OK, hands up everyone who thought they knew the winner as soon as it was posted? Right, I thought so, too. We were all wrong because you never know the winners until all the images have been posted. So this week:
First goes to
ImageArt for "How to keep dry on a wet day," a great capture of a fleeting moment, with the oddity of the solemn-faced young man and his inside-out umbrella, and the strong diagonal of the passer-by looking back over his shoulder. And though there are the potential distractions of signs and walls and trees and even someone standing directly behind umbrella guy (which I didn't notice until I'd looked at the image several times), nothing gets in the way of the eye-catching central arrangement.
Second goes to
JillyG for her striking Trigraphy portrait of Natalie. This cubist sort of fracturing is not an effect I usually like, but here it works wonderfully well, though I can't say exactly why. Maybe it's the simplicity of the original portrait and the beauty of its subject combined with the fragmenting that makes me look more closely at the details. Or maybe it's just really good.
Third goes to
sinnerjohn for his "behind the scenes" look at Dubrovnik. You should all make sure you look at this image full size, on the biggest screen you can find, because there are so many things to see: the contrast of the rubble in the foreground with the beautiful city spread out around, the glimpse of the river and boats between buildings, the two stairways leading to emptiness in the ruins, the signs of life reclaiming the blasted space with the washing and potted plants and umbrella on the left and the stacks of beehives (I think) on the right, and finally the grafitti in the lower right reading "tu prije 617 dana," which Google translates from the Croatian as "there 617 days ago." That's a lot to get in one image.
And a Special Mention goes to
rizole for patience, fortitude, and general foolhardiness in attempting to outwait a cat:
. Ann's image was one of those that we all hope to get - to be in the right place at the right time with the sun and moon in conjunction with Uranus (remember to put the emphasis in the right place for this planet, or it sound like something anatomical 
). I am off to take Ann's wonderful image to the Gallery to hang it amongst the great and the good of B&W winners.
Congrats Jilly & John - and thanks, all, for another week of beautiful B&W!
