It’s a new year, so we got a new website design! How do you like our new digs?? Poke around and tell us what you love, or what could still be tweaked, or if anything is still buggy in the comments or by email.

Photographers, this is the LAST WEEKEND to submit your D.C.-area images to the 9th annual Exposed DC photography contest! About 40 images that tell the story of the DMV we know and love will go on display at the Capital Fringe headquarters next March in our blow-out exhibition. The deadline for entries is next Wednesday, January 7 at midnight. We’ll announce the winners the following Tuesday, January 13, and have a celebration for everyone at our monthly happy hour at Meridian Pint that evening. Alright, let’s get to the links.

• Look at these crazy, crazy trees. Almost as crazy as the platinum/palladium process Beth Moon uses to photograph them.
• White House photographer Pete Souza talks about the stories behind the shots.
• The Capital Weather Gang collected D.C.’s best weather shots from 2014 — (we count six former Exposed winners!).
• Meanwhile, the Washington Post‘s In Sight photo blog features a selection of snowy winter scenes from Washington’s past.
• Politico does what it does best, and collected the 10 Best Washington Photos from 2014.
• Last week we had the top 10 photos from the Department of Interior’s incredible Instagram account; Huffington Post did a step better and dug up its top 10 animal photos.
• How do all these Best Of lists get made? The New York Times‘ Lens blog writes about how they choose 100 photos for their 2014 Year in Pictures.
• The annual Sony World Photography competition is still accepting entries, but see what you’re up against with these 15 contenders.
• Photographer Jill Waterman has been documenting New Year’s Eve celebrations in a different city every year since 1983, bouncing from Bethlehem to Prague, Shanghai to Montreal, Miami to San Francisco.
• Photojournalist Lucas Jackson, embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan, shares intimate and up-close photographs documenting the daily life, training, and camaraderie of troops counting down their final days in the region.
• David Kasnic documents the people and practices that make up the controversial, annual Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup in Texas.
• Maxine Helfman’s “Historical Correction” photo series places black subjects in historical Flemish-style portraits.
• The Washington Post has a slideshow of tigers held in captivity in the Heilongjiang Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, in China’s Heilongjiang province. Chinese demand for tiger rugs and wine made from tiger bones is putting the wild cats in peril.