Maybe the greatest thing about judging the PDN's 30 each year is that initial moment you walk into a room filled with hundreds of portfolios. Ambling into that crowded heap of neatly bound frozen moments, you realize that the place is overflowing with much more than those padded, zipped, black bags and the aroma of clear, plastic pages. Within those walls, the space is saturated with some of the best aspects of life--hope, potential, love, enthusiasm, effort and creativity.

For emerging photographers, the pure affection for the singular act of creating an image is still so vibrant that it can infect even the most jaded among us. Before the debilitating crush of the business side of the industry takes its demoralizing toll, their images translate an unpolluted excitement for the field of photography. This year, that adoration can be viewed throughout the pages dedicated to our new selections. Included in that collection are the lovely and melancholy images of Eri Morita and her documentation of her family in Tokyo, Matt Stuart's astonishing images from the shifting, surprising streets of London, Farah Nosh's courageous photographs taken from within her war-torn homeland of Iraq, and Andrew Zuckerman's time-stopping, Harold Edgerton-esque images of flying doves and exploding water balloons.

More than anything, though, you can sense the excitement for this profession in the words of our new "30." It shines through in their testimonies explaining the projects and careers they are striving to perfect, and constant in their animated voices. When you speak to these photographers, the words and anecdotes describing their occupation leap from their vocal chords and into your lap in inspirational gushes and bursts.

"There's nothing quite like photography," says East Lansing's Dave Anderson, one of this year's featured image-makers. "For me it both captures truth and suggests mystery and those are the elements that make life itself so wonderful. Photography is like an endless romance with the world and what could possibly be better than that? By taking or looking at pictures I feel like I'm in a museum of beauty and magic that just goes on and on. I love it for all that it allows me to explore, communicate and experience."

- Anthony LaSala
Section Editor



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