What surprises you about this? Cookies are snarfed all the time if you leave them out on a paper towel. Anyway, the paper towel doesn make a good backdrop here. And I am afraid I personally don't think this is the essense of what was asked for in surprise. I am curious though how you did this within the rules! You got pretty good shadow detail here.
What a cute idea! Turn your head for a second and WHAM, part of one is missing or in my house, the whole pile would be gone, LOL!
I like this idea but the cookies would have looked better on a plate instead of the paper towel or even a plain napkin, no distracting patterns. The light is also a bit harsh, though well distributed on both sides, I'm betting a split screen shot, my Olympus can do that also, it's a fun feature to use sometimes. A 6
A few questions to explain the low vote i'm giving: did you think about what to use for the background, and did you think about removing the crumbs? Did you think about using the on-board flash or using a desk-light or something less harsh? did you think about making the intial composition simpler, so that the difference might be more immediately obvious?
The biggest surprise about this photo will be in finding out how you did this in a DPC legal way since it has been validated. Cute concept but adding a glass of milk could have taken it one step further.
cookie monster? The light is too bright, and I wish there was better focus. I'd be upset if my cookies got eaten (not by me...) but I'd like to see the look on the persons face.