(Photo by Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

Young actors at the Lyric Stage in Boston.

We've had a few contests recently where we photographed inanimate objects, so let's return to the realm of the living with this month's theme: Group Portraits. It's the time of year when we gather with family and friends, and if you're known as the photographer of the bunch, your ability to assemble people into a coherent whole for a photo that everyone will want to keep forever will be tested.

FIRST PLACE - $100

Judge Charlie Mansbach said: "The single word and three punctuation marks seem to animate this photo, explain the look on the face, the body language, an attitude, and all the wonders of emerging girlhood. With no title, or with a title giving only her name, I would spend much less time looking and would appreciate the photo far less."

SECOND PLACE - $50

Judge Charlie Mansbach said, "The clever double use of the term makes the viewer look carefully at the photo. And the title comes across as affectionate, a celebration of the lad and all that sustains him."

THIRD PLACE - $25

Judge Charles Mansbach said, "I know: Paul Revere probably never said, 'The British are coming.' But this title still has fun with our historical lore and with our Boston landmarks. If the viewer doesn't recognize the snow-covered statue in the photo, the title furnishes a gentle nudge."

Here is the gallery of all Top 10 winners.

Congratulations!

Judge Charlie Mansbach enjoyed himself reviewing your entries and narrowing them to a Final 50. His thoughts:

Our December contest, "Great Photo Titles", emphasized wordcraft above all else: Creating a title that captured the essence of a photograph while also enticing viewers to examine it more closely, to pause and ponder, to think, or to smile.

So for a judge, I sought out a venerable wordsmith here at the Globe: Charles Mansbach, the Globe's Page One editor for 21 of the 33 years he has spent at the paper.

In all this time he has been immersed in the craft of headline writing, which requires conveying in a few words the essence of a story no matter how long and complicated. And, of course, a subset of the craft is producing words that capture the essence of a photograph.

In addition to attending to stories and page layout and late-breaking news, he has the final say on the Globe's front-page headlines, a responsibility that involves rewriting many offerings, writing many on his own, and, as Charlie said, knowing well enough to leave plenty of others alone.

I am grateful to have Charlie as our judge for December. I'll give everybody until Wednesday evening, Jan. 5, to make sure your photo is in the gallery, and then I'll ask Charlie to start judging.

December "Great Photo Titles" contest gallery

Colorful, creative, hilarious, and yes, even downright scary -- that's a fair summary of the photos submitted so far in the December "Toys" contest.

Here's a good theme for the season of giving ... toys. You can go in many different directions here: Studio shots of interesting or antique pieces, environmental shots with interesting angles, toys as props in funny scenarios (remember the traveling gnome in the film Amelie?), or images that incorporate a child's joy. Just make sure that the toy is the main focus of your shot. Use a macro lens for added drama.

A classic winter scene -- outdoor skaters on a frozen pond (or, in this case, a frozen bog) captured the top prize in December's 'Tis the Season themed contest. Our judge, professional photographer Melissa Robotti, was fulsome in her praise for this shot:

Had some coffee and vanilla tea with photo judge Melissa Robotti last night as she chose the Top 10 finalists in the December 'Tis the Season contest, and reviewed your votes as she made her choices. I'm in the process of putting that entry together now and will post it as soon as I'm done.

It was interesting to hear her thought process as she made her choices. She clearly was looking for good composition as well as creativity. It was important to her that a photo reflected a lot of thought on the part of the photographer and was more than just a snapshot. You'll hear more from her when I post the winning photos.

Meanwhile...

Honestly, I don't want to stress out all of you! There's just one photo not showing up in the Voting Machine because that photog has his Flickr setting set to not allow the Flickr API to grab his photo. I've sent him an email via his Flickr account; hopefully he'll get it and respond soon. So hold tight ...

This month's judge, Melissa Robotti, finished reviewing the 82 contest entries and narrowed the choices to the Top 25. We'll load them into the Voting Machine and open voting later today. Meanwhile, here are Melissa's thoughts on the photos she judged:

The initial judging for the December "'Tis the Season" contest will be done this afternoon. The judge is Melissa Robotti, a former Boston.com producer who now is a professional photographer. She specializes in boudoir photography; that's where women pay her to take sexy photos of them that they give to their boyfriends, fiances, husbands. So before you look at her website, make sure there are no young'uns around.

The other major part of Melissa's business is wedding photography. She also takes portraits, landscapes, etc. -- a wide variety of photos. She's successful enough at the wedding and boudoir business that she's about to pursue it full-time.

By the way, I added three more photos to the December gallery that were uploaded to Flickr before Dec. 31, but weren't found by Flickr's search until this past week. They will be part of Melissa's review.

Once Melissa cuts the entries down (she'll trim to 25 since we have just 82 entries), I'll track down Jared Novack to write the Voting Machine code for me and I'll post it as soon as I can.

Good stuff, people ... all the eligible photos are here, so look them over in preparation for voting next week. Use the "Full-screen" link to get the best effect.

Meanwhile, don't forget to enter the January contest, and to vote for a February theme. Questions? Email raw@boston.com.

OK, RAW Dawgs, I just got in from clearing my driveway with my little girlie snowblower, and I'm ready to start building the gallery of the December contest entries. The deadline is midnight tonight, but we won't start judging until Jan. 5 or 6 to give Flickr time to find new accounts. It's frustrating how long it's taking Flickr to find new accounts -- at least two weeks! Thankfully, we're getting our own photo upload tool sometime in the first quarter of next year, so perhaps we won't have to rely on Flickr's API for our contests any more. Stay tuned ... and stay warm.