This year's competition had 5,520 entries for the judges to review. "The competition was run extremely well," juror Robert Krivicich said. "The fact that we could review over 11,000 images in two days still astounds me."

"Much of the editorial work felt the most substantive, meaningful and powerful," juror Jerry Takigawa said.

"The range of conceptual ideas and out-of-the-box thinking was a relief to see," said juror Leslie dela Vega. "You'd be surprised how much mediocrity I see on a daily basis."

Several judges commented on the quality of the video-based entries—31 projects—the strongest since we introduced the category several years ago. "I really liked the still-image, motor-drive technique included in several of the video entries," Krivicich said. "It created a Muybridge-like video rendering that I thought was energetic and spontaneous."

The biggest disappointment for juror Mimi Haddon was poor editing by photographers on their series submissions. "Many of us were cringing when we were in love with one or more images in a series, but couldn't vote it in because of one bad image." She said. "It's a great lesson for me as a photographer to ask for help editing my own work."