Pictures of the Week: June 23-29

 

The U.S. soldier leans against the wall attentively with his weapon during a cordon and search in the Rashid district of Baghdad as an Iraqi girl leans against the wall, relaxed while blowing bubbles. Different people in different worlds sharing the same space. The contrast of the different roles of the two subjects in this image is compelling. The commonality of the two is heartbreaking.

 

See all of this week's compelling photography from around the world in our current Pictures of the Week gallery.

 

-Lee Van Grack

Tags: Pictures of the Week

Yahoo! Photos Shutting Down

It looks like Yahoo! Photos is shutting down.

Yahoo! sent out notices today for users to transfer any photos they had in the service to another site. A little background: Yahoo! bought Flickr over two years ago. And they are now beginning the process to get users to transfer their pictures.

To quote from their release, "We will officially close Yahoo! Photos on Thursday, September 20, 2007, at 9 p.m. PDT. Until then, we are offering you the opportunity to move to another photo sharing service (Flickr, KODAK Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish, or Photobucket) ..."

Hey! Wait a second! What about AOL Pictures?!?

This is a shameless plug to suggest that if you have photos on Yahoo! that you transfer them to AOL Pictures. You can upload, share, store, order prints and have them mailed to you or have them sent to any Walgreen's for pickup, create albums, make all kinds of cool gifts from your photos and much more.

Check it out.

- Gary

Tags: AOL Pictures

Did You See That?

Philadelphia Phillies' Jimmy Rollins gets hit by a pitch from Cleveland Indians' Cliff Lee in the fifth inning of a baseball game Monday, June 18, 2007, in Cleveland.

Most of the time, it's hard to make a compelling photo out of a batter at the plate in a baseball game. Usually it's a photo of a swing before contact, or after contact, or something that just misses the moment, because it's hard to time a shutter click with a 90 mph ball.

 

Then, every once in a while, all the elements come together, when you can't see what's happened in front of you, because the camera's mirror was up and blacked out when the moment takes place.

 

Check out more of this week's best sports photos, at 

AOL Sports: Did You See That?

 

- Mike Heffner

Tags: Did You See That?, Sports, Baseball

Pictures of the Week: June 16-22

This week's photograph of the people watching as water gushes out of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir at China's Yellow River contains understated drama. The photographer positioned himself at just the right level so that the colors that appear in the image are highlighted against the backdrop of the water spray, the people and umbrellas provide us with a sense of scale. The simplicity of elements in this photo serves to add to the drama, and we are left with a sense of the power and the beauty at the sight of this great rush of water.

Check out all the other dramatic images that make up this week's collection of Pictures of the Week and be sure to vote for the one you think is best.

-Lee Van Grack

Tags: Pictures of the Week

Fotofestivus V

We said our blog would be about chronicling what we do here as photo editors at AOL -- highlighting and discussing great images, bringing you useful information, and having some fun, too. And here's the fun part: Fotofestivus.

 

It's an idea we came up with as a staff a while ago. It's pretty simple: we identify a theme and shoot a photo for it. Some themes will be straightforward, some wacky. We'd like to invite you to join in, too. Our theme this time around: TOYS. If you don't have any photos you've already shot that might work into this theme, head out there and find a picture. You can interpret it literally, or have some fun with the idea. And to help your ideas along, here are a few photos by some of the AOL photo editors for a little inspiration:

 

 

 

 

 

Now here's your mission: Send us links to the images you photographed around the TOYS theme. The photo can be new, it can be old, just send us a picture that you think is appropriate for the theme.

 

Have fun and think creatively! We look forward to seeing how this month's theme inspired you. For more inspiration, take a look at some of our other Fotofestivus entries:

 

Fotofestivus IV

Fotofestivus III

Fotofestivus II

Fotofestivus

 

- Gary

Did You See That?

A shave and a haircut? A bet gone awry? It started as a joke: I'll shave next time you win, crew member Tom Giacchi told his driver, Carl Edwards. Well, 52 races later -- almost 17 months -- Giacchi got his 6-inch beard trimmed when Edwards convincingly won NASCAR's race at Michigan International Speedway Sunday. That's a long time to wait.

"It's been treacherous," ESPN reported Giacchi saying. "There's been a lot of stares. I'm a people person. I love hanging out with people, meeting new people. I like people to like me. I got the cold shoulder a couple times because of this weird-looking beard,

"At home a couple of times, I'd be in a Dairy Queen and Amish people would come in and they had huge beards also. I was like, 'Yeah, my brothers! I can work with them all day.' "

Please check out all of this week's sports pictures at AOL Sports: Did You See That?

- Steve Mawyer

Pictures of the Week: June 9-15

This week's photo of the worker in the banana warehouse in China benefits greatly from the contrast of the red gloves against the green bananas. Because of the lack of any other colors, our eyes are drawn to the red gloves and then dance around the assortment of green bananas. It adds drama to what would otherwise be a simple scene of a worker inspecting bananas.

Check out all the other dramatic images that make up this week's collection of Pictures of the Week and be sure to vote for the one you think is best.

-Lee Van Grack

Tags: Pictures of the Week