The New Year is finally here, and you know what that means: An end to the “best of 2010” blog posts! Lists like these are staples for any publication because they are always popular conversation starters and they are relatively easy to produce when editors are weary over the holidays. In that spirit, we compiled our own list of some amusing and enlightening year-end lists on photography, in case you missed them in the holiday rush.

Ad Age’s 10 Best Magazine Covers of 2010
Not all of these covers are photographic, but we were pleased to see the Cleveland Plain Dealer get a shout out for the year’s most photographically elegant take on the LeBron James defection.

Fashionista’s Best Covers of 2010
Ah fashion photography. There are  puzzling, audacious and startling photos here from Numero, Love, V, Vogue Paris’s 90th anniversary issue, and Craig McDean’s lovely photo of actress Marion Cotillard for Another Woman.

Fashionista’s list of Best Covers  is more fun than its Best Editorials of 2010, which features some surprisingly ho-hum spreads. It does include the de rigeur Terry Richardson dominatrix- with-whip photo, and a couple of photos  in which female models feel up their own crotches, a fashion motif we first noticed in 2010.

Jezebel’s Best of the Year’s Worst Photoshops
Includes some crazy mistakes (Hey, Christina Hendricks: Where’s the rest of you? ). Photographers viewing the bloopers here might never leave their retouchers’ side. However, Jezebel gets overwrought about things like smoothing wrinkles in a sweater.

Women’s Wear Daily’s Best Selling Celebrity Covers
This is a list about quantity, not quality. WWD tallied the newsstand sales reports and found that Lady Gaga is a sure fire hit. Taylor Swift often disappointed.  Rihanna’s cover sold well, and she was half naked.

Vince Aletti’s Top Ten New York Photography Shows in 2010
This discerning list compile by the New Yorker reviewer highlights one of Moma’s most intriguing reflections on photography, the Zwelethu Mthethwa show, civil rights photos and more.

The Big Picture’s Best Animal Photos of 2010
Animal photos always drive web traffic, and for good reason. Big Picture’s list includes a surfing alpaca, a skateboarding bulldog and a monkey doing a handstand on a goat’s head.

Who doesn’t love a picture of a monkey doing a handstand on a goat’s head?

Related stories:
PDN’s 2010 Photo Gear of the Year

Top Photo Blog Posts of the Year

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 12:30 pm ET by Holly Hughes and is filed under Fun, Magazines, Newspapers, Photos In The News.