Oh Deer: Light reflected off glass provides a surreal visage of a buck roaming a Pacific Grove street.

Oh Deer: Light reflected off glass provides a surreal visage of a buck roaming a Pacific Grove street. Monique Rutland

Smartphone Photos of the Year

Images Are Everything

Taken with cell phone cameras and shot on the fly, reader-submitted photos show the depth and breadth of life in Monterey County.


Ed Bassett, the late, great dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, famously raised the ire of professional photographers everywhere when he commented in an article that cameras had evolved so rapidly that any “little old lady in tennis shoes” could take a decent photo.


That was more than two decades ago; there was no way Bassett could have seen smart phones coming. And while there’s a vast world of difference between what, say, Weekly photographer Nic Coury can do with his professional equipment and what the average person can do with an iPhone or Android camera, technology has to some extent democratized picture taking. Everyone really can do it; not everyone can do it well. 


The Weekly called for submissions to its inaugural smart phone challenge. Send us your shot on the theme (open to wide interpretation), “Monterey County insights, captured.” We’re already planning for the next one, and we hope you are too. Following are some of the most unique images you, readers, captured with a bit of technology you can carry in your pocket.

photo

Jayne Mohammadi

Halloween Bromance: Local democratic party activist Daniel McCormick (left) and Bryan Flores, an assistant in Monterey County Supervisor Dave potter's office, as the characters played by Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper in *The Hangover*.

photo

Tina Fredrickson

Ankle Deep: Kids play in the gentle, shallow surf at sunset on Del Monte Beach.

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Xana Hermasillo

Grass With a View: Spectators watch the MotoGP from a hill above turn 4 at the Mazda Raceway-Laguna Seca.

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Presley Martin

SandScript: Hearts and hands form the basis of a temporary artwork in the sand at Seaside Beach.

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Italian Scorpio

So Fine Porcine: Piglets born in 2012 get dirty in a lovely, muddy enclosure in Prunedale.

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Chelsea Hoover

Stowaway: A young (and probably uninvited) sea lion lazes on the end of a row boat parked in the harbor.

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Monique Rutland

Beach Boys: Two boys stand in silhouette as the sun races toward the horizon on Carmel Beach.

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Chelsea Hoover

Atmospheric River: The winter sky peeks through denuded tree branches that hover over a slowly rippling river.

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Monique Rutland

Final Rays: The sun dips behind a sign announcing CSU-Monterey Bay, signaling the end of another day.

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MCR

Shroomin: A colorful, speckled mushroom grows surrounded by pine needles in the High Meadow in Carmel.

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Bryan Flores

Bird Man: An unidentified man wearing a thick leather falconry glove holds a bird of prey on a tether.

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