Scientology, family I've never met, retirement plan, first niece, soccer stadiums, Milan, Madrid, Glasgow, London, royal wedding party, FT meet, Fleetwood Mac - "Everywhere", photojournalists killed in Libya, understanding mortality, Annelise's welcome home dinners, press pass, 36 hour relay race, Alex Welsh is a trooper, Lil' B, The Daily, Catskills, Tree of Life, the usual hustle, Sarah MacLachlan and Run DMC, House of Vans, LOOK3, crystal cave, Austin, Pure X, Sleep 8 Over, Silent Diane, Barton Springs, Topo Chico, Elias runs Austin, Pandora stock, brutal breweries, rogue Williamsburg bridge dance, crush on Lexi, sweat, summer camp revisited, moon shadows, momentary Amsterdam, delicious meal at Marius, Carolina cabin, waterfall in the backyard, Jacob Biba's stunning performance, high-octane, Turtleback Falls, Bust Ass Falls, Courthouse Falls, Babel Towers, Hallie is a friend forever, Chubaby11, sad music DJ set with van performance, Outfield - "Your Love", friends, nostalgia, Vic Blue moves to NY, Rwanda cycling in the New Yorker, can't see Bon Iver through the fence at Prospect Park, old skate videos, Liz + Joel, hurrican't, AARP, 9/11 Memorial, third macbook of the year, Erik + Carrie, Kari in DC, Mustafah bails, corn maze, Newfoundland, Creators Project, paintball, printer, $10,000 for Craig Murphey Benefit, Mom goes vegan, treehouse, Occupy, street style, Morning Benders move back, Sweet Tooth "No Light" video, peanut butter tofu, Al Sharpton, Wylie + Claire, Sleep No More blows my mind, Don Bosco Prep, Friendsgiving gone awry, FCUK, Miami, night swimming, Mojo and Pei Pei, Whole Foods in Austin, double lunch and double dinner in SF, Flore, holidays parties, Ben Ritter's Nirvana cover band, Babe Island Christmas card, ghost town. A damn good year.

Lost in the cornstalks. Chased by masked men picking up extra work at harvest time. Brandishing a plastic sword and a chainsaw missing its chain. A deranged clown refusing to break character. Gripping fear, tightening chest. New Jersey is where I came to die.