Having seen the photographs our press have chosen as their ‘Best Photographs of the Year’, it may be interesting to compare what the media mavens in Old Blighty and those across the (big) pond over in America consider to be their Photos of the Year, courtesy of The Guardian and TIME respectively.

We’ll cover The Guardian’s selection in this post, specially the dramatic and dynamic images, and review those of TIME in today’s post on our sister site. 

Unlike TIME’s 366-photograph smorgasbord, The Guardian provides a far smaller selection of what are for the most part photojournalistic and editorial images, a few of them with considerable impact.  Like the very first one showing half the island of Manhattan plunged in darkness.  Compare with another aerial shot of another city – Aleppo – that was plunged in darkness but for very different reasons: shelling and bombs.

The newspaper seems to have asked the photographers behind the chosen images to write a few lines describing the ‘whats’ and ‘wheres’ of their images, plus what they mean to them.  Though these textual vignettes are sometimes self-glorifying or try to put over a less-than-first-rate photograph, at other times they shed light on a cryptic or amusing image – like this one of, shall we say, ‘Bathing Beauties Chinese Style’?  The photo and the mini-story complement one another very well.

The vignette, though so well-written, is superfluous for this brilliant shot evoking pure joy; indeed, a sense of euphoria, at an Obama election rally.  Likewise for another Obama photograph: a lovely photograph of a heartfelt embrace between man and wife.  This would be, and is, a wonderful photograph regardless of who the subjects are.

The very next image, possibly the most carefree and dynamic one in the gallery, is one for which the photo and the description play off one another.  (Indeed, a very similar photograph of Palestinian Parkour was featured in one of our posts.)

Not to be missed is another photograph from the Islamic World.  Would you believe a brilliant blue burqa and an array of laserlight speckles dotting the frame makes for an exceptionally pretty photograph?  Compare with a photograph with another kind of ‘speckles’ – real sparks from real flames.  That’s what this horseman is riding through in a very dramatic image of a religious festival in a remote Spanish village.

If these dynamic and dramatic images are not to your taste, you’ll find more sober ones if you browse through the gallery.  So go ahead, with our Best Wishes for 2013 to all our readers.