Best of 2008: Arts & Entertainment photography

The jagged roof of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum, located at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. The Renzo Piano-designed building opened in February.  (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

The American Ballet Theatre performs Swan Lake at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on March 27. David Hallberg is Prince Siegfried and Michele Wiles dances as Odette, with Vitali Krauchenka as Von Rothbart.  (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times)

Writer-instrumentalist Danger Mouse, left, and singer Cee-Lo Green dress as groom and bride to promote their new album, “The Odd Couple,” in April. “Those images of the marriage and the name ‘Odd Couple’ are symbolic of our commitment to it,” Green said as he posed for portraits at the Chateau Marmont with Danger Mouse. “He’s the bride,” added Danger Mouse. “You kind of could have guessed that, wouldn’t you? Yeah? Good.”  (Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times)

Kanye West at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on Feb. 10. Kanye West offered up a genre-defiant collaboration with the French electronic duo Daft Punk in a live performance at the show. He won four Grammys that night and gave one great speech, managing to shush the get-offstage music to pay tribute to his recently deceased mother.  (Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times)

Holly Hunter’s “Saving Grace” role veered into new territory as that rarely seen character: an explicitly sexual 40-year-old woman. “Grace is a study of human nature first and foremost,” Hunter said in a June interview. “The allure of Grace is her complexity. She can often entice conflicts, and she surrenders to her desires, what she feels could be the most fun, intoxicating, seductive, tantalizing, what could be the most cool. So many people slog through the moments to, say, get to Friday. Grace lives fully.”  (Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times)

Sly Stone, the mercurial singer of the Family Stone, inside the Temple Bar in Santa Monica on April 11. Stone, who rarely does interviews, talked with Times staff writer Geoff Boucher for a reason: He said he wanted to mount a world tour and he was back with some of the original Family Stone members: trumpet player Cynthia Robinson, saxophonist Jerry Martini and Sister Rose Stone. And more than that, he said, he wanted to prove himself to the music industry, get in the studio with many of the stars he’s influenced and hook a young audience.  (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

Actor and director Clint Eastwood in front of a screen that projects a scene from “Dirty Harry,” at the Steven J. Ross Theater on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank on May 7. Warner Bros. released a boxed set of all the “Dirty Harry” movies in 2008, and by the end of the year, Oscar talk was building about Eastwood’s role in “Gran Turino.”  (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Veteran alternative rock band R.E.M., with frontman Michael Stipe, played the Hollywood Bowl in late May. The Times’ Richard Cromelin wrote: “They aren’t architects of sonic grandeur like U2 or Radiohead, or virtuosic instigators of rock catharsis like Springsteen and the E Street Band. But R.E.M. remains in that rarefied company because of an inner fire that insists on a connection with the listener, a shared sense of wonder and outrage at the world. It was there Thursday. All it needed was a little more volume.  (Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times)

Evan Rachel Wood said down for a conversation with Choire Sicha in April. She said of her new film, “Life Before Her Eyes,” “I really like the film a lot. It was a really strange but cool script. And I was curious to see if they could pull it off going back and forth between me and Uma [Thurman]-- if people would get annoyed by it or get confused. But it flows really well. And it’s shot beautifully.”  (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

Dolly Parton, one of the greatest figures in country (or pop) music, is photographed in Los Angeles on Sept. 1. Parton poured herself a cup of ambition and turned her film “9 to 5” into a musical that ran at the Ahmanson Theatre this fall. Parton wrote 20 new songs for the production.  (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times)

Desmond Richardson performs the piece “Loose Change” with Complexions Contemporary Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in April. The Times’ Chris Pasles wrote of the performance: “At the exact center -- the heart -- of the program was Taye Diggs’ “Loose Change,” a solo created last year for Richardson, who danced it with authority, grace and power. Heightened by singer David Ryan Harris’ recurring line, ‘If I had a dime for every time I wanted you,’ the piece came across as a company love letter to Richardson that was deservedly matched by the audience’s response.”  (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is photographed outside director Ridley Scott‘s West Hollywood office on Aug. 14. The pair, along with Scott’s usual leading man, Russell Crowe, costarred in the fall movie “Body of Lies.”  (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)

Blake Bashoff, center, plays Moritz, the role that won a Tony Award for John Gallagher Jr. on Broadway, during the opening performance of “Spring Awakening,” the Tony Award-winning musical, at the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center in Los Angeles.  (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)

Nikki Reed, left, Robert Pattinson and Kellan Lutz, all of whom appear in the movie “Twilight,” the big-screen adaptation of the first installment in the young adult book series by Stephenie Meyer. The film, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, has been a huge success particularly among teenagers.  (Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times)

Supermodel Heidi Klum on the red carpet at the 80th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California February. The best picture was “No Country For Old Men,” directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, who won best director. Javier Bardem won best supporting actor from the film.  (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

Forest Whitaker escorts Marion Cotillard off stage after presenting her with the Oscar for best actress at the 80th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California February. She won for playing singer Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose.” Best actor went to Daniel Day-Lewis for “There Will Be Blood.” Best of 2008 Photography >>> Best of 2008 Main >>>  (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)