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Byline: The Register-Guard

Some photographers never pass up a chance to take a dog picture. This one was our choice as best of the year after a little dog named Jake chased after a hefty Morgan horse named China. Nicole DeVito had stopped to photograph the horse, but was rewarded with an unusual moment.

For years, inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem had a boxing club that they ran in a dim and dingy gym deep inside the prison. Citing budgetary constraints, the prison warden halted the program in 2001. In a final training bout, a fighter weary from three punishing rounds of the "sweet science" hangs his head on the ropes. Paul Carter was there to record it.

On the track that she loved to run on and in front the fans that so loved her, Olympian Annette Peters takes a farewell lap around Hayward Field joined by her 3-year-old daughter, Emma. Peters had just run in the women's 10,000 meter race in the USA Track and Field Championships. One of Eugene's favorite athletes, she had recently announced her plans to retire from the sport.

Matt Anderson 

Illuminated by flashlight, John Templeton Craig's hand-chipped wagon road through the lava beds of eastern Lane County remains a testament to the fortitude of early pioneers. Craig spent years in the 1860s cutting the road with a pick-ax over McKenzie Pass. This time exposure was part of an extended photo essay on Lane County history shot by Brian Davies.

THE LIFESPAN of a photograph shot in the hurly-burly of daily journalism is fleeting - usually not much more than 24 hours. Yet out of the thousands of photos that Register-Guard photographers take each year, a few are worthy of a second look. They stand as documentation of the life of our community, or as insight into the complexities of human existence and, occasionally, as works of artistic expression. On this page, we present a few that are worth that second look. Turn to Page 2B for some more favorites that didn't make it into print when they were first made.

He wrote two of the best-known works of American fiction in the second half of the 20th century. His exploits while tripping across the country in an old school bus became a symbol of the psychedelic '60s. He reinvented himself and became a man of his community. He was Ken Kesey, and his legion of fans mourned his death in November. Our photographer found him in a quiet moment at a concert in 1999.

The combination of thick coastal fog and the alternating colors of the Umpqua Lighthouse added drama to veteran photographer Wayne Eastburn's nighttime photograph. He was on assignment for a story about the tours of the lighthouse near Reedsport.

IN THE NEWSPAPER business, it's a struggle perhaps as old as the daguerreotype. What is more important, the words or the pictures? Our editors struggle with this conundrum just about every day. Most of the time the words win out. Today, however, we'll let the pictures have their say. Here are a few snaps that Register-Guard photographers made during the past year that didn't get into print when they were taken. They're good pictures. We hope you'll give them a moment of your time.

Inspired by the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, artist Bob Devine has been producing a series of oil paintings interpreting the new library - and the community's tumultuous journey to bring it about - through images of wells. Under a city program that directs to art 1 percent of the construction budget for public projects, the library will feature nearly $250,000 in commissioned artworks.

Remember what the month of July was like when you were a kid? Do your memories drift back to camp? This picture may help stir those memories. At Camp Cleawox, our intern photographer snapped a winner when he found Bethany Heidt (left), or "Pebble" as she was known, and camper Alexandria Truex (right) leading a group of campers through a song.

In a perfect evocation of summer in Oregon, Thomas Boyd found these rental canoes waiting for him one morning last August on a glassy lagoon of the Deschutes River near Bend.

In the wake of Sept. 11, people across the nation looked for ways to respond. Some of the children in Chris Pietsch's neighborhood in Creswell volunteered to help the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary put up American flags along the main streets in town. Early in the morning, Daniel McMahn (left) and Sergei Pratter ride with the flags through the deserted streets of the town.

Polished tubas reflect the pagaentry of college football on a sunny September afternoon. At Reser Stadium during halftime festivities, the Oregon State University Beavers played their home opener against UCLA and the band helped set the tone for the occasion.