Well, what a fantastic line up of entries for this first Project 52-8 for 2016. Besides being grateful for the number of entries, there is also the high quality. Bodes well for Project 52-8. Thanks you all for entering the challenge, and making my work so much harder. And onto the Judging:
Dieterson- Ooooh! Adorable! Or as I would say to the babies here- heart stealer! Great capture, I appreciate this all the more as it is at the stage where they are responding to their environment more and more. Nice moment, fantastic eye contact, I like the softer monochrome here. I expect nothing short of 52 pics for 2016 of this little one. Congratulations BTW.
Ramseybiuckeye- well now, who would have thought Industrial stuff could make an image of such beauty. Beautiful, that cloud of smoke billowing out of that chimney is fantastic. And opposite to Dieterson, here we have harsher tones, and justly so.
RollsUp- A perfect blend of harsher and softer tones, an adorable subject, perfect eye contact, and an inescapable message that “it is cold out there” make this a “print it and hang it near the door entrance where everyone can see it. Exquisite composition and so much detail!
Tamia- You may call it a humble entry, but nothing humble about this. Don’t know what it is about this shot, but it echoes in the mind here. Fantastic composition with the glasses framed by the magnifying glass (I have one of those) and the 3 books and all connected to the Map. I reckon it will connect with many a viewer, if only from the purely connectedness of this. For others like, me, I want to plan a trip!
JCDoss – Busy but ever so nice image. Learned a lot from this one, as I struggle to take images like this- usually thinking there is too much reflections or light. Lovely bar scene, and I think one of those images that is best suited to B/W. Appreciate the DoF here.
Degral- Welcome to Project 52-8, hope we see a lot more of you this year. Taking your second image as your entry- I like this- lots of lines, diagonal and vertical, and best for me is the range of tones here which has added to the layers feeling I get from this shot. Kudos for your very interesting PoV you have employed here making it an interesting shot.
JensE-Welcome to Project 52-8- Hope we get to see a lot more of you too this year. What an interesting image, artistic and fascinating at once. Love the movement from dark side to light side. Textures have intentionally been captured and is very nice. Solid details. And now I know a bit more of Escher!

1st place and Winner-RollsUp


2nd place- Tamia


3rd spot to Dieterson.

[RollsUp]

Thank you for the honor, noelcmn and a fine job commenting on each entry. Congratulations to Dieterson and Tamia for placing.

[Tamia]

Congratulations on your well-deserved win, Rodney, and also to you, Dieterson for a podium place with the photo of your charming daughter. Thank you for choosing my picture for second, Noel, and especially for a fine job of commenting during the difficult task of judging. It was very pleasant to see new members joining us also.

[Dieterson]

Congratulation RollsUp, a fascinating picture, fascinating eyes... I agree, a well-deserved win! Congratulations also to you Tamia. I like your picture as well, it is clear, tells a story and fit very well to the black&white topic!

Thank you noelcmn for choosing my picture third, your kind comments and of course for hosting Project52 this year. It is very appreciated!

[scomatic]

congrate to the winner and noel for hosting the project 52 back........ I'm sorry for not doing well in last year...
this year i will be more concentrate in joining challenge

[noelcmn]

Look forward to that Scomatic! You did well, its the rest of us that did not do well!

[JensE]

Congrats to RollsUp! I like how this picture proves the 'textbook knowledge' wrong that you must have a single nicely shaped dominating light source for 'pleasing' eye highlights. Asymmetry and very high contrast actually draw me into this picture and invite imagination where that light may have come from.

Tamia, I also find this to be more than a humble picture. I have been fascinated by maps ever since my childhood. Even in the age of ubiquitous online maps and countless picture galleries, and sometimes working on maps using GIS's myself, I can spend hours exploring and picturing landscapes based on well designed paper maps. And I like to travel north - likely something the book talks about.