Best amateur photos of 2008

We've selected the most impresive amateur photos published on The Observers in 2008. Vote for your favourite.

Contributors

CHINA - 06/10/08: Inconceivable indifference?

While a road accident has just killed three motorists and emergency services are still getting to the site, passengers nearby have left their cars and sat down around a little table for a game of cards.

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SOUTH OSSETIA - 28/08/08: A concert with a different view

The day after Russian forces stormed the South Ossetian capital, celebrated Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who grew up in Ossetia, gave a concert to honour the victory. Our Observer there managed to photograph the event with his mobile... A few metres from the concert, Georgian hostages watched the event from the barracks they were being held in.

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ITALY - 22/07/08: Indifferent holidaymakers sunbathe next to dead Roma girls

When two girls of Roma origin drowned at a beach in Naples in July, photos of their dead bodies, lying a few metres from indifferent sunbathers, revived the controversy over Italian attitudes towards the minority gypsy community.

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IRAN - 11/07/08: Photoshop pros in the Revolutionary Guards

The photos of Iranian missiles released on July 9 made headlines around the world. But one of them, picked up by Agence France Presse (AFP), was found to be altered - most likely released by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's official press office, Sepah News.

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BURMA - 12/05/08: Bound and braced for the winds

One of our Burmese observers sent us this image, taken in the Irrawaddy Delta region a few days after the devastating Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burma's low-lying coastal regions on May 3. He explained why the bodies of the three children are bound together at the wrist - apparently to prevent them from being whipped away by the cyclone.

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TIBET - 18/03/08: First pictures of Tibet killings

While the Chinese authorities claimed that only 13 people had been killed in the Tibet riots, Tibetan activists said that at least one hundred people had been killed. These amateur photos, which we were the first to publish, contradicted the official Chinese statement.