All images used here with the permission of the photographers. The links lead to their Flickr photostreams, where you can find more Tomatina shots from all of them, many better than the ones I've chosen! It's hard to do this you know.
If you haven't read any of the previous IotD Tomatina threads, this is a festival in a little town in Spain, where they take all of the overripe tomatoes, truck them into the middle of town, and then they begin the largest food fight in the world.
Lergik finds the crowd waiting for the delivery of the tomatoes.
Paul.McGee captures the first arrival of the tomatoes, fresh off the delivery truck. The crowd first gets hit, and first gets something to throw.
And it's mayhem.
Dave Dove captures what looks like the end of round one: the people have gotten hit, but they aren't covered and they aren't exhausted.
And this might be Dave Dove's round two:
Opalrosa shoots from a balcony, apparently. Here's what the people on the street are getting hit with, and how:
Opelrosa again, stopping time right as this crowd gets hit. I imagine that even a really ripe mater would sting pretty hard if it hit you in the face -- everybody momentarily looks away.
Paul.McGee labels this "A poor position", or how to look like a really obvious target:
Magogar labels this "Mister y Miss Tomatina", but we don't know if there was an actual competition, or if these excellent specimens were right next to each other and earned the title upon mere sight.
Lergik himself, in the usual post-Tomatina glow:
And this is the first time we've seen this: after the fight, locals may help the participants wash off.
Thanks to all the Flickr folks who braved the event to capture it, and allowed us to see the collection as posted here!