This photo is nice because it relays a sense of peace and a sense of adventure. It indulges tranquility, and inspires creativity in everyday things using a fresh idea to relax and enjoy simplicity in a unique way. I like the idea of pretending like I'm sleeping next to the ocean, and I think the photographer executed this well.

Sometimes a picture grabs your attention. Often the picture is just a detail from a bigger story, and it's not particularly important. The high contrast and repeating shapes of this picture got my attention. I wanted to know more once I saw the caption. The next three photblog pictures are from Kosovo. It's a story that many of us have sadly forgotten.

This is a good scene setter that provides a lot of information. The body language and emotional intensity of the characters pull me into the story. It makes me want to know more.

Detail pictures like this pack an emotional punch. It's difficult to imagine having to pick through trash to feed your family.

I wonder how much money was spent on manufacturing and distributing these necklaces in the region. Could that money and effort have been better spent?

The light creates nice depth in this image. That, along with the vibrant red box and fish scale confetti, makes this real-life shot appear more like a polished studio shot.

The texture in this image is great. Also, I wondered what it was initially. At first glance, I thought it was an aerial image of land with an incredible number of rivers and streams flowing through it.

This picture just screams serenity to me. I love the amazingly clear reflection on the body of water of this image. It makes me want to go there right now.

This whole story is WAY too "X-Files" for my taste. Where are Mulder and Scully when you really need them?

Tennis pictures seem to fall into three categories. I see a lot of tight, court-level stuff that is often very publishable in our sports section. I also see too many trophy holding pictures. The stuff I often find most interesting are abstract images that are really a study of light, shadow, line and form.

Shooting images through objects -- a bullet-riddled window, a rain-drop covered windshield, a hole in the fence -- work sometimes, and at other times are gimmicky. I like the way this image, shot through ice works. Does it depict the ice castles well, as a strict news image? Maybe not, but it becomes an interesting piece of abstract art to look at.

The strong contrast in bright sun and dark shadows creates a jigsaw-puzzle effect in this photograph that appeals to me. Yet, the picture communicates its point well too, showing a man checking out the hot air balloons playing music over his head.

This photograph is a reminder of what some photographers go through in order to inform.

This image almost made it into the latest edition of The Week in Pictures (www.msnbc.com/TWIP). When editing for that slide show, if we have several images along a similar topic -- this week, there were many winter weather and holiday images -- we feel pressure to select only one or two per topic. In other cases, we narrow the edit if two images share a similar compositional or technical component. In this case, it was partly the similarity in the use of light between this image and photograph 17 in TWIP, that caused this image from Bulgaria to get cut.

Following the all-day media coverage of the 110th U.S. Congress convening on Jan. 4, I appreciate seeing how another country's assembly looks. In one picture, you see significant differences, but some similarities too, in the workings of the two countries' governments.

This is one of they very few photos out of Iraq that allow me to hold onto a little bit of hope. I am not naive about the situation, day in and day out I see horriffic images coming from Iraq and it starts to wear you down after a while. But not this photo, this photo allows for a little bit of peace in a chaotic world. One of the things that I truly love about this image is that the soldier has removed his glove to shake the little boy's hand, I think that action alone really speaks to the power of this image.

I just love this photo, babies with headphones on just makes me smile. I tried to find something online about this phenomena but couldn't find anything. Does it really help the little ones' well-being? I know I feel better when I am listening to music.

Good use of juxtaposition to make this an interesting picture.

I debated posting this image for several weeks. Sometimes images stay with me far beyond the moment they appear during the daily edit. Car bombs or disasters, so many images we view show sadness and devastation, but the way the photographer framed the victim's legs among the upturned earth and mess of roots and debris helped to give me a peaceful feeling following the initial shock at this tragedy. It becomes surreal, as if we're looking at the circle of life, and maybe in death we return from where we came? I hate to think of one persons tragic fate so metaphorically, but some days thats maybe how I cope with bearing witness to so many highs and lows of humanity.

Underexposure and flat light will keep this absurd picture out of the Week in Sports slideshow, but it's still worth seeing. This is a hard picture to shoot (timing is critical), so it seems an unlikely gamble for a photographer when editors usually prefer straightforward pictures. It's also an unlikely accident, though, since Pfaffenbach's other ski jumping images show careful framing. In any case, I'm thankful for shooters who offer new perspectives.

This is the best snowball fight picture I've ever seen. The moment is perfect and I feel as though I'm standing right there. Anybody who's ever had a snowball thrown at their head knows this evasive move that the kid on the left is doing. And they also know that about a second later, he fired his snowball right back. This picture has a movie quality to it...I can see what happened before, during, and after that shutter went off.

I see this morning that a number weve been waiting for and dreading is suddenly upon us, and it has nothing to do with 2007. Its a bigger number: 3,000. What is it about big, round numbers that reach out and grab our attention? My heart goes out to all the parents, spouses, siblings and children who have lost loved ones in Iraq.