By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences, December 25, 2020
 PHOTOGRAPH BY AL BELLO, GETTY IMAGES To winnow down 1.7 million photographs to 71, I relied on the hours and weeks of time that our photo editors have dedicated to this work. For each story, our photo editors research ideas; clear logistical hurdles; creatively solve the most challenging production problems; nurture and coach and cajole photographers; and finally narrow the selection to the images that you see here. My colleague (and deputy director of photography) Kathy Moran doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges that photographers faced this year. The photos, she says, convey the key emotions we all went though. “We do feel that isolation,” Kathy says, “and we do feel that hope and we feel empowered. That’s what photography gives us. It connects us in a very different way.” (Here's a video that shows how our special Year in Pictures package was produced.) In the image above, Mary Grace Sileo and her daughter, Michelle Grant, came up with a way to hug each other for the first time in two months. They hung a clothesline and pinned a drop cloth to it in Sileo’s yard in Wantagh, New York. Then they embraced through the plastic. “In spite of everything that we’ve been facing, we still look for ways to connect,” Kathy says.
 PHOTOGRAPH BY MAX AGUILERA-HELLWEG, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC |
PHOTOGRAPH BY STUART PALLEY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Record breaking: Massive wildfires scorched millions of acres in the American West and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate. Stuart Palley, a qualified wildland firefighter who has photographed more than 100 fires throughout California, covered the wildfires for National Geographic. While he’s watched fire seasons get continuously worse over the years, he notes that he’s never seen one quite like this. “It’s a fire siege,” he says. |
PHOTOGRAPH BY CELESTE SLOMAN
It’s been a century: Nat Geo marked the 100th anniversary of U.S. women’s suffrage by reflecting on how modern activists are promoting civic engagement—amid what would prove to be a contentious presidential election year. Photographer Celeste Sloman made this portrait of Winter BreAnne, a California youth activist working to convince young people that voting matters. “If we aren’t voicing our opinion that way, when we have the ability and not everybody is afforded that right, we are relinquishing a lot of political power,” Winter tells us. An estimated 52 to 55 percent of eligible adults under 30 cast ballots in November, significantly up from a 42-44 percentage in 2016. |
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLIE HAMILTON JAMES, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
| On the upside: “So much of the work that was done in the last year was in many ways looking for the COVID silver lining,” Kathy Moran says. With Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park closed to tourists, wildlife photographer Charlie Hamilton James discovered that one of the silver linings of the pandemic was having the Serengeti all to himself—aside from the occasional stampede of wildebeests racing across a dusty hillside. |
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVIDE BERTUCCIO, MAGNUM PHOTOS
| After the lockdown: When a spring lockdown was lifted in Italy, postponed rituals could take place. Photographer Davide Bertuccio captured one of the country’s first post-lockdown weddings as Marta Colzani and Alessio Cavallaro donned masks inside the Church of San Vito in the town of Barzanò, near Milan. The Vatican issued a decree in March allowing bishops to use their discretion when planning religious services. |
PHOTOGRAPH BY @GABRIELEGALIMBERTIPHOTO
| Under the stars: Green sunflowers at night? Gabriele Galimberti was working a project a few months ago that allowed him to experiment with night photography—and realize a childhood dream. “I spent evenings taking pictures under the stars of Italy’s Val di Chiana, the place where I was born and raised,” Gabriele tells us. “As a kid, I was into science fiction stories, movies, and cartoons set in space.” During his recent starlight experiments, “I used colored flashes, drones equipped with lights, long exposures, recoloring these panoramas as I did as a child in my imagination.” If you look closely, you can see the Big Dipper in the sky to the left. Like this image? So have more than 540,000 people on our Instagram page. |
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANAND VARMA
| If at first ... Photographer Anand Varma felt like a failure. Fascinated with animal life as a kid in suburban Atlanta, he had assisted other Nat Geo photographers for years, but flopped in the first few days of an assignment showing fire ants linking together to save themselves when their colony is flooded. Anand’s photos were no better than amateurs, but an editor told him to try again—and a lab tech suggested a technique to improve his work. Voila! On his third day of what was supposed to be a two-day assignment, he caught a scene that accelerated his career, he told our podcast, Overheard. In a fascinating conversation, he describes years of kneeling through dank caves and exploring the world of zombie parasites and pulsing jellyfish. (Above, an ant controlled by a mind-bending parasite.) |
PHOTOGRAPH BY WILSON BENTLEY
No two snowflakes ... From snowy Jerico, Vermont, Wilson A. Bentley spent much of his career photographing snowflakes. Frustrated with attempting to draw snowflakes, he attached a camera to his microscope and, starting in 1885, became a pioneer in photomicrography. Our senior photo archivist, Sara Manco, says that his images, snowflakes placed on lush black velvet, not only are beautiful but demonstrate that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. National Geographic featured these images in 1904 and 1923. His photos, Sara tells us, “are some of my favorite for getting into the holiday spirit.” |
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. Kimberly Pecoraro and Gretchen Ortega helped produce this, and Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading, and have a good weekend!
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(Sources: National Geographic)
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