World Press Photo of the Year

[wautd]

Can't direct link the photos so you'll have to click (top left)

I like it. I think an eye-opener for many westerners that there are also secular nations in the Middle East.

The gas pipeline explosion in Nigeria is my favorite tough. Very surreal (just below the first pic)

[2000AD]

Why are so many people still using black and white? Surely for news coverage colour would be a lot better?

[salm]

Why are so many people still using black and white? Surely for news coverage colour would be a lot better?

These Photos are not edited for news coverage. These Photos are edited for winning a contest and since black&white is arty i can see why many chose to use it.
Personally i like the high contrasts you can use in bw photos which.

[Stofsk]

Why are so many people still using black and white? Surely for news coverage colour would be a lot better?

For newspapers? Colour ink costs more than black ink.

Then again, that hasn't stopped newspapers from switching to colour. So who knows.

[Bounty]

For illustrations, colour is better, but if you're trying to depict a mood or evoke an emotional response, black and white can be very powerful. It also give the photos a sort of timelessness.

[Pick]

Many photography classes work predominately--if not all--in black and white because the emotional impact tends to improve.

[andrewgpaul]

Can't direct link the photos so you'll have to click (top left)

I like it. I think an eye-opener for many westerners that there are also secular nations in the Middle East.

Saw that in the paper today. Didn't realise it was a competition winner; thought it was illustrating a story. FWIW, a lot of Lebanese are Christian. Not necessarily secular.

[Vympel]

I'm so upset.

?rss]Don't click this unless you're ready for some serious emotional distress.

[Companion Cube]

I'm so upset.

?rss]Don't click this unless you're ready for some serious emotional distress.

Damn, I thought you were being sarcastic. That poor man. I'm guessing some kind of fire caused that?

[AniThyng]

I'm so upset.

?rss]Don't click this unless you're ready for some serious emotional distress.

Damn, I thought you were being sarcastic. That poor man. I'm guessing some kind of fire caused that?

He was a combat engineer in Iraq and his truck got hit by a suicide bomber, if I remember the news articles on him properly.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I'm so upset.

?rss]Don't click this unless you're ready for some serious emotional distress.

Damn, I thought you were being sarcastic. That poor man. I'm guessing some kind of fire caused that?

He was a combat engineer in Iraq and his truck got hit by a suicide bomber, if I remember the news articles on him properly.

I saw that and was sure it was just a picture or fictional portrait. Damn it looks unnatural - poor girl. (Isn't plastic surgery applicable in a case like this?)

[Vendetta]

I saw that and was sure it was just a picture or fictional portrait. Damn it looks unnatural - poor girl. (Isn't plastic surgery applicable in a case like this?)

The kind of facial reconstruction that he will require (and is likely partway through) will take a very long time indeed, and will still leave marks.

It looks like his lower jaw was pulverised, and his nose was destroyed, for a start, and jawbones and cartilege don't grow back.

It's an important message that picture makes. Although the three thousand deaths in iraq are high profile indicators of the cost of the war, for every one of them there are five wounded, some of them like this man.

[Adrian Laguna]

I like this series of pictures. Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands. These people must have rowed from the African coast, a journey of about 100 km (yes, it's longer than doing Cuba-Florida). You can see the boat in the background in one of the pictures. What I like about the picture is the tourists actively helping rather than just letting the Red Cross handle it.

For Spain, the Canary islands and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla are a Mexican border. They've been having trouble with lots of poor Moroccans moving to the more prosperous Spain. I find this hilariously ironic, since the Moroccans went to all the trouble of asserting their independence and all.