Each week the moderators and staff of NatureScapes.Net select one photo that particularly stands out in each of the image critique galleries.

This photo becomes that gallery’s Image of the Week, and at year end, one image is selected from these to be the gallery’s "Image of the Year."

With so many wonderful images we have also included two images as "Honorable Mention" in each gallery.

Happy Birthday NSN!

This month marks the 5-year anniversary of NatureScapes.Net (NSN). And what a five years it has been! We started with a few friends pooling their energies, talents and expertise. We worked nearly nonstop, round-the-clock. We wanted to create a thriving community -- a place where like-minded nature photographers could hang out, learn the ropes, make some connections, and most importantly, show their work.

It is with great pleasure and pride that I announce NSN's newly designed, and greatly enhanced, website.

In order for a website to be successful, particularly a community based website, it must be an ever-evolving process. We have worked hard over the past few months to bring our members and readers a new “foundation” from which we can continue to support our growing community of nature photographers. Now that the foundation is completed, the “building” process will continue on . . .

With this, our Images of the Year issue, we announce the winners for the 2007 Images of the Year and congratulate all participants from NatureScapes 2007 who posted 26,455 images, wrote 337,913 comments and thoughtful critiques and grew their craft and art so well.

Robert Henri (1865 – 1929), the great art educator and critic, is quoted in The Art Spirit:

"Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person . . . [that person] becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature.