ENR’s annual construction photography contest is a crowd-pleaser, judging from the volume of entries and the traffic on ENR.com. Thousands of Web visitors have viewed our digital magazine and slide shows displaying the judges’ top photo choices. Online galleries still show all the entries, and visitors can still vote for their favorites. For print enthusiasts, this issue pairs the ENR editors’ Top Newsmakers with the same editors’ photo selections trimming the 50 chosen by our expert panel to the final 14 that appear here.

Related Links: ENR's 2007 Year in Construction Photography Contest: The Winning Photographers Slideshow Images of the Year in Construction Editors’ Choice

The images on the cover, the table of contents, the editorial page and these six pages represent the top vote-getters in a poll of the editors. There was great consistency in the voting, with images drawing lots of praise from the editors, the invited panel of judges and the readers. This suggests principles at work in what was otherwise a subjective process of elimination to cull 1,000 entries into a gallery of the best of the best of 2007’s construction photography.

All entries follow a trend over several years of an ever-higher percentage of technically excellent submissions. The improvements, dropping cost and more frequent use of digital cameras are contributing factors. Perhaps a more significant factor is a growing appreciation for how easily digital photographs can be used to improve the construction industry. Jobsite photos can be powerful tools for driving safety and process improvement. They capture a wealth of time-stamped information about what is going on at critical moments on site.

The editors hope you will enjoy these images, and the wealth of additional ones you will find at ENR.com.