The world is swimming in a sea of photographic images--on billboards, in magazines, glutting the Internet...American Photography has been bravely diving into that sea for the last two decades, emerging with the most innovative images of the year. This year's jury--composed of Kathy Ryan, Photo Editor of The New York Times Magazine; Stephen Frailey of the School of Visual Arts Photography Department; David Harris, Design Director of Vanity Fair; Lesley A. Martin, Executive Editor of Aperture; Stephen Mayes of Image Source and World Press Photo; and Greg Pond, Photo Editor for Fortune magazine--has found a treasure trove of images by seasoned professionals and talented emerging photographers. With the near-ubiquity of digital cameras, photographers are testing very new equipment and challenging us with results that are continually pushing this medium further than it has gone before. These photographers may be familiar to the art world, or the pages of fashion magazines, or they may be out on the front line, getting heart-stopping journalistic shots that convey the true cost of conflict. American Photography explores what it means to use photographic images to communicate--how what we are saying and how we are saying it changes by degrees year after year. Among this year's roster are Yael Ben-Zion, Paolo Pellegrin, Martin Parr, Annie Leibovitz, Brigitte Lacombe, Lauren Greenfield, Nan Goldin, Lee Friedlander, Luc Delahaye, Jean Paul Goude, Vincent Laforet, Spencer Platt, Martin Schoeller and Stephanie Sinclair.