photo essays 2020

The Year of Endurance

Hope and uncertainty amid a pandemic that wouldn’t end.

In 2021, the pandemic forced us all to think hard about who we do and don’t trust

Introduction by david rowell.

As a nation, we are supposed to be built around trust. Look at the back of the bills in your wallet. “In God We Trust.”

Trust the system.

Trust yourself.

Trust but verify.

Trust your instincts.

Love may be the emotion we like to think ultimately propels us, but it’s trust that informs how we go about our daily lives. And yet. Our level of trust, our very foundation, has been crumbling for a long time now. Scandals, abuse and corruption in the major pillars of our society — religious institutions, education, business, military, government, health care, law enforcement, even the sports world — have made us a wary people.

When the pandemic came, first as murmurs that were easy to tune out, then as an unbounded crisis we couldn’t tune into enough, our relationship to trust was newly infected with something we didn’t fully understand. And before long, who and what we trusted — or didn’t — in the form of elected leaders, scientists and doctors became one more cause of death here and all over the world. In this way, distrust was a kind of pandemic itself: widely contagious and passed by the mouth.

As the first American casualties of covid-19 were announced, President Trump kept insisting it would disappear “with the heat” or “at the end of the month” or “without a vaccine.” Like a disgraced, fringe science teacher, he entertained this idea at one coronavirus news conference: “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” With leadership like this, the country was receiving an injection — of chaos.

The pandemic ripped through the rest of 2020, and America was not only more splintered than ever, but also a dangerous place to be. Some politicians declared to the public, “I trust the science,” as if that were an unprecedented and heroic stance.

As we navigated our way into 2021, questions about what to believe led — painfully and predictably — to doubts about the most reliable way we had to stay safe: wearing masks. With the return to schools looming, the debate about masks and children — masks as protectors, or masks as educational folly — played out like a plague of rants. No one seemed to trust others to do the right thing anymore, whatever that was. By summer’s end, trust felt like the latest variant to avoid.

Trust takes lots of forms, but can we actually see it in a photograph the way we can identify a cloud or a wave, or an overt moment of joy or sadness? The photo essays that follow capture a full tableau of human responses in year two of the pandemic — trepidation, but also a sense of renewal; celebration, but caution as well. And despite rancor and confusion still being in as steady supply as the vaccine itself, the permutations of trust have their own presence here, too, if we’re open enough to seeing them.

When Jay Wescott went on tour with rock band Candlebox, he was documenting one of the many performing acts that returned to the road this summer, after the long hiatus. On tour there’s a lot variables you can control, and just as many, if not more, that you can’t — and in the time of covid, control and trust form their own essential but perilous interplay. The picture of the band’s drummer, Robin Diaz, who is vaccinated but unmasked, setting up his kit in such proximity to road manager Carlos Novais, vaccinated and masked, not only captures that still-odd dynamic that goes into making any live performance happen right now; it is also a welcome contrast to all the images of masked and unmasked protesters screaming at each other about what and whom to trust. On tour with Candlebox, Westcott observed how trust is carrying the band forward, creating harmonies on and off the stage.

Much farther away, in Michael Robinson Chavez’s pictures from Sicily, we bear witness to religious celebrations as part of saint’s days, which were canceled last year because of the pandemic. The celebrations resumed, though stripped down, this September, with vaccines readily available, but then, as Chavez notes, the people of Sicily were vaccinated at lower numbers than those in other regions of the country. In one image, we see a tuba player, his mask down below his chin as he blows his notes out into the world. Behind him are masked adults and maskless children. And, perhaps all through the festival, a trust in God to watch over them.

Lucía Vázquez trained her lens on the eager crowds of young women who descended upon Miami, a city known for its own style of carnival-type celebrations, though decidedly less holy ones. These women have left masks out of their outfits and are trusting something not quite scientific and not quite political, but more personal: their guts. Such a calculation comes down to a conviction that either you won’t get the coronavirus, or, if you do, you’ll survive. It means placing a lot of trust in yourself.

As a visual meditation, the pictures in this issue offer a portrait of a historical moment in which trust and distrust have defined us. Ultimately, the photographs that follow, reflecting various realities of the pandemic, are tinted with hope that we can reclaim our lives. Not exactly as they were in the past, but in a way that still resembles how we had once imagined them for the future. These images remind us that even in our fractured, confused and suffering world, it remains possible that where we can find trust again, we can be healed.

Ready to Rock

Unmasked fans and mayflies: on tour with the band candlebox, text and photographs by jay westcott.

I n February 2020, after a dear friend passed away (not from covid), all I could think about was getting on the road with a band so I could lose myself in the work and create something that would bring joy to people. The world had other plans, though.

Sixteen months later, I headed out on tour with Candlebox. Almost 30 years has passed since the Seattle hard-rock group released its debut album and saw it sell more than 4 million copies. Frontman Kevin Martin and his current lineup invited me along to document the first part of their tour. I packed up my gear, drove west, and met the band at Soundcheck, a rehearsal and gear storage facility in Nashville, as they prepared for the tour.

Whenever people learn that I photograph musicians, inevitably they ask me what it’s like on a tour bus. I tell people it’s like camping with your co-workers from the office where you all sleep in the same tent. For weeks on end. That sours their midlife fantasies about digging out that guitar from the garage and hitting the road to become a rock star.

The people who do tour and play music, build the sets, mix the sound, sell the merch and lug the gear night after night are some of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met. They are a special breed of artists, deep thinkers, poets, masters of their instruments. Music has the ability to make you move and stop you in your tracks, to change your mood, make you smile, cry, think. The goal is the same: Put on a great show. Every night. Play like it could be your last show.

It’s easy to sit back and armchair quarterback on social media about the risks of holding festivals and rock concerts amid the pandemic, but this is what people do for a living. Few people buy albums or CDs or even download music anymore. It’s all about streaming and grabbing viewers on social media now. Touring and merch sales are about the only way musicians have to make money these days. Music is meant to be performed in front of people, a shared experience. With everybody on the bus vaccinated and ready to go, we headed to Louisville for the first of a 49-show run.

The crowd of mostly older millennials and GenXers were ready for a rock show. They knew all the words to the hits in the set — especially Candlebox’s mega-hit from the ’90s, “Far Behind” — and were into the band’s new songs too. It felt good. Then came the mayflies, in massive swarms.

The next stop on the tour was a festival along the Mississippi River in Iowa. I was up early, and as soon as we pulled in you could see mayflies dancing in the air all around us. As the day wore on, the flies intensified, and by nightfall any kind of light revealed hundreds upon hundreds of them, dancing in their own way like the crowd of unmasked fans below them. Also there were Confederate flags everywhere. Boats tied together on the river flew Trump flags in the warm summer breeze.

I was asleep when we crossed the river and made our way to St. Louis, the third stop on the tour and my last with the band. A great crowd: Close your eyes and you can easily picture yourself at Woodstock ’94. But it’s 2021 and Kevin Martin and company are still here.

Jay Westcott is a photographer in Arlington.

‘He Gave Me Life’

A cuban single mother reflects on isolation with her son, text and photographs by natalia favre.

S ingle mother Ara Santana Romero, 30, and her 11-year-old son, Camilo, have spent the past year and a half practically isolated in their Havana apartment. Just before the pandemic started, Camilo had achieved his biggest dream, getting accepted into music school. Two weeks after classes began, the schools closed and his classes were only televised. A return to the classroom was expected for mid-November, at which point all the children were scheduled to be vaccinated. According to a UNICEF analysis, since the beginning of the pandemic, 139 million children around the world have lived under compulsory home confinement for at least nine months.

Before the pandemic, Ara had undertaken several projects organizing literary events for students. After Havana went into quarantine and Camilo had to stay home, her days consisted mainly of getting food, looking after her son and doing housework. As a single mother with no help, she has put aside her wishes and aspirations. But Ara told me she never regretted having her son: “He gave me life.”

Natalia Favre is a photographer based in Havana.

Life After War in Gaza

A healing period of picnics, weddings and vaccinations, text and photographs by salwan georges.

A s I went from Israel into the Gaza Strip, I realized I was the only person crossing the border checkpoint that day. But I immediately saw that streets were vibrant with people shopping and wending through heavy traffic. There are hardly any working traffic lights in Gaza City, so drivers wave their hands out their windows to alert others to let them pass.

Despite the liveliness, recent trauma lingered in the air: In May, Israeli airstrikes destroyed several buildings and at least 264 Palestinians died. The fighting came after thousands of rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, where at least 16 people died. Workers were still cleaning up when I visited in late August, some of them recycling rubble — such as metal from foundations — to use for rebuilding.

I visited the city of Beit Hanoun, which was heavily damaged. I met Ibrahim, whose apartment was nearly destroyed, and as I looked out from a hole in his living room, I saw children gathered to play a game. Nearby there is a sports complex next to a school. Young people were playing soccer.

Back in Gaza City, families come every night to Union Soldier Park to eat, shop and play. Children and their parents were awaiting their turn to pay for a ride on an electric bike decorated with LED lights. In another part of town, not too far away, the bazaar and the markets were filled ahead of the weekend.

The beach in Gaza City is the most popular destination for locals, particularly because the Israeli government, which occupies the territory, generally does not allow them to leave Gaza. Families picnicked in the late afternoon and then stayed to watch their kids swim until after sunset. One of the local traditions when someone gets married is to parade down the middle of a beachfront road so the groom can dance with relatives and friends.

Amid the activities, I noticed that many people were not wearing face coverings, and I learned that the coronavirus vaccination rate is low. The health department started placing posters around the city to urge vaccination and set up a weekly lottery to award money to those who get immunized.

I also attended the funeral of a boy named Omar Abu al-Nil, who was wounded by the Israeli army — probably by a bullet — during one of the frequent protests at the border. He later died at the hospital from his wounds. More than 100 people attended, mainly men. They carried Omar to the cemetery and buried him as his father watched.

Salwan Georges is a Washington Post staff photographer.

Beyond the Numbers

At home, i constructed a photo diary to show the pandemic’s human toll, text and photographs by beth galton.

I n March 2020, while the coronavirus began its universal spread, my world in New York City became my apartment. I knew that to keep safe I wouldn’t be able to access my studio, so I brought my camera home and constructed a small studio next to a window.

I began my days looking at the New York Times and The Washington Post online, hoping to find a glimmer of positive news. What I found and became obsessed with were the maps, charts and headlines, all of which were tracking the coronavirus’s spread. I printed them out to see how the disease had multiplied and moved, soon realizing that each of these little visual changes affected millions of people. With time, photographs of people who had died began to appear in the news. Grids of faces filled the screen; many died alone, without family or friends beside them.

This series reflects my emotions and thoughts through the past year and a half. By photographing data and images, combined with botanicals, my intent was to speak to the humanity of those affected by this pandemic. I used motion in the images to help convey the chaos and apprehensions we were all experiencing. I now see that this assemblage is a visual diary of my life during the pandemic.

Beth Galton is a photographer in New York.

Finding Hope in Seclusion

A self-described sickle cell warrior must stay home to keep safe, text and photographs by endia beal.

O nyekachukwu Onochie, who goes by Onyeka, is a 28-year-old African American woman born with sickle cell anemia. She describes herself as a sickle cell warrior who lives each day like it’s her last. “When I was younger,” she told me, “I thought I would live until my mid-20s because I knew other people with sickle cell that died in their 20s.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes sickle cell anemia as an inherited red blood cell disorder that causes those cells to become hard and sticky, and appear C-shaped. Healthy red blood cells are round and move through small blood vessels to carry oxygen, whereas sickle cells die earlier and transport less oxygen. The disorder can cause debilitating pain and organ failure.

In June 2020, Onyeka began preparing her body for a stem cell transplant — a new treatment — and underwent the procedure in April. She is now home in Winston-Salem, N.C., recovering from the transplant. Despite the positive results thus far, Onyeka’s immune system is compromised and she is at greater risk of severe illness or death from viruses.

I asked about her life during the pandemic. She told me: “My new normal includes video chat lunch dates. I have more energy now than ever before, but I have to stay indoors to protect myself from airborne viruses, among other things.” Onyeka believes she has been given a new life with endless possibilities — even though she is temporarily homebound.

