S H I I T A K E S
by Bear_Music

Comment:
Yes, but they taste so good!

Cherry
by Ecce_Signum

Comment:
What a terrific dog pic! Really a ripper.
But wait ... I've got a dog; Gus (the Magnificent). Better brace yourself.

Motorcycle Diary
by Germaine

Comment:
I see a 'splat' moment approaching. He'll leave a nasty mark on that white wall.

feed
by ErinM

Comment:
I can't believe it! I saw this exact same horse just yesterday. He'd been eating green oats then, too.

T minus zero
by Kali

Comment:
Just quite brilliant, and the best photograph in this challenge. The subject of a child flying a paper plane would normally be a sure recipe for sentimentality to the point of schmaltz. Cute little freckled face, intense little Norman Rockwell determined expression, tongue protruding in concentration, and so on ad nauseam. And all of it then grotesquely over-processed as if by Liberace's interior decorator.

And yet this photograph is instead so totally original and so entirely absent any hint of cliché. The arm boldly obscuring the face, thus giving accent to the fingers reaching for flight; the plane cocked into the launch position and illuminated by a beam of light: all wonderful. The strange point-of-view, anchored and validated by just enough marginal trees to ward off vertigo in the susceptible viewer: more wonderful. And the hint of blur – just enough to animate the launch – as well as the simple and sympathetic toning and processing: wonderful again.

But of all its outstanding qualities, if I could encourage other viewers to reflect on just one it would be the counter-intuitive marvel that the photograph is made so much more powerful because the child's face is not seen.

This is the camera used with real purpose: to sound out the imagination of both photographer and viewer. It's the best photograph of 2008, and one of the very best here of any year. 10. And also the dubious distinction of the Order of the Thumb:

Dancer
by kvickrey

Comment:
Yes. That's a lovely photograph with the perfect hint of movement. I think that little girls of this age slip in and out of their own private world whenever it suits them, and this seems to be just such a moment. Not a word I'd normally use, but "enchanting" seems an appropriate comment here. A very fine image, simply presented and all the more beguiling for that simplicity. 9.

The Hour Of Gold
by molliefestus

Comment:
Such a beautiful study of a simple subject. A perfect balance of forces ... light, movement, tone, form: it's simpatico in every way. 9.

interaction
by sigrun_th

Comment:
This is an astonishingly good bit of seeing. Knowing this was there is really the breathtaking part ... after which the actual photograph, as good as it is, is just a mere detail.

Panopticon
by zarniwoop

Comment:
This is terrific, and the fact that it's so oddly composed and blurred makes it all swim uncertainly around the protagonist's head. I suppose it's more correctly a reverse panopticon, in that a single point (the man) is seen from everywhere else. When seen in a flock like this, those CCTV cameras are even more malevolent-looking, aren't they?

Emerging Rainier
by jaysonmc

Comment:
If you can make me look twice and then look again at a type of photograph I normally wouldn't look even once at, it must be pretty good. And it is; it's superb.