I submitted a photo to National Geographic Your Shot and it was picked for the Daily Dozen this week.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/daily-dozen
I have to thank AgingEyes for the advice he gave me on how to create a black and white shot. Basically I created 2 hue and saturation layers on top of the original. One layer was used to desaturate the photo. The other, with the blend set to color, was used to adjust the tonal range. I took it a bit of a step farther and didn't desaturate completely, leaving a hint of color in one layer. It might not be a true black and white but I think it's an intereresting effect and the hint of color makes the image pop.
This is the same shot cropped differently but with the color removed, contrast and brightness tweaked, all on one layer.
Click through for a larger image
And here's a high res version of the first shot:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2537/...b4b02ffd49.jpg