Endia Beal is an artist based in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Baker’s Choice

A fun-loving, self-taught baker decides to open her shop despite the pandemic, text and photographs by marvin joseph.

T iffany Lightfoot is the owner and founder of My Cake Theory, where she merges her love of fashion with her gifts as a baker. Undaunted by the pandemic, she opened her first brick-and-mortar shop on Capitol Hill last year. Lightfoot, 41, combined the skills she learned as a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology with dozens of hours watching the Food Network and YouTube videos — and spun her self-taught baking into a business. With these photographs I wanted to show how much fun she has baking — while building a career she clearly loves.

Marvin Joseph is a Washington Post staff photographer.

Leap of Faith

Despite low vaccination rates, sicilians resume religious parades, text and photographs by michael robinson chavez.

T he island of Sicily has been overrun and conquered by numerous empires and civilizations. The year 2020 brought a new and deadly conqueror, the coronavirus. The lockdown was absolute — even church doors were shut tight. But in 2021, Sicilians brought life and traditions back to their streets.

Saint’s days, or festas, are important events on the Sicilian calendar. Last year, for the first time in more than a century, some towns canceled their festas. The arrival of vaccines this year seemed to offer hope that the processions would once again march down the ancient streets. However, a surge in summer tourism, while helping the local economy, also boosted the coronavirus infection rate.

Sicily has the lowest vaccination rate in Italy. Nevertheless, scaled-down celebrations have reappeared in the island’s streets. In the capital city of Palermo, residents gathered for the festa honoring the Maria della Mercede (Madonna of Mercy), which dates to the 16th century. Children were hoisted aloft to be blessed by the Virgin as a marching band played in a small piazza fronting the church that bears her name. Local bishops did not permit the normal procession because of the pandemic, so local children had their own, carrying a cardboard re-creation of the Virgin through the labyrinth of the famous Il Capo district’s narrow streets.

As the fireworks blossomed overhead and the marching band played on, it was easy to see that Sicilians were embracing a centuries-old tradition that seems certain to last for many more to come.

Michael Robinson Chavez is a Washington Post staff photographer.

Defiant Glamour

After long months of covid confinement, a fearless return to 2019 in miami beach, text and photographs by lucía vázquez.

O n Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive I’ve seen drunk girls hitting other drunk girls, and I’ve seen men high on whatever they could afford, zombie-walking with their mouths and eyes wide open amid the tourists. I’ve seen partyers sprawled on the pavement just a few feet from the Villa Casa Casuarina, the former Versace mansion.

I’ve seen groups of women wearing fake eyelashes as long and thick as a broom, and flashing miniature bras, and smoking marijuana by a palm tree in the park, next to families going to the beach. I’ve seen five girls standing on the back of a white open-air Jeep twerking in their underwear toward the street.

My photographs, taken in August, capture South Beach immersed in this untamed party mood with the menace of the delta variant as backdrop. They document young women enjoying the summer after more than a year of confinement. Traveling from around the country, they made the most of their return to social life by showing off their style and skin, wearing their boldest party attire. I was drawn to the fearlessness of their outfits and their confidence; I wanted to show how these women identify themselves and wish to be perceived, a year and a half after covid-19 changed the world.

Lucía Vázquez is a journalist and photographer based in New York and Buenos Aires.

A Giving Spirit

‘this pandemic has taught me to be even closer to my family and friends’, text and photographs by octavio jones.

M arlise Tolbert-Jones, who works part time for an air conditioning company in Tampa, spends most of her time caring for her 91-year-old father, Rudolph Tolbert, and her aunt Frances Pascoe, who is 89. Marlise visits them daily to make sure they’re eating a good breakfast and taking their medications. In addition to being a caregiver, Marlise, 57, volunteers for a local nonprofit food pantry, where she helps distribute groceries for families. Also, she volunteers at her church’s food pantry, where food is distributed every Saturday morning.

“I’m doing this because of my [late] mother, who would want me to be there for the family and the community,” she told me. “I’ve had my struggles. I’ve been down before, but God has just kept me stable and given me the strength to keep going. This pandemic has taught me to be even closer to my family and friends.”

Octavio Jones is an independent photojournalist based in Tampa.

First, people paused. Then they took stock. Then they persevered.

Text and photographs by anastassia whitty.

W e all know the pandemic has challenged people and altered daily routines. I created this photo essay to highlight the perspectives and experiences of everyday people, specifically African Americans: What does their “new normal” look like? I also wanted to demonstrate how they were able to persevere. One such person is Maria J. Hackett, 30, a Brooklyn photographer, dancer and mother of a daughter, NiNi. Both are featured on the cover.

I asked Maria her thoughts on what the pandemic has meant for her. “Quarantine opened up an opportunity to live in a way that was more healthy while taking on much-needed deep healing,” she told me. “It was my mental and emotional health that began breaking me down physically. ... I put things to a stop as my health began to deteriorate. I decided I will no longer chase money — but stay true to my art, plan and trust that things will come together in a healthier way for us. I focused more on letting my daughter guide us and on her remaining happy with her activities and social life.”

“Enrolling her in camps and classes like dance and gymnastics led me to develop a schedule and routine,” Maria explained, “opening room for me to complete my first dance residency in my return to exploration of movement. I made time to share what I know with her and what she knows with me.”

Jasmine Hamilton of Long Island, 32, talked in similiar terms. She too became more focused on mental health and fitness. She told me: “The pandemic has demonstrated that life is short and valuable, so I’m more open to creating new experiences.”

Anastassia Whitty is a photographer based in New York.

About this story

Photo editing by Dudley M. Brooks and Chloe Coleman. Design and development by Audrey Valbuena. Design editing by Suzette Moyer and Christian Font. Editing by Rich Leiby. Copy editing by Jennifer Abella and Angie Wu.

12 Photo Essays Highlight the Heroes and Heartaches of the Pandemic

Pictures piece together a year into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photos: One Year of Pandemic

Getty Images

A boy swims along the Yangtze river on June 30, 2020 in Wuhan, China.

A year has passed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March, 11, 2020. A virus not visible to the human eye has left its mark in every corner of the world. No single image can define the loss and heartache of millions of global citizens, but photojournalists were there to document the times as best they could. From the exhaustion on the faces of frontline medical workers to vacant streets once bustling with life, here is a look back at photo essays published by U.S. News photo editors from the past year. When seen collectively, these galleries stitch together a year unlike any other.

In January of 2020, empty streets, protective masks and makeshift hospital beds became the new normal in Wuhan, a metropolis usually bustling with more people than New York City. Chinese authorities suspended flights, trains and public transportation, preventing locals from leaving the area, and placing a city of 11 million people under lockdown. The mass quarantine invokes surreal scenes and a grim forecast.

Photos: The Epicenter of Coronavirus

Photojournalist Krisanne Johnson documented New Yorkers in early March of 2020, during moments of isolation as a climate of uncertainty and tension hung over the city that never sleeps.

Coronavirus in NYC Causes Uncertainty

For millions of Italians, and millions more around the globe, the confines of home became the new reality in fighting the spread of the coronavirus. Italian photojournalist Camila Ferrari offered a visual diary of intimacy within isolation.

Photos: Confined to Home in Milan

Around the world, we saw doctors, nurses and medical staff on the front lines in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photos: Hospitals Fighting Coronavirus

As the pandemic raged, global citizens found new ways of socializing and supporting each other. From dance classes to church services, the screen took center stage.

Photos: Staying Connected in Quarantine

In April of 2020, photographer John Moore captured behind the scene moments of medical workers providing emergency services to patients with COVID-19 symptoms in New York City and surrounding areas.

Photos: Paramedics on the Front Lines

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted undocumented communities that often lack unemployment protections, health insurance and at times, fear deportation.

Photos: Migrants and the Coronavirus

Aerial views showed startlingly desolate landscapes and revealed the scale of the pandemic.

Photos: COVID-19 From Above

With devastating death tolls, COVID-19 altered the rituals of mourning loved ones.

Photos: Final Farewells

In recognition of May Day in 2020, these portraits celebrated essential workers around the globe.

Photos: Essential Workers of the World

In May 2020, of the 10 counties with the highest death rates per capita in America, half were in rural southwest Georgia, where there are no packed apartment buildings or subways. And where you could see ambulances rushing along country roads, just fields and farms in either direction, carrying COVID-19 patients to the nearest hospital, which for some is an hour away.

Photos: In Rural Georgia, Devastation

In January of 2021, as new variants of the virus emerged, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and other vaccines led a historic global immunization rollout, offering hope.

Photos: COVID-19 Vaccinations

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Tags: Coronavirus , public health , Photo Galleries , New York City , pandemic

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Ten examples of immersive photo essays

By Marissa Sapega — Contributing Writer

Photo essays are one of the most powerful forms of storytelling in the last century. From the great depression photographer W. Eugene Smith to the photojournalism of National Geographic or Life Magazine , the best photo essays entertain, educate, and move readers more than words alone ever could. 

But photo essays have changed. Over the last decade, web publishing technologies — including web browsers and file formats — have improved by leaps and bounds. A good photo essays today is more than a collection of images. It’s a truly interactive, immersive, and multimedia experiences.

In this guide, we introduce 10 stunning examples of visually arresting interactive photo essays to fuel your creative juices.

Now, let's set the scene with a short introduction to immersive, interactive photo essays on the web.

What do the BBC, Tripadvisor, and Penguin have in common? They craft stunning, interactive web content with Shorthand. And so can you! Publish your first story for free — no code or web design skills required. Sign up now.

The rise of immersive, interactive photo essays

What is an immersive, interactive photo essay? Let's take these terms one at a time. 

An immersive photo essay uses rich media and story design to capture and keep the reader's attention. Immersive content is typically free of the most distracting elements of the web, such as pop-ups, skyscrapers, and other intrusions on the reading experience.

As a basic rule of thumb, immersive content respects the reader's attention. 

An interactive photo essay is one that allows the reader to control how the content appears. It may include interactive elements, like maps and embedded applications.

More commonly, modern interactive photo stories use a technique known as scrollytelling . Scrollytelling stories allow the reader to trigger animations and other visual effects as they scroll. Many of the examples in this guide use scrollytelling techniques. Read more scrollytelling examples .

Until relatively recently, immersive, interactive photo essays could only be created with the help of a designer or web developer. But with the rise of digital storytelling platforms , anyone can create compelling, dynamic stories without writing a single line of code.

If you're looking to learn more about how to create a photo essay — or are looking for more photo essay ideas  — check out our introduction to photo essays . 

Photo essay topics

If you’re looking for photo essay examples, chances are you’re looking to create a photo essay for yourself. If you’re just getting started, you might want some guidance on exactly what kinds of topics make for great photo essays.

More experienced photographers — feel free to skip this section. But for those who are just starting out, here’s a quick list of classic photo essay subject matter, for all types of photo essays.

• Local events. A great way to start out is photograph local events in your community, such as a high school fundraiser. A bonus is that you’ll have a ready
• Historic sites. Another classic photo essay topic is an exploration of a historic site. This could be a building, a monument, or even just a specific location that has significance.
• Profile of a person. A great way to get to know someone is to profile them in a photo essay. This could be a family member, friend, or even just someone you’ve met.
• Animals in captivity. Another popular subject matter for photo essays is animals in captivity, whether that’s at a zoo or elsewhere.
• A day in the life. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live someone else’s life for a day? Why not find out and document it in a photo essay?
• Street photography. Another great way to practice your photography skills is to head out into the streets and photograph the everyday lives of people around you. The world has plenty of photo essays of cities like New York and London. But what about street photography in your own backyard?
• Still life photography. Still life photography is all about capturing inanimate objects on film. This could be anything from flowers to furniture to food. It’s a great way to practice your photography skills and learn about composition
• Landscapes . Landscape photography is one of the most popular genres, and for good reason. There are endless possibilities when it comes to finding interesting subjects to shoot. So get out there and start exploring!
• Abandoned buildings. There’s something fascinating about abandoned buildings. They offer a glimpse into the past, and can be eerily beautiful. If you have any in your area, they make for great photo essay subjects.
• Lifestyles. Document someone who lives a lifestyle that’s different from your own. This could be a portrayal of an everyday person, or it could be someone with an unusual job or hobby.
• Social issues. Take photos depicting significant social issues in your community, remembering to respect your subjects.

Ten inspiring photo essay examples

Pink lagoon and peculiar galaxies — July’s best science images

In Pink lagoon and peculiar galaxies , Nature present a mesmerising series of images from the natural world. Highlights include:

• a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it photo of rare albino orcas performing feats of synchronized swimming;
• an arresting aerial view of the aftermath of the flash floods in Germany; and,
• a scarlet gawping Venus flytrap sea anemone. 

The best part? Nature publishes similarly powerful photo essays every month, showcasing some of the best and most creative photography of the natural world anywhere on the web.

Vanishing Lands

Vanishing lands — an ominously interesting photo essay from media company Stuff — opens with a bucolic visual featuring meandering sheep flanked by breathtaking mountains that blur into obscurity.

Soon, more awe-inspiring photos of breathtaking New Zealand farmland appear, accompanied by expressive prose whose tone matches the visuals’ stark beauty.

In this unflinchingly honest photographic essay, Stuff takes the viewer behind the scenes with a day in the life of a high country sheep farmer facing an uncertain future. One stunning photo fades into the next as you scroll through, broken only by the occasional noteworthy quote and accompanying narrative.

Olympic photos: Emotion runs high

This emotionally wrought sports story from NBC begins with a close-up of an anxious Simone Biles, her expression exemplifying the tension and frustration echoed on so many of her fellow athletes’ faces.

The subtitle puts it perfectly: “The agony—and thrill—of competition at the Olympics is written all over their faces.”

Devastation, disappointment, and defeat take centre stage in this piece — but not all the subjects of the photos in this compelling photography essay depict misery. Some of the images, like that taken of the gold medal-winning Russian artistic gymnasts, manage to project the athletes’ joy almost beyond the edges of the screen.

The NBC editors who created this visual story chose to display the series of photos using the entire screen width and limit the copy to simple captions, letting the visuals speak for themselves. The result is a riveting montage of photographs that manage to capture the overarching sentiment of the 2020 Olympic Games.

James Epp: A Twist of the Hand

In A Twist of the Hand , the Museum of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge have produced a gorgeous photo essay. This online art show showcases artist James Epp’s installation, combining photographs of the exhibit with images of museum prints and authentic artefacts.

As you scroll down, close-up shots of the installation make you feel like you’re physically wandering among the ancient sculptures, able to examine hairline spider cracks and tiny divots marking the surface of every antiquated figure. In between the photos—and often flanked by museum prints—are James Epp's musings about what inspired him to create the pieces. It’s an absorbing virtual gallery that will no doubt inspire real life visits to the exhibition.

The Café Racer Revolution

Though it’s a cleverly built piece of interactive content marketing , Honda’s “ Café Racer Revolution ” is also a great photo essay. Alongside information about the latest and greatest motorcycles Honda has to offer, it details the history of the bikers who sought to employ motorcycles (specifically “café racers”) as a way to forge an identity for themselves and project a “statement of individuality.”

Scroll down, and nostalgic black-and-white photos give way to contemporary action shots featuring fully decked-out motorcyclists on various Honda models.

Dynamic photos of bikes rotate them 360 degrees when you mouse over them, and text superimposed over flashy shots rolls smoothly down the screen as you scroll. This photo essay will stir a longing to hit the open road for anyone who has ever dreamed of owning one of Honda’s zippy bikes.

Built to keep Black from white

In Built to keep Black from white , NBC News and BridgeDetroit have built a stunning narrative photo essay that encapsulates the history of Detroit’s Birwood Wall — a literal dividing line intended to separate neighborhoods inhabited by people of different races. 

The piece begins with a brief history of the concrete barrier. Between paragraphs of text, it weaves in quotes from residents who grew up as the wall was erected and a short video. Animated maps highlighting the affected neighborhoods unspool across the screen as you scroll down, accompanied by brief explanations of what the maps represent.

In the series of photographs that follow, contemporary images transition into decades-old shots of the wall when it was newly constructed. This is followed by images of original real estate documents, resident portraits, and additional animated maps — each considering the issue from different angles.

The piece ends with an interactive display of how Detroit’s racial makeup has changed over the past several decades, from majority white to black, and how the wall has impacted the lives of its residents who lived (and died) within its borders.

The story of Black Lives Matter in sport

The BBC pairs illustrations and bold imagery in this photo essay on how athletes participated in the Black Lives Matter movement . At the start, a narrow column of text leads into an iconic image of American football players kneeling during the pre-game national anthem in a solemn protest against police brutality. 

The first excerpt, a summary of Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, draws you in with piercing prose capped off with photographs that bleed into one another. Every account in the photo essay follows this layout.

WaterAid Climate Stories

Climate change affects everyone on the planet, but some people are feeling the effects more than others. WaterAid’s scrollytelling photo essay illuminates the plight of individuals living in areas where extreme weather conditions — caused by climate change — have drastically impacted the water supply and environment, endangering their livelihoods and ability to survive.

This climate change story starts with an engrossing video that provides an up-close and personal look at the devastation that climate change-induced droughts have wreaked on people and the environment. As you scroll down, images of massively depleted bodies of water with superimposed text and quotes unfold before your eyes. It’s an efficient way to drive home the critical message WaterAid wants to convey: climate change is real, and it’s harming real people.

Each extreme weather story focuses on an individual to help viewers empathise and understand that climate change has real, drastic consequences for millions of people worldwide. The piece ends with a call to action to learn more about and financially support WaterAid’s fight to assist people living in the desperate situations depicted in the essay.

28 Days in Afghanistan

In this piece, Australian photo-journalist Andrew Quilty tells the story of the four weeks he spent in Afghanistan . He captures daily events ranging from the mundane—like a casual visit to his barber—to jarring. More than one photo documents blood-spattered victims of violence.

Viewers must scroll through the piece to follow Andrew’s daily musings and the striking photos that accompany them. His photo essay is a powerful example of how scrollytelling is transforming the art of long-form journalism .

La carrera lunática de Musk y Bezos (Musk and Bezos' lunatic careers)

Billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are angling to conquer the final frontier: space.

El Periódico captures their story via a whimsically illustrated photo essay, filled with neon line drawings and bold photos of the massive spaceships, the hangars that house them, and footprints on the moon. La carrera lunática de Musk y Bezos describes the battle between the two titans’ space companies (Blue Origin and SpaceX) for the honor of partially funding NASA’s next mission to the moon.

As you scroll down, white and fluorescent yellow words on a black background roll smoothly over images. The team at El Periódico slips in stylistic animations to break up the text—such as rocket ships with shimmering “vapour trails”—then ups the ante with a series of moon images that transition into portraits of the 12 U.S. astronauts who visited the celestial body.

The photo essay ends with the question: “Who will be the next to leave their footprints on the dusty lunar soil?” At the time of publishing, NASA had not yet decided between the two companies. (Spoiler alert: SpaceX won .)

Marissa Sapega is a seasoned writer, editor, and digital marketer with a background in web and graphic design.

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11 Of The Most Interesting Photo Essays

The photo editors of BuzzFeed take a look at all of the best photo collections from this week.

1. "23 Super-Creepy Pictures of Forgotten Olympic Villages" —BuzzFeed

“Olympics time is here! Hosting cities pour tons of money into building massive structures in order to host the games . But what happens to them once all the hubbub dies down? This essay is such an interesting look at these spaces when left to the wild.” —Dennis Huynh, design director, BuzzFeed News

2. "These Women Are Using Photography to Cope With the Aftermath of an ISIS Massacre" —BuzzFeed

"Oh, how truly powerful photographs can be, and this photo series proves just that. UNICEF gave cameras and tutorials to 25 young Yazidi women so they can photograph their community as they learned to cope with the aftermath of an ISIS massacre. With this medium, they weren’t just given the voice to tell the world their story, but also empowered them to have personal goals and aspirations. After all, they were allowed to keep their cameras." —Anna Mendoza, photo editor, BuzzFeed Australia

3. "At the Front in a Scarred Fallujah" — New York Times

"It is important to see what war looks like in some ways. For all the rhetoric about the war on terrorism that is thrown about in the US, there is relatively little visual coverage about the frontlines in the Middle East. Denton's photographs show that the war in Iraq, which has waxed and waned in popularity and our consciousness for the past 13 years, is still ongoing, still brutal, and still very relevant to our stated goals even as the enemy has changed." —Kate Bubacz, senior photo editor for BuzzFeed News

4. "Learning Life Lessons by Faking One's Own Funeral" — The Atlantic

"There’s probably nothing more natural to living than contemplating your own death. In South Korea, a trend has emerged called 'Happy Dying' in which participants are invited to write their own eulogies and wills, crawl into their very own coffin and essentially, well, die. After 30 minutes of 'death', they crawl out of the coffin and apparently feel much better about their lives. Neat." —Gabriel H. Sanchez, photo essay editor, BuzzFeed

5. "These Beautiful Photos of Subway Stations Will Transport You From Your Daily Commute" — Atlas Obscura

“I love subways/metros like Oprah loves bread! Chris Forsyth images of metro stations in Canada and around Europe show how cool and mod the architecture of those massive spaces can be make make me want to book some tickets.” —DH

6. "A Death in Manila" —Reuters

"Of the 300 suspected drug dealers found dead since Rodrigo Duterte assumed presidency in the Philippines, this photo of Jennelyn Olaires cradling the body of her husband stood out among the rest. The new president, notoriously known as 'the punisher', called this 'melodramatic', with the media hyping it up as if it was Michelangelo’s Pieta. 'War on Drugs' was his campaign battle cry and this photo perfectly summed up what he has done, directly or indirectly, in his first 30 days." —AM

7. "The Trans Community of Christopher Street" — The New Yorker

"These portraits have a dignity and an intimacy about them , each face strikingly beautiful in its individuality. I was so moved reading stories and seeing the variety of faces that all turn to Christopher Street for a sense of community." —KB

8. "International Garden Photographer of the Year Macro Art Winners" — The Telegraph

"These extreme close-up shots of plant life highlight just how alien planet earth can look. Out of context, these seed pods and surfaces of leaves appear like the aerial terrain of a remote exotic planet. The competition is in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK, and will be touring in exhibitions all over the world. The overall winner was ‘Embryo’ (above) by George Pantazis with a photo taken in his garden in Limassol, Cyprus." —Matthew Tucker, picture editor, BuzzFeed UK

9. "People Really Open Up in the Summer’: the North Korean Seasons" — The Guardian

"Could it be true? Is this possibly the most secluded beach vacation getaway in the world? No one thinks of North Korea as a summer holiday destination. But with a brand-new airport recently completed near the resort town of Wonsan (apparently, it’s popular with locals), it may just be the next hot ticket among foreign travellers." —AM

10. "Photographing the Mirage of the American Dream in Las Vegas" — Time Lightbox

"The party’s been raging strong in Las Vegas for decades — but if you look closely, as Swiss photographer Christian Lutz does in his new photo book Insert Coins , you’ll see the cracks and faults of a city with a reputation for sin. Here, Time shares a comically distressing look at Las Vegas when the party is over." —GHS

11. "Aging Inmates: Photographer Shines Light on Loneliness and Isolation" — National Geographic Proof

" Jessica Earnshaw's work on aging in prison is breathtaking in its scope and its ceaseless attention to the humanity of the inmates. This is a very different look at prisons that is worth giving attention to." —KB

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• Photojournalism Links

The 10 Best Photo Essays of the Month

This month’s Photojournalism Links collection highlights 10 excellent photo essays from across the world, including Tomas Munita ‘s photographs from Gaza and Israel, made on assignment for the New York Times . The work, coinciding with the first anniversary of last year’s 50 day war between Israel and Palestinian militant groups, consists of eight innovative stop-motion-sequences which take us to the streets, hospitals, and homes on both sides of the conflict, and provide an immersive glimpse of how the two groups of communities are coping, one year after.

Tomas Munita: Walking in War’s Path (The New York Times )

Brent Stirton: Tracking Ivory: Terror in Africa | Ivory’s Human Toll (National Geographic) Two strong sets of images for National Geographic magazine’s latest cover story.

Lynsey Addario: Inside the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Diamond Mines (TIME LightBox) Terrific set of images looking at Congo’s diamond mining communities.

Andres Kudacki: Spain’s Housing Crisis (TIME LightBox) Powerful three-year project on the country’s home evictions, now on show at Visa pour l’Image photojournalism festival.

Mary Ellen Mark: New Orleans (CNN Money) The legendary photographer’s final assignment, done ahead of Hurricane Katrina’s 10th anniversary.

Daniel Etter: Hands Across Water (Al Jazeera America) Moving series on a small Sea-Watch ship, with a rotating crew of just eight volunteers, trying to save refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean.

Sergey Ponomarev: On Island of Lesbos, a Microcosm of Greece’s Other Crisis: Migrants (The New York Times ) Dramatic photographs of refugees and migrants arriving to the Greek island.

Allison Joyce: Child Marriage Bangladesh (International Business Times) Heartbreaking pictures of a 15-year-old Bangladeshi girl’s wedding | See also Joyce’s other Bangladeshi child marriage series at Mashable .

Andrea Bruce: Romania’s Disappearing Girls (Al Jazeera America) The Noor photographer’s work shows how poverty and desperation drive Romanian girls into the arms of sex traffickers.

Matt Black: Geography of Poverty: Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 (MSNBC) Second and third chapters of the Magnum photographer’s ambitious project mapping poverty around the U.S.

Mikko Takkunen is an Associate Photo Editor at TIME. Follow him on Twitter @photojournalism .

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How to Create an Engaging Photo Essay (with Examples)

Photo essays tell a story in pictures. They're a great way to improve at photography and story-telling skills at once. Learn how to do create a great one.

Learn | Photography Guides | By Ana Mireles

Photography is a medium used to tell stories – sometimes they are told in one picture, sometimes you need a whole series. Those series can be photo essays.

If you’ve never done a photo essay before, or you’re simply struggling to find your next project, this article will be of help. I’ll be showing you what a photo essay is and how to go about doing one.

You’ll also find plenty of photo essay ideas and some famous photo essay examples from recent times that will serve you as inspiration.

If you’re ready to get started, let’s jump right in!

Table of Contents

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a series of images that share an overarching theme as well as a visual and technical coherence to tell a story. Some people refer to a photo essay as a photo series or a photo story – this often happens in photography competitions.

Photographic history is full of famous photo essays. Think about The Great Depression by Dorothea Lange, Like Brother Like Sister by Wolfgang Tillmans, Gandhi’s funeral by Henri Cartier Bresson, amongst others.

What are the types of photo essay?

Despite popular belief, the type of photo essay doesn’t depend on the type of photography that you do – in other words, journalism, documentary, fine art, or any other photographic genre is not a type of photo essay.

Instead, there are two main types of photo essays: narrative and thematic .

As you have probably already guessed, the thematic one presents images pulled together by a topic – for example, global warming. The images can be about animals and nature as well as natural disasters devastating cities. They can happen all over the world or in the same location, and they can be captured in different moments in time – there’s a lot of flexibility.

A narrative photo essa y, on the other hand, tells the story of a character (human or not), portraying a place or an event. For example, a narrative photo essay on coffee would document the process from the planting and harvesting – to the roasting and grinding until it reaches your morning cup.

What are some of the key elements of a photo essay?

• Tell a unique story – A unique story doesn’t mean that you have to photograph something that nobody has done before – that would be almost impossible! It means that you should consider what you’re bringing to the table on a particular topic.
• Put yourself into the work – One of the best ways to make a compelling photo essay is by adding your point of view, which can only be done with your life experiences and the way you see the world.
• Add depth to the concept – The best photo essays are the ones that go past the obvious and dig deeper in the story, going behind the scenes, or examining a day in the life of the subject matter – that’s what pulls in the spectator.
• Nail the technique – Even if the concept and the story are the most important part of a photo essay, it won’t have the same success if it’s poorly executed.
• Build a structure – A photo essay is about telling a thought-provoking story – so, think about it in a narrative way. Which images are going to introduce the topic? Which ones represent a climax? How is it going to end – how do you want the viewer to feel after seeing your photo series?
• Make strong choices – If you really want to convey an emotion and a unique point of view, you’re going to need to make some hard decisions. Which light are you using? Which lens? How many images will there be in the series? etc., and most importantly for a great photo essay is the why behind those choices.

9 Tips for Creating a Photo Essay

Credit: Laura James

1. Choose something you know

To make a good photo essay, you don’t need to travel to an exotic location or document a civil war – I mean, it’s great if you can, but you can start close to home.

Depending on the type of photography you do and the topic you’re looking for in your photographic essay, you can photograph a local event or visit an abandoned building outside your town.

It will be much easier for you to find a unique perspective and tell a better story if you’re already familiar with the subject. Also, consider that you might have to return a few times to the same location to get all the photos you need.

2. Follow your passion

Most photo essays take dedication and passion. If you choose a subject that might be easy, but you’re not really into it – the results won’t be as exciting. Taking photos will always be easier and more fun if you’re covering something you’re passionate about.

3. Take your time

A great photo essay is not done in a few hours. You need to put in the time to research it, conceptualizing it, editing, etc. That’s why I previously recommended following your passion because it takes a lot of dedication, and if you’re not passionate about it – it’s difficult to push through.

4. Write a summary or statement

Photo essays are always accompanied by some text. You can do this in the form of an introduction, write captions for each photo or write it as a conclusion. That’s up to you and how you want to present the work.

5. Learn from the masters

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Making a photographic essay takes a lot of practice and knowledge. A great way to become a better photographer and improve your storytelling skills is by studying the work of others. You can go to art shows, review books and magazines and look at the winners in photo contests – most of the time, there’s a category for photo series.

6. Get a wide variety of photos

Think about a story – a literary one. It usually tells you where the story is happening, who is the main character, and it gives you a few details to make you engage with it, right?

The same thing happens with a visual story in a photo essay – you can do some wide-angle shots to establish the scenes and some close-ups to show the details. Make a shot list to ensure you cover all the different angles.

Some of your pictures should guide the viewer in, while others are more climatic and regard the experience they are taking out of your photos.

7. Follow a consistent look

Both in style and aesthetics, all the images in your series need to be coherent. You can achieve this in different ways, from the choice of lighting, the mood, the post-processing, etc.

8. Be self-critical

Once you have all the photos, make sure you edit them with a good dose of self-criticism. Not all the pictures that you took belong in the photo essay. Choose only the best ones and make sure they tell the full story.

9. Ask for constructive feedback

Often, when we’re working on a photo essay project for a long time, everything makes perfect sense in our heads. However, someone outside the project might not be getting the idea. It’s important that you get honest and constructive criticism to improve your photography.

How to Create a Photo Essay in 5 Steps

Credit: Quang Nguyen Vinh

1. Choose your topic

This is the first step that you need to take to decide if your photo essay is going to be narrative or thematic. Then, choose what is it going to be about?

Ideally, it should be something that you’re interested in, that you have something to say about it, and it can connect with other people.

2. Research your topic

To tell a good story about something, you need to be familiar with that something. This is especially true when you want to go deeper and make a compelling photo essay. Day in the life photo essays are a popular choice, since often, these can be performed with friends and family, whom you already should know well.

3. Plan your photoshoot

Depending on what you’re photographing, this step can be very different from one project to the next. For a fine art project, you might need to find a location, props, models, a shot list, etc., while a documentary photo essay is about planning the best time to do the photos, what gear to bring with you, finding a local guide, etc.

Every photo essay will need different planning, so before taking pictures, put in the required time to get things right.

4. Experiment

It’s one thing to plan your photo shoot and having a shot list that you have to get, or else the photo essay won’t be complete. It’s another thing to miss out on some amazing photo opportunities that you couldn’t foresee.

So, be prepared but also stay open-minded and experiment with different settings, different perspectives, etc.

5. Make a final selection

Editing your work can be one of the hardest parts of doing a photo essay. Sometimes we can be overly critical, and others, we get attached to bad photos because we put a lot of effort into them or we had a great time doing them.

Try to be as objective as possible, don’t be afraid to ask for opinions and make various revisions before settling down on a final cut.

7 Photo Essay Topics, Ideas & Examples

Credit: Michelle Leman

• Architectural photo essay

Using architecture as your main subject, there are tons of photo essay ideas that you can do. For some inspiration, you can check out the work of Francisco Marin – who was trained as an architect and then turned to photography to “explore a different way to perceive things”.

You can also lookup Luisa Lambri. Amongst her series, you’ll find many photo essay examples in which architecture is the subject she uses to explore the relationship between photography and space.

• Process and transformation photo essay

This is one of the best photo essay topics for beginners because the story tells itself. Pick something that has a beginning and an end, for example, pregnancy, the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the life-cycle of a plant, etc.

Keep in mind that these topics are linear and give you an easy way into the narrative flow – however, it might be difficult to find an interesting perspective and a unique point of view.

• A day in the life of ‘X’ photo essay

There are tons of interesting photo essay ideas in this category – you can follow around a celebrity, a worker, your child, etc. You don’t even have to do it about a human subject – think about doing a photo essay about a day in the life of a racing horse, for example – find something that’s interesting for you.

• Time passing by photo essay

It can be a natural site or a landmark photo essay – whatever is close to you will work best as you’ll need to come back multiple times to capture time passing by. For example, how this place changes throughout the seasons or maybe even over the years.

A fun option if you live with family is to document a birthday party each year, seeing how the subject changes over time. This can be combined with a transformation essay or sorts, documenting the changes in interpersonal relationships over time.

• Travel photo essay

Do you want to make the jump from tourist snapshots into a travel photo essay? Research the place you’re going to be travelling to. Then, choose a topic.

If you’re having trouble with how to do this, check out any travel magazine – National Geographic, for example. They won’t do a generic article about Texas – they do an article about the beach life on the Texas Gulf Coast and another one about the diverse flavors of Texas.

The more specific you get, the deeper you can go with the story.

• Socio-political issues photo essay

This is one of the most popular photo essay examples – it falls under the category of photojournalism or documental photography. They are usually thematic, although it’s also possible to do a narrative one.

Depending on your topic of interest, you can choose topics that involve nature – for example, document the effects of global warming. Another idea is to photograph protests or make an education photo essay.

It doesn’t have to be a big global issue; you can choose something specific to your community – are there too many stray dogs? Make a photo essay about a local animal shelter. The topics are endless.

• Behind the scenes photo essay

A behind-the-scenes always make for a good photo story – people are curious to know what happens and how everything comes together before a show.

Depending on your own interests, this can be a photo essay about a fashion show, a theatre play, a concert, and so on. You’ll probably need to get some permissions, though, not only to shoot but also to showcase or publish those images.

4 Best Photo Essays in Recent times

Now that you know all the techniques about it, it might be helpful to look at some photo essay examples to see how you can put the concept into practice. Here are some famous photo essays from recent times to give you some inspiration.

Habibi by Antonio Faccilongo

This photo essay wan the World Press Photo Story of the Year in 2021. Faccilongo explores a very big conflict from a very specific and intimate point of view – how the Israeli-Palestinian war affects the families.

He chose to use a square format because it allows him to give order to things and eliminate unnecessary elements in his pictures.

With this long-term photo essay, he wanted to highlight the sense of absence and melancholy women and families feel towards their husbands away at war.

The project then became a book edited by Sarah Leen and the graphics of Ramon Pez.

Picture This: New Orleans by Mary Ellen Mark

The last assignment before her passing, Mary Ellen Mark travelled to New Orleans to register the city after a decade after Hurricane Katrina.

The images of the project “bring to life the rebirth and resilience of the people at the heart of this tale”, – says CNNMoney, commissioner of the work.

Each survivor of the hurricane has a story, and Mary Ellen Mark was there to record it. Some of them have heartbreaking stories about everything they had to leave behind.

Others have a story of hope – like Sam and Ben, two eight-year-olds born from frozen embryos kept in a hospital that lost power supply during the hurricane, yet they managed to survive.

Selfie by Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer whose work is mainly done through self-portraits. With them, she explores the concept of identity, gender stereotypes, as well as visual and cultural codes.

One of her latest photo essays was a collaboration with W Magazine entitled Selfie. In it, the author explores the concept of planned candid photos (‘plandid’).

The work was made for Instagram, as the platform is well known for the conflict between the ‘real self’ and the one people present online. Sherman started using Facetune, Perfect365 and YouCam to alter her appearance on selfies – in Photoshop, you can modify everything, but these apps were designed specifically to “make things prettier”- she says, and that’s what she wants to explore in this photo essay.

Tokyo Compression by Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf has an interest in the broad-gauge topic Life in Cities. From there, many photo essays have been derived – amongst them – Tokyo Compression .

He was horrified by the way people in Tokyo are forced to move to the suburbs because of the high prices of the city. Therefore, they are required to make long commutes facing 1,5 hours of train to start their 8+ hour workday followed by another 1,5 hours to get back home.

To portray this way of life, he photographed the people inside the train pressed against the windows looking exhausted, angry or simply absent due to this way of life.

You can visit his website to see other photo essays that revolve around the topic of life in megacities.

Final Words

It’s not easy to make photo essays, so don’t expect to be great at it right from your first project.

Start off small by choosing a specific subject that’s interesting to you –  that will come from an honest place, and it will be a great practice for some bigger projects along the line.

Whether you like to shoot still life or you’re a travel photographer, I hope these photo essay tips and photo essay examples can help you get started and grow in your photography.

Let us know which topics you are working on right now – we’ll love to hear from you!

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Ana Mireles is a Mexican researcher that specializes in photography and communications for the arts and culture sector.

Penelope G. To Ana Mireles Such a well written and helpful article for an writer who wants to inclue photo essay in her memoir. Thank you. I will get to work on this new skill. Penelope G.

Herman Krieger Photo essays in black and white

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Loved and Lost: grief in the time of coronavirus – a photo essay

Photographer Simon Bray’s project Loved and Lost deals with the loss of loved ones. He asked each participant to find a photograph of themselves with their lost loved one, and they returned to the location to replicate the image. The project aims to provide a platform, allowing others to acknowledge their loss, and to celebrate the person they love

D eath has a stigma and the burden of grief can hold us captive if we let it. May this be a process through which a loved one can be remembered and through which memories can be relived. Even though the pain of the loss may remain, may this go some way in relieving the hurt and the stigma of death and act as a public declaration that death has lost its sting.

I ask each participant to find a photograph of themselves with their lost loved one. We then return to the location of the original photograph to replicate the image.

It is a chance to think back and remember, to tell the story of that day and of the person that they have lost. Imagery allows for expression beyond what we can speak of. I hope it is an experience that contributes to the restorative process in overcoming the painful impact of loss.

The serene view north from Anglesey, out over the Irish Sea towards the Isle of Man

We all have a different experience of loss that can reveal itself in many ways. Sometimes it’s a response that is quite clear for those around you to see. Perhaps there are lots of emotions that they just don’t know how to let out, they’re not sure how they should be feeling or whether it’s right to be having certain angry or complicated thoughts.

It’s not about having the best photo, saying the right thing or having the answers, I just want to give people a chance to speak about their experience of loss .

My aim was that the combination of the photos we took and the conversations we had, we would be able to portray a deep personal story. This allows other people who are struggling and going through similar experiences to look through and find strength and comfort in the story, knowing that other people have been through it and are confident enough to share their story.

I lost my father to prostate cancer in December 2009. When my dad died, it wounded me in the deepest part of my being. The loss shaped the following few years of my life and will continue to do so, but I don’t have to let it define who I am. Through this time, it was really helpful to be able to talk about my dad. I wanted to share with others about the person he was, the emotions I was feeling as I processed the grief, and talk about the influence he had – and continues to have – on my life. Those conversations were often hard and few and far between, mainly because people just didn’t quite know how to respond.

Alistair’s dad holds his son’s hand while paddling in the sea at Swanage on a family holiday. Right: Alistair returns to Swanage to restage the original photograph after losing his father to Covid-19

I’m Alistair, and my dad was James. The original picture was from the beach at Swanage in Dorset. I’m not sure how old I was there, but it was a family holiday. We loved to go down there and find a pitch for the day, Mum and Dad would soak up the sun and me and Tim, my brother, would build sandcastles and splash around, and repeat until we had to go home.

He was a very loving father, he provided for his family, looked after us. He taught me a lot of principles about always doing the best, always trying to be the nicest person and to make sure that others were looked after and cared for. When you look back you realise you’ve been prepared by your parents to live your life. Dad always just wanted to treat others how he’d want to be treated.

Taken on a family holiday in Swanage, Alistair (right), sits on a bench by the beach with his father and brother Tim

When we got the dementia diagnosis, several years ago, we had noticed over time that he was getting more forgetful. He wouldn’t use my name, he was losing his hearing, his vision wasn’t great and I lost him as a dad over those years. I still loved him as my dad, but I knew I wasn’t necessarily going to get that reciprocated, which was tough. He still offered to help when I mentioned to him about moving flat; he’d say “well let me know if you need a hand”. I think that’s just his character through and through and I always just try to emulate that.

I went to see him in the care home and I said to the staff that I’d like to volunteer in the garden if possible, even if he wasn’t aware of me being there, I could just help out and spend some time with him, but then we went into lockdown and that was the last time I saw him when he was awake and alert.

When the Covid thing came along, it was like losing him for a second time, but this time, obviously, for the last time. It was difficult because I had kind of processed losing him in a mental sense, and now I was losing him in a physical sense.

I did get to see him before he passed away and it was just a completely different experience because I had to wear all the PPE. In the past, I’d just always assumed he’d be there for years to come and you don’t think about it ever being the last time, whereas I went there, got dressed up and they said you’ve got 15 minutes. It was horrible having this countdown clock, where you have this time limit on how long you have left with someone. I just set it on my watch and it’s just counting down. I was thinking, I’ve got 30 seconds left with my dad, 20 seconds left, 10 seconds left. What do I do? What do I say? And I just panicked.

Alistair takes a selfie with his dad in South Wonston park, near to where they lived. One of the benches in the park is dedicated to Alistair’s brother Tim, and will soon also have a plaque for his dad

It made me reflect on how many times I’ve seen or called my parents and thought that maybe I’m quite busy and I haven’t really got time for this, but I’ll see them next week. I’ve gone away thinking that it’s OK that I didn’t see them for very long today because I’ll see them in the future.

It’s given me a real appreciation for just taking a second to appreciate that when you’re with family or a friend, that you don’t know necessarily when you might see them again and that’s why you have to make the most of the time you have with them. I’m trying to act on it in a positive way, rather than just thinking about why I feel that way because of Dad.

Posing for a portrait, Alistair remembers his dad

It’s absolutely OK to cry and be a blubbering mess sometimes. If you try to stop it, you’ll feel a lot worse. I know that particularly for men there’s this societal pressure to be a strong support and a rock for people, but for your own sake, for men and women, to let your body do what it needs to do. You want to cry because your brain is telling you that you need to process this, to not fight it but to let it happen, then you’ll feel that pressure is unloaded.

Jonathan and his father on Christmas Eve 2019 with his new pair of Air Max

My name is Jonathan. The picture of myself and dad was taken on Christmas Eve 2019. We’d had Christmas together for the previous 54 years and it was a tradition we never broke. It was a fabulous event, we went out for a meal and then came back and exchanged gifts here.

My dad was 88 and he was getting old, things were failing. As a son it’s really upsetting when parents get older. I would do anything to try and make his life easier. I saw that he was walking badly and he said that the flesh on his feet was getting thinner and thinner and it was painful to walk. He’d never been into a Nike store, but he hobbled in, and then pretty soon we were having him trying on lots of pairs and we fitted him up with a pair of Nike Air Max. He was virtually running around the store, which was really lovely, really heartening. I felt as though I’d knocked off 10 or 15 years!

Jonathan took his dad to the Nike store to buy these Air Max trainers, which dramatically improved his mobility for the last few months of his life

He was so busy, I couldn’t keep up with him. I’m half his age, but he was out every night of the week. He would attend choirs, he was in the Greater Manchester Police Choir, the church choir, he was in Probus. I just don’t think he liked being at home.

He was the person I’d known longest in my life, he was always there. He was a bit like Switzerland, he never really offered a view, but he was always there to support me and catch me if I fell or tripped. It’s three months since he died and I’ve spent the last three months going to call him every day. So it’s been difficult.

He was the 12th coronavirus victim in the UK, so it was right at the very start. The health service and society as a whole didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to process and deal with the virus at that stage. So that was really difficult, because we couldn’t go to see him. We were only allowed to see him at the very end with lots of protective equipment, but if he hadn’t have had the coronavirus he probably would have been here today, because they would have treated his underlying health issues. It’s really, really difficult.

The quiet kitchen. Jonathan’s dad died on 13th March, well before lockdown was introduced

He died on Friday 13th, which I just couldn’t believe. The last time I saw him, we’d had a chat and I’d said what a cool dad he was, that he’d done a really good job, and he said, “No, I don’t think I was that good”, which I thought was really sweet. I said goodbye to him and went into the anteroom, where I had to take off all the protective equipment. I was halfway through taking it off and he called me back, but I couldn’t go back because the room had a positive air pressure, so I’ll never know what he wanted me for. That went with him to the grave.

It sounds really strange, but it’ll be very odd when the pandemic ends, because it has felt like a very intimate time, in that we went into shutdown and I could think about my dad’s experience, but it was like a shared experience with the whole of the world. I dread to think of other families going through the same thing that we went through. When someone dies of cancer or a heart attack, it’s dreadful, but that’s the moment. Whereas my dad died on the 13 March and from that point on, coronavirus has been on the news every minute of every hour of every day. It was like someone sticking a knife into the wound all the time, there was no escaping from it. As a family we felt properly battered.

Jonathan reflects on losing someone amid a global pandemic. Seeing it on the news every day has felt like, ‘someone sticking a knife into the wound’

Normally if you suffer a bereavement you have the support of family and friends, and we couldn’t go and see anyone. We were in lockdown before the country, in our own lockdown, so it’s been a very lonely time. Every step along the way was difficult, it felt as though we were unfortunate pioneers. The first funeral director that we went to wouldn’t deal with us. It’s been unusual.

At his funeral, we only had 10 people there and I liked it because it was nice and quiet. I’d discovered tapes of him singing so we actually played him singing a song on the way out and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. That was really magical.

Philip stands with his parents on a summer evening on the balcony of his caravan, located on the north coast of Anglesey. Second image: Philip returns to the caravan to restage the photograph after losing both of his parents within 48 hours to Covid-19

My name is Philip and the photograph is of me and my parents. We bought this caravan in 2016, and they were very much part of our lives, so they would come for a weekend. We are in the very north of Anglesey. If you think of the island as a clock, then we’re at 1 o’clock, overlooking the most northerly lighthouse, Point Lynas.

My dad was a travelling salesman for James Stewart and Co in Ardwick, opposite Manchester Apollo. His turf was Moss Side. He used to sell from a catalogue going door to door and he was well known in the area. He did that for 30-odd years.

The view back up to the caravan park from the coast. Being only a small site, the caravan park is close-knit community

My mum brought us up, two boys who liked to fight and liked to be boys. She was also the bursar at the Ryleys school in Alderley Edge, and was very into amateur dramatics, so was part of the Wilmslow Green Room Society. She was in a lot of plays, then did a lot of backstage and in her older years did a lot of wardrobe, so there’s a team of six that meet every Tuesday to talk and sort the wardrobes out.

Mum had coughs, she definitely had Covid.She was fit and healthy, walking a mile a day, in the drama group. Dad was playing golf and doing the garden, but he died of a broken heart, basically. Even though he did test positive, he never had a cough or any real symptoms. I lost both parents in 48 hours. My family is my world, so the only reassurance is that we were telling them to stay in, eat and have the paracetamol and do what the doctor says, that they’d get through it and to be strong.

My brother still lived with my parents and had to give CPR to both of them. They were in lockdown, so even after both parents dying, Peter had to stay in the house for another five days and we weren’t allowed to visit. It’s all that stuff that you don’t hear about and have no idea what people are going through. To this day, he has not had any symptoms. He’s never been tested, nobody approached him, but he’s never had a day of illness.

We were only allowed 10 people at the funeral when we could have had 200. We printed 100 orders of service and posted them out to different people, just so there was something for them to share on the day. We did a video, so we can share that with people, but obviously nobody got the funeral that they wanted.

For the first three weeks after my parents died, I became a bit of a counsellor. People would ring me up and I’d have to explain everything and say well, we have to look for the silver lining in it all, we have to find something every day that helps and is a positive. We’ve done that, we have managed to find that glimmer, even little quirky things, memories of them, thoughts of them.

I suppose the only comfort is that there isn’t an answer. There isn’t something that we could or should have done to make the result anything different than what it was, because nobody had that knowledge. Everybody was scared and there are still friends of my mum and dad that haven’t gone out.

We summed it up quite nicely in that if somebody else came into the room, that person became the most important person. So it was never about them, they were the host and hostess. Drop everything, someone’s come in, what can I do for you, get you a drink, something to eat, oven on, and we’ll look after you, tell us what’s going on in your life, is there something we can help with?

Philip takes a moment to remember his parents, both of whom he lost to Covid-19

I used to sit and watch every United game with my dad, we were avid football fans and we’d chat away, so the first time I watched United I put a glass of white wine next to me. That’s what makes it tough sometimes, those chats, those little bits that fill in your week. It’s good to talk it out, you have to do that.

I’m just so pleased that they saw both my daughters get firsts, graduate and be in the jobs they want to be in. They burst with pride about my girls. I’ve tried to do the best to acknowledge them and pay them tribute, and if we can be half the people they were, then we’re doing a good job.

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What the Rest of the World Knows: In Depth

• Photo Essay | Signs of Your Identity
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A visual exploration of the lasting harm of Canada’s residential schools on the Indigenous population.

“Signs of Your Identity,” by Daniella Zalcman, is a visual exploration of the lasting harm of Canada’s residential schools on the Indigenous population. In multiple exposure portraits, Zalcman overlays images of survivors with the memories of their boarding school experiences. The last residential school closed in 1996. The Canadian government issued its first formal apology in 2008. 

Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School

“It was the worst 10 years of my life. I was away from my family from the age of 6 to 16. How do you learn about family? I didn’t know what love was. We weren’t even known by names back then. I was a number.”

“Do you remember your number?”

Leona Liberty

Muskowekwan Indian Residential School

“My mother and her siblings went to school [at Muskowekwan] too. When my mom’s sister was 7 years old, she was pushed down a flight of stairs by a nun and broke her back. She died instantly. All of the kids were terrified that the same thing would happen to them. My mother didn’t tell me her story until 1993, when she was crippled by arthritis and at the end of her life. It finally became clear why she had never been able to care for me—when I was two weeks old, she abandoned me in high grass on our reserve … We all abuse each other this way. It’s what we were taught.”

Rosalie Sewap

Guy Hill Indian Residential School

“We had to pray every day and ask for forgiveness. But forgiveness for what? When I was 7, I started being abused by a priest and a nun. They’d come around after dark with a flashlight and would take away one of the little girls almost every night. … You never really heal from that. I turned into an alcoholic and it’s taken me a long time to escape that. I can’t forgive them. Never.”

Marcel Ellery

Marieval Indian Residential School

“I ran away 27 times. But the RCMP always found us eventually. When I got out, I turned to booze because of the abuse. I drank to suppress what had happened to me, to deal with my anger, to deal with my pain, to forget. Ending up in jail was easy, because I’d already been there.”

Gary Edwards

Ile-a-la-Crosse Indian Residential School (1970-1973)

St. Michael’s Indian Residential School (1974-1976)

Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School (1976-1978)

“I remember after Mass every Monday, the head priest would set a large mason jar on the podium. He and two helpers would lock the church doors, and then put on those 1930s canister gas masks. Then they’d open the mason jars and just watch us. We never knew what was happening, but within a few minutes kids would start vomiting or twitching or foaming at the mouth. Looking back, I don’t know, but I think it was mustard gas.”

Stuart Bitternose

Gordon Indian Residential School

“After I’d had enough of that place, one day I jumped the 8-foot-high fence and I took off down the highway. I found a farm, and I asked if I could work, and I stayed there for two and a half years on a salary of a dollar a day. I told the farmer I’d run away [from residential school], and he said he didn’t care—and if anyone came looking for me he’d chase them off for trespassing. He saved me.”

Winter 2021

What the rest of the world knows.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Where Incarceration Isn’t the Answer
• The 25% Tipping Point
• A Way Out of a Dark Past
• How Norway Built an Economy That Puts People First
• 11 Better Ideas for a Country in Need of Social Change
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• Good Medicine: A Powerful Punch
• Workers Flex for Social Justice
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• The Page That Counts – What the Rest of the World Knows
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• The YES! Crossword: Food Waste
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Photo Essays with Students

Anna Walker-Roberts, Teacher, Science Leadership Academy

The SLA CTE Digital Video program is a 3-year course during which students complete 1080 hours of instructional time in digital filmmaking and cinematography. The 3-year CTE Digital Video curriculum guides students through analyzing film/tv, making short videos on their cell phones, pre-production strategies, editing software, sound design, lighting set-ups, operating a DSLR camera manually, operating Sony ENG and Blackmagic cinema cameras, screenwriting, acting, directing, experiential media, and more. Students work alone, in small groups, and on large teams in projects that happen in class and all over Philadelphia.

We have a mantra in our class: “Filmmaking is problem solving.” When students run out of camera battery on a shoot, lose their files, have an actor quit mid-project, or realize their mic didn’t record, we practice saying this phrase out loud. On the first day of DigVid class I say this and ask that students who aren’t interested in problem solving drop the class. A film never goes completely according to plan. The 2019-2020 school year gave a different meaning to our phrase.

Our school, Science Leadership Academy, moved locations in the summer of 2019, and our new building was not complete before school started. One of the spaces that was still under construction in August of 2019 was the Digital Video classroom. We started the year with all our gear and computers in storage, and we shared a classroom with a history class. The door to the storage closet didn’t open and some of the flooring was missing because of exposed piping.  We had class anyway. Creating a learning environment became problem solving.

Nineteen days into the school year it was discovered that our building was an active asbestos site. The inspector general recently published an in-depth publication about the mismanagement that led to this situation. Our school was displaced for three weeks. We attended stressful town halls and read about our school in the newspaper.  Connecting with each other became problem solving.

We then transitioned to meeting on the first floor of the school district building and the basement of a nearby synagogue. Some classes met in storage spaces that had concrete floors. Carpet dividers separated some classes. The synagogue basement didn’t have wifi. My Digital Video class met in a district computer lab. I rolled some of my equipment down two city blocks on plastic carts so that my students could have some semblance of a normal year. We lived in that computer lab for four months. It felt like living in a hotel. How long would we stay there? Planning for the future was problem solving.

On President’s Day weekend, after significant asbestos abatement, we finally moved back into our building. For the first time that school year the Digital Video program had a space. Parents came to the school over the weekend to help me find my equipment, unpack it, decorate the room, and organize the storage. On February 18 th , students had class in a proper space for the first time that school year. Computers still needed to be set up, storage needed to be labeled. The sound board needed to be found. Coming home was problem solving.

We spent an additional week moving in, updating software, and adjusting to the space, before starting one of our favorite activities of the year, 10 Day Film Challenge. Students jumped into the film challenge excited to make movies with each other, using a lot of our equipment for the first time that year. We wrapped up the last day of the film challenge on March the 13th in the midst of an announcement from Dr. Hite that we would be out of school for two weeks. I elbow-fived my student coordinator and jokingly yelled, “Have a great summer.” Nineteen days in our new space and we were already leaving. I have not seen most of those students in person since that day. Processing that is problem solving.

My priority as a teacher became completely about caring for student well-being rather than continuing my curriculum. Students were babysitting their siblings, working essential jobs, and struggling to access the internet. Their sleep schedules were out of whack. For seniors, the grief about their senior year was overwhelming. We had planned to create an immersive projection art gallery as a class with the theme of “Change.” That gallery will never exist. Realizing that your plans are cancelled is problem solving.

I stepped back from the class, realizing that I couldn’t modify our usual course material for the online format. I asked the questions, “How can this be fun?”, “How can this be simple?”, “How can this address our current moment?” I went back in time. I thought analog instead of digital. I came up with the idea to purchase a disposable camera for each of my senior students so they could capture their experience in the pandemic. I drove each of these cameras to their houses and dropped them off from a distance. The only instruction given to students was to take what they had learned about storytelling over the course of three years and capture their lives during covid. Life is problem solving.

Following are selected photos from the project: 

Articles in this Volume

[tid]: dedication, [tid]: new tools for a new house: transformations for justice and peace in and beyond covid-19, [tid]: black lives matter, intersectionality, and lgbtq rights now, [tid]: the voice of asian american youth: what goes untold, [tid]: beyond words: reimagining education through art and activism, [tid]: voice(s) of a black man, [tid]: embodied learning and community resilience, [tid]: re-imagining professional learning in a time of social isolation: storytelling as a tool for healing and professional growth, [tid]: reckoning: what does it mean to look forward and back together as critical educators, [tid]: leader to leaders: an indigenous school leader’s advice through storytelling about grief and covid-19, [tid]: finding hope, healing and liberation beyond covid-19 within a context of captivity and carcerality, [tid]: flux leadership: leading for justice and peace in & beyond covid-19, [tid]: flux leadership: insights from the (virtual) field, [tid]: hard pivot: compulsory crisis leadership emerges from a space of doubt, [tid]: and how are the children, [tid]: real talk: teaching and leading while bipoc, [tid]: systems of emotional support for educators in crisis, [tid]: listening leadership: the student voices project, [tid]: global engagement, perspective-sharing, & future-seeing in & beyond a global crisis, [tid]: teaching and leadership during covid-19: lessons from lived experiences, [tid]: crisis leadership in independent schools - styles & literacies, [tid]: rituals, routines and relationships: high school athletes and coaches in flux, [tid]: superintendent back-to-school welcome 2020, [tid]: mitigating summer learning loss in philadelphia during covid-19: humble attempts from the field, [tid]: untitled, [tid]: the revolution will not be on linkedin: student activism and neoliberalism, [tid]: why radical self-care cannot wait: strategies for black women leaders now, [tid]: from emergency response to critical transformation: online learning in a time of flux, [tid]: illness methodology for and beyond the covid era, [tid]: surviving black girl magic, the work, and the dissertation, [tid]: cancelled: the old student experience, [tid]: lessons from liberia: integrating theatre for development and youth development in uncertain times, [tid]: designing a more accessible future: learning from covid-19, [tid]: the construct of standards-based education, [tid]: teachers leading teachers to prepare for back to school during covid, [tid]: using empathy to cross the sea of humanity, [tid]: (un)doing college, community, and relationships in the time of coronavirus, [tid]: have we learned nothing, [tid]: choosing growth amidst chaos, [tid]: living freire in pandemic….participatory action research and democratizing knowledge at knowledgedemocracy.org, [tid]: philly students speak: voices of learning in pandemics, [tid]: the power of will: a letter to my descendant, [tid]: photo essays with students, [tid]: unity during a global pandemic: how the fight for racial justice made us unite against two diseases, [tid]: educational changes caused by the pandemic and other related social issues, [tid]: online learning during difficult times, [tid]: fighting crisis: a student perspective, [tid]: the destruction of soil rooted with culture, [tid]: a demand for change, [tid]: education through experience in and beyond the pandemics, [tid]: the pandemic diaries, [tid]: all for one and 4 for $4, [tid]: tiktok activism, [tid]: why digital learning may be the best option for next year, [tid]: my 2020 teen experience, [tid]: living between two pandemics, [tid]: journaling during isolation: the gold standard of coronavirus, [tid]: sailing through uncertainty, [tid]: what i wish my teachers knew, [tid]: youthing in pandemic while black, [tid]: the pain inflicted by indifference, [tid]: education during the pandemic, [tid]: the good, the bad, and the year 2020, [tid]: racism fueled pandemic, [tid]: coronavirus: my experience during the pandemic, [tid]: the desensitization of a doomed generation, [tid]: a philadelphia war-zone, [tid]: the attack of the covid monster, [tid]: back-to-school: covid-19 edition, [tid]: the unexpected war, [tid]: learning outside of the classroom, [tid]: why we should learn about college financial aid in school: a student perspective, [tid]: flying the plane as we go: building the future through a haze, [tid]: my covid experience in the age of technology, [tid]: we, i, and they, [tid]: learning your a, b, cs during a pandemic, [tid]: quarantine: a musical, [tid]: what it’s like being a high school student in 2020, [tid]: everything happens for a reason, [tid]: blacks live matter – a sobering and empowering reality among my peers, [tid]: the mental health of a junior during covid-19 outbreaks, [tid]: a year of change, [tid]: covid-19 and school, [tid]: the virtues and vices of virtual learning, [tid]: college decisions and the year 2020: a virtual rollercoaster, [tid]: quarantine thoughts, [tid]: quarantine through generation z, [tid]: attending online school during a pandemic.

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National Geographic Education Blog

Bring the spirit of exploration to your classroom.

Telling Your Own Stories: 20th Anniversary of National Geographic Photo Camp

This post was written by Heather Chiles, an Engagement and Marketing Strategy staff member at the National Geographic Society .

Photography can be a personal and profound way to explore your community and help your students tell their own stories. In an effort to inspire and empower the next generation, the National Geographic Society is proud to support Photo Camp ––an outreach program that introduces young people around the world to the power of photography and storytelling. 

Each National Geographic Photo Camp is an immersive experience where students receive instruction and guidance from world-class National Geographic Explorers and photographers, build skills and confidence, explore the world around them, and develop deep connections with each other. The goal of the program is to inspire the next generation of storytellers, and support them in sharing their experiences and perspectives.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Photo Camp. To date, more than 3,000 young people have participated in over 145 in-person and virtual Photo Camps in 36 countries.

 To celebrate, we’re showcasing some of our Photo Camp alumni that continued to follow their passions of storytelling and are making an impact. 

Young Explorer Ahmed Badr

Ahmed participated attended a virtual Photo Camp in 2020 and, shortly after, he became a National Geographic Young Explorer. He wrote the book While the Earth Sleeps We Travel to tell the stories of refugee youth around the world. Ahmed’s work combines poetry, archival material, and multimedia to explore the complexities of migration, identity, and self-expression, with a focus on reframing and reclaiming the power of tragedy.

Young Explorer Markus Martinez

Markus is a Photo Camp alumnus who, in 2020, also received a National Geographic Young Explorer grant. He has returned as a team leader and staff at  several Photo Camps to support with peer mentorship. This year, he was one of the National Geographic instructors and coordinated a Photo Camp in Juchitán, Mexico.

His current work with Indigenous Sustainable Development (INDIS) involves a participatory storytelling project to empower youth from the Mokox Indigenous Nation of Lomerio, Bolivia, to protect their forest home. Through visual storytelling, youth can reconnect with their cultural and natural environment and, in doing so, help conserve them.

Young Explorer Te Aho Jordan 

Te Aho participated in the Photo Camp Tōku Mauri series in New Zealand as both a student in 2019 and as a team leader earlier this year. They are a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Aotearoa Youth Leader . 

Jordan acknowledges diverse stories in marginalized communities through the amplification of Indigenous voices in their visual storytelling. Jordan’s contributions to youth development have been acknowledged by the Y25 Collective, a network of young women and non-binary people leading change in their communities on a local, national, and international level.

A changemaker is somebody who acts on the desire to break everything apart and build something new from the pieces. I believe that we must challenge and question everything because generating change requires us to stop doing things how they’ve also been done. It means to venture into unfamiliar territory with the lessons of our ancestors to guide us and hope for our descendants to drive us through Te Aho Jordan 

MORE TO EXPLORE: RESOURCES FOR YOUR CLASSROOM

As we reflect on the past 20 years, photography has changed considerably since the first Photo Camp. Technological advances have allowed photographers to create clear photos from all over the world, from the night sky and stars shining light years away all the way down to the depths of the Mariana Trench.

Now, you can motivate and inspire your students to tell their own stories. Ready to get started? Learn how to create digital content using photography, videography, audio, and graphic design with the Storytelling for Impact Collection – a set of free, instructional video tutorials designed for students and educators.  

Then, explore more with this collection of powerful photo essays from the 2020 Virtual Photo Camp that showcase the importance of resilience, hope, and determination for storytelling. 

Don’t forget to stay connected online! The Photo Camp Instagram regularly features the work of Photo Camp students and alumni. We can’t wait to see what stories you and your students tell next.

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South Seattle Emerald

PHOTO ESSAY: Best of 2020 — Emerald Photographers Pick Their Favorites

The South Seattle Emerald asked our photojournalists to pick some of their favorite 2020 photos shot for Emerald stories. From protests to pandemic responses to celebrations-despite-it-all, the images show not only a difficult year but also one filled with resilience, strength, and solidarity. We are proud to call South Seattle our home and grateful to our talented photographers for helping us capture our community’s special histor y.

Chloe Collyer

Chloe Collyer (they/them) is a documentarian, a photographer, and a fifth-generation Seattleite who divides time between working as a photojournalist and teaching photography to kids. Chloe is currently working on a personal project reporting on youth activism in the Seattle area. You can view their work at http://www.chloecollyer.com .

Susan Fried

Susan Fried has been a photographer for over 40 years. In addition to the weddings, portraits, and some commercial work she did early in her career, she has been The Skanner News ’ Seattle photographer for almost 25 years. Her images have also appeared in a variety of other publications including the Anchorage Times and Anchorage Daily News , University of Washington’s The Daily , The Seattle Globalist , Crosscut , and of course the South Seattle Emerald .  She has been contributing articles and photographs to the Emerald for the last five years. Follow her on Instagram @fried.susan .

Maile Anderson

Photography has been a hobby of Maile Anderson’s ever since she was 12. Maile has had the immense privilege of traveling to amazing places in the world with a camera right beside her. She believes documenting the changing world, whether it’s been in the form of protests or other cultures, is an important form of documentation that keeps awareness heightened in this time of social justice. Follow Maile on Instagram @tinypicturetaker .

Alex Garland

Alex Garland is a freelance photographer, reporter, and writer, with recent work featured with The Guardian and a frequent contributor to the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog (CHS), and the South Seattle Emerald . Alex started his journalism career in Seattle during the 2011 Occupy protests and has covered almost every major protest and activist movement in the city since. Published internationally, Alex enjoys working around the world, but calls Seattle home and cares deeply about the subjects he photographs and is grateful for the people and experiences he’s met along the way. Providing accurate information for the people of Seattle to determine their own opinions is vital, and Alex appreciates the trust his viewers and readers place in him to find the light. Follow his work at http://www.alexgarlandphotography.com and  http://www.thedignityvirus.com .

Featured image: Rapper Skye Dior (Photo: Chloe Collyer) 

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Amplifying the Authentic Narratives of South Seattle

Photography

A Coal Miner’s Legacy

By Willis Bretz | 2023-10-16T10:21:16-04:00 October 11, 2023 | Photos |

Touring the area my grandmother grew up, only a few hints of the coal mining history remain. 

The Last of Cleveland’s ArtCraft Building

By Matthew Chasney | 2023-03-25T09:30:22-04:00 March 20, 2023 | Cleveland , Ohio , Photos |

It wasn’t the sale of the building that came as a shock - it was the buyer that caught the Cleveland art community off guard.

East Palestine – A Portrait

By Matthew Chasney | 2023-03-04T08:30:03-05:00 February 27, 2023 | Ohio , Photos |

To Breathe Again: Living Along Sulphur Run

The Nature of Chicago Music

By Stuti Sharma | 2023-01-02T08:47:19-05:00 December 28, 2022 | Arts & Culture , Chicago , Music , Photos |

Music and nature are two core places where people report to experiencing and channeling the divine.

The Relics of Morton Grove, Illinois

By Chris Iovenko | 2022-12-24T11:39:08-05:00 December 19, 2022 | Photos |

All Saints Parish has a special status within the Catholic church because of the massive collection of relics that adorn its walls, vestibules, and nooks.

Starstruck: An American Tale

By Shimon Attie | 2022-11-21T09:39:40-05:00 November 16, 2022 | Photos |

A cut through the layers of America past and present in the historic steel town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

End of Summer at Detroit’s Love Isle

By Amy Sacka | 2022-09-11T10:14:49-04:00 September 5, 2022 | Detroit , Photos |

A photo essay of young love on Detroit’s Belle Isle  By Amy Sacka  Early on [...]

Snapshots of the Addiction Crisis in Illinois

By Aryana Noroozi | 2022-05-13T11:43:25-04:00 May 13, 2022 | Features , Photos |

Documenting one family's experience.

Corner Stores of Akron

By Chris Harvey | 2022-05-17T10:48:54-04:00 May 5, 2022 | Features , Photos |

A visual ode to these anchors of neighborhood life.

Gary’s Gold Coast

By Josh Lipnik | 2022-05-04T17:48:39-04:00 February 18, 2022 | Features , Photos |

This historic apartment district in Gary, Indiana is a museum of architectural styles.

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• Give to JMU

Photojournalism Course Documenting COVID-19

At the end of the semester, SMAD’s photojournalism course usually culminates with each student producing a final portfolio that covers a range of assignments that they would encounter as professional journalists, from sports, to public meetings to portrait shots. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic JMU’s classes moved online and all of the assigned events the students were scheduled to photograph were canceled.

As a way to adapt and change the curriculum for the online environment SMAD’s photojournalism students were tasked with the project of producing a photo essay documenting some aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the cancellation of in-person classes the students have been working on their photo essays while quarantined at home with family or roommates.

A photo essay addresses a topic or story through photographs where a viewer sees how a photojournalist conveys a message. Typically, these stories focus on the lives of others, but under stay-at-home orders and to prevent any unnecessary health risks, students were permitted to document their own experiences.

Each student submitted six photos along with a layout of their photo essay in a newspaper page format. A short paragraph helps to set the scene for the viewer and captions provide further detail for each photo. From photographing self-isolation within off-campus housing to documenting the changing landscapes of hometowns to taking a look into why students decided to stay in Harrisonburg, yielding a range of topics both unique and insightful.

These photos and stories will become a visual record of this global pandemic and give viewers a chance to see how a group of JMU juniors and seniors have adapted, adjusted and achieved a meaningful end to a surreal semester.

See student work listed below:

Alexis Caravas

Caroline Plashal

Celina Wickham  

Cole Richardson

Dylan Bernetich

Eleftheria Giannopoulos

Hayley Peterson

Jordan Vonderharr

Kalin Morris Cartagena 

Kendall Herlica

Lauren Deroco

Mason Turner

Natalia Seth

Robert Grady

Tanya Faktes

Tristan Lorei

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Published: Monday, May 11, 2020

Last Updated: Thursday, November 2, 2023

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Opinion Guest Essay

An Idyll on the Shores of a Toxic Lake

Supported by

Text by Jaime Lowe

Photographs by Nicholas Albrecht

Ms. Lowe is the author of, most recently, “Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires.” Mr. Albrecht is a photographer based in Oakland, Calif.

• March 29, 2024

There are two ways to experience the town of Bombay Beach, Calif., as a visitor: gawk at the spectacle or fall into the vortex. Thousands of tourists cruise through each year, often without getting out of their cars, to see decaying art installations left over from an annual mid-March gathering of artists, photographers and documentarians known jokingly as the Bombay Beach Biennale. When I went to the town for the first time in 2021, I was looking for salvation in this weird desert town on the Salton Sea south of Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park. I dropped in, felt vibes and left with stories. I stared at the eccentric large-scale art, posted photos on Instagram of ruin porn and a hot pink sign on the beach that said, “If you’re stuck, call Kim.” I posed in front of a mountain of painted televisions, swung on a swing over the edge of the lake’s retreating shoreline and explored the half-buried, rusted-out cars that make up an abandoned ersatz drive-in movie theater. On that trip, it felt as if I were inside a “Mad Max” simulation, but I was only scratching the surface of the town.

I returned in December to try to understand why Bombay Beach remains so compelling, especially as extreme weather — heat, hurricanes and drought — and pollution wreak ever more intense havoc on it. Summer temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit, tremors from the San Andreas Fault strike regularly, bomb testing from nearby military facilities can be heard and felt, and the air is so toxic from pesticide use, exhaust fumes, factory emissions and dust rising from the retreating Salton Sea that one study showed asthma rates among children in the region are three times the national average. By the end of the decade, the Salton Sea, California’s largest inland body of water, at about 325 square miles, may lose three-quarters of its volume; in the past 20 years, the sea’s surface area has shrunk about 38 square miles .

But people who live in Bombay Beach stay because the town offers a tight-knit community in the midst of catastrophe. Though its residents contend with environmental adversity on a daily basis, they’re also demonstrating how to navigate the uncertain future we all face — neglect, the fight for scarce resources, destruction of home, the feeling of having no place to go. They are an example of how people can survive wild climate frontiers together.

The 250 or so town residents live in the low desert on the east shore of the Salton Sea, which formed in 1905 when the then-flush Colorado River spilled into a depression, creating a freshwater lake that became increasingly saline. There used to be fish — mullet and carp, then tilapia. In the 1950s and ’60s, the area was marketed as a tourist destination and was advertised as Palm Springs by the Sea. More tourists visited Bombay Beach than Yosemite. There were yacht clubs, boat races and water skiing. It became a celebrity magnet: Frank Sinatra hung out there; so did the Beach Boys and Sonny and Cher.

Eventually, as agricultural runoff kept accumulating in a body of water with no drainage, it became toxic and created a lake with salinity that is now 50 percent greater than that of the ocean. In the 1980s, dead fish washed up on the sand, car ruins rusted in the sun, tires rotted on the shore. Tourism vanished. But some in the community hung on. One way to define Bombay Beach is through environmental disaster, but another way is as an example of how to live through disaster and how to live in general.

Candace Youngberg, a town council member and a bartender at the Ski Inn, remembers a very different Bombay Beach. When she was growing up in the 1980s, she’d ride bikes with neighborhood children and run from yard to yard in a pack because there were no fences. But over time, the town changed. With each passing year, she watched necessities disappear. Now there’s no gas station, no laundromat, no hardware store. Fresh produce is hard to come by. A trailer that was devoted to medical care shut down. In 2021, 60.9 percent of Bombay Beach residents lived below the poverty line, compared with the national average of 12.6 percent.

As painful as it was to witness the town of her youth disappear and as deep as the problems there go, Ms. Youngberg admits that adversity bonded those who stayed. She wanted to return Bombay Beach to the version of the town she remembered, to recreate a beautiful place to live year-round, not just in winter, not just during the art season, not just for the tourists posing in front of wreckage. She wanted people to see the homes, the town, the community that once thrived thrive again. With the art came attention and the potential for more resources. She got on the Bombay Beach Community Services District, a town council, and started to work toward improvements like fixing the roads and planting trees to improve air quality.

It might just be that Bombay Beach is a small town, but when I visited last winter, there was something that felt more collaborative, as though everybody’s lives and business and projects overlapped. I’m not sure the community that’s there now started out as intentional, but when fragmented groups of people come together as custodians of an enigmatic space, responsible for protecting it and one another, community is inevitable. Plus, there’s only one place to socialize, one place to gossip, one place to dance out anxiety and only about two-thirds of a square mile to wander. Whether you like it or not, your neighbors are your people — a town in its purest form.

When I was there, I walked the streets with Denia Nealy, an artist who goes by Czar, and my friend Brenda Ann Kenneally, a photographer and writer, who would shout names, and people would instantly emerge. A stranger offered a handful of Tater Tots to Czar and me in a gesture that felt emblematic: Of course a complete stranger on an electric unicycle would cruise by and share nourishment. I was given a butterfly on a stick, which I carried around like a magic wand because that seemed appropriate and necessary. I was told that if I saw a screaming woman walking down the street with a shiv in her hand, not to worry and not to make eye contact and she’d leave me alone; it was just Stabby. There was talk of the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on the beach, the weekly church sermon led by Jack the preacher (who is also a plumber), a potluck lasagna gathering.

Last year Ms. Kenneally created a trash fashion show/photo series for the Biennale in which she created couture designs out of trash collected from the beach, enlisted regulars in town to model the outfits, then photographed them. (She exhibited a similar series at this year’s festival as well.) The work was a way to showcase the people and the place. Jonathan Hart, a fireworks specialist who slept on the beach, posed like a gladiator; a woman who normally rode through town with a stuffed Kermit the Frog toy strapped to her bike was wrapped in a clear tarp and crown, looking like royalty emerging from the Salton Sea. The environment was harsh, the poses striking. Each frame straddled the line between glamour and destruction but also showcased a community’s pride in survival. Residents were undaunted by the armor of refuse; in fact, it made them stronger. The detritus, what outsiders might think of as garbage, became gorgeous. The landscape that is often described as apocalyptic became ethereal and magical. And that’s because it is.

On my second day, we went down to the docks at noon, and I found myself sitting on a floral mustard couch watching half a dozen or so people taking turns riding Jet Skis into the sun. The sun was hot, even though it was the cool season. Time felt elastic. Mr. Hart told me that he and some friends had fixed up the water scooters to give everyone in town the chance to blow off some steam, to smile a little. It had been a rough couple of months in the region. In preparation for Hurricane Hilary, which hit Mexico and the southwestern United States last August, 26 volunteers made 200 sandbags and delivered them door to door. Neighbors helped secure as many structures as possible.

Most media outlets reported that the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm because that’s the weather system that hit Los Angeles, but it was close to a hurricane in Bombay Beach, with winds hitting 60 miles per hour, and most properties were surrounded by water. Roofs collapsed or blew away entirely. “When faced with something like that, they were like, ‘Boom, we’re on it,’” Ms. Youngberg told me. They were together in disaster and in celebrating survival.

It reminded me of the writer Rebecca Solnit’s book “A Paradise Built in Hell,” which considers the upside to catastrophe. She finds that people rise to the occasion and oftentimes do it with joy because disaster and survival leave a wake of purposefulness, consequential work and community. Disasters require radical acts of imagination and interaction. It seemed that because Bombay Beach lived hard, surviving climate catastrophes like extreme weather on top of everyday extremes, it celebrated even harder. It seemed that in Bombay Beach there’s enough to celebrate if you just get through the day, gaze at the night sky and do it all again in the morning.

A lot of the residents who live there now arrived with trauma. Living there is its own trauma. But somehow the combination creates a place of care and physical and emotional presence. People experience life intensely, as one. It’s a town that is isolated, but in spite of a loneliness epidemic, it doesn’t seem so lonely to be there. I felt unexpected joy in what, from everything I’d read from afar, was a place that might as well have been sinking into the earth. I felt so safe and so happy that if we had sunk into the earth together, it wouldn’t have felt like such a bad way to go.

On my last night in Bombay Beach, I went to the Ski Inn, a bar that serves as the center of all social activity. I’d been in town for only two days, and yet it felt as if I’d been to the Ski Inn a million times, as if I already knew everyone and they knew me. A band was playing, we danced and drank, and I forgot about the 8 p.m. kitchen cutoff. The chef apologized, but he’d been working since 11:45 a.m. and had already cleaned the grill and fryer. He’d saved one mac and cheese for the bartender, and when she heard I hadn’t eaten, she offered to split it with me, not wanting me to go hungry or leave without having tried the mac and cheese.

Bombay Beach is a weird place. And this was an especially weird feeling. I had been instantly welcomed into the fold of community and cared for, even though I was a stranger in a very strange land.

I realized I didn’t want to leave. There were lessons there — how to live with joy and purpose in the face of certain catastrophe, how to exist in the present without the ever presence of doom. Next time, I thought, I’d stay longer, maybe forever, and actually ride a Jet Ski.

Jaime Lowe is a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan and the author of, most recently, “Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires.” Nicholas Albrecht is a photographer based in Oakland, Calif. His first monograph, “One, No One and One Hundred Thousand,” was the culmination of a multiyear project made while living on the shores of the Salton Sea.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Trans Day of Visibility began 15 years ago. The founder is still moved by its success

Juliana Kim

Jonathan Franklin

Rachel Crandall-Crocker is a psychotherapist and the executive director of the advocacy group Transgender Michigan. She also runs the Transgender Michigan help line. Transgender Michigan hide caption

Rachel Crandall-Crocker is a psychotherapist and the executive director of the advocacy group Transgender Michigan. She also runs the Transgender Michigan help line.

This Sunday, people from Kosovo to the Netherlands to the U.S. are organizing events to celebrate the transgender and nonbinary community — marking the 15th year of International Transgender Visibility Day.

Its founder, Rachel Crandall-Crocker, a psychotherapist and the executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Transgender Michigan, still can't believe it.

"It really is amazing how far it has come," she told NPR. "I wasn't expecting to start an international movement."

More than 1.6 million people in the U.S. identify as transgender, according to a 2022 study from the Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA's law school.

3 generations of trans Americans reflect on what has (and hasn't) changed

This weekend's celebrations come as trans people's rights have become increasingly restricted across the U.S. in recent years. Several states have passed bills restricting or banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, and there's also been a wave of legislation against trans athletes and drag queen performers.

A day to prioritize joy with community

In 2009, Crandall-Crocker wanted a reason to come together and feel joy with other members of the trans community.

At the time, the only holiday she knew of geared toward trans people was Transgender Day of Remembrance, on Nov. 20, dedicated to honoring the lives lost to anti-transgender violence.

Consider This from NPR

How two recent cases of violence illustrate the lives of lgbtq people.

"I wanted a day that we could focus on the living," Crandall-Crocker said. "And where we could have rallies all as one community all the way around the world."

That idea turned into International Transgender Day of Visibility, which falls on March 31 every year. Crandall-Crocker said she chose the springtime date because she wanted some distance from Transgender Day of Remembrance as well as Pride Month, which is in June.

In the first year, groups in only a handful of cities in the U.S. celebrated. But Crandall-Crocker, with the help of Susan Crocker, her wife and Transgender Michigan's operations director, continued to raise awareness about the day and its purpose.

A Florida activist creates safe spaces as laws and rhetoric turn against trans rights

Trans advocates from around the world caught on, launching rallies, block parties and festivals rooted in trans joy. In recent years, the U.S. government has recognized International Transgender Day of Visibility, and skyscrapers across the country have lit up with the colors of the transgender flag — light pink, light blue and white.

Crandall-Crocker, who has Tourette syndrome, said organizing International Transgender Day of Visibility taught her an invaluable lesson: "You do not have to perfect to change the world."

The Vatican says priests can baptize transgender people

"I have a disability," she added. "However, I changed the world. You don't have to be perfect. Come and change it along with me."

A Tour Through Solar Eclipses of the Past

• Alan Taylor
• April 2, 2024

As much of North America prepares for the upcoming total solar eclipse next week, I thought it would be fun to share some images from the recent (and not-so-recent) past of previous eclipses—annular, partial, and total—from around the world. Also pictured are some of the many observers sharing this fleeting experience, “ witnessing the planetary version of a lightning strike ,” together in stadiums, parks, and beaches.

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Young people watch the rare sight of a partial solar eclipse at sunset, as seen from Manila Bay, Philippines, on January 26, 2009. #

On April 8, 1921, people gaze upward to view a partial solar eclipse in Paris. #

A total solar eclipse, seen above Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway, on March 20, 2015 #

People watch the solar eclipse at Saluki Stadium on the campus of Southern Illinois University on August 21, 2017, in Carbondale, Illinois. #

This photograph taken on October 25, 2022, shows a view of a partial solar eclipse visible behind a bird on a tree in Istanbul. #

As the moon crossed between the Sun and Earth during the annular eclipse on October 14, 2023, its shadow darkened skies across North America, as seen from an orbiting NASA satellite. #

People take photos with their smartphones as they watch an annular solar eclipse on Jabal Arba in Al Hufuf, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, on December 26, 2019. #

On August 21, 2017, Shenandoah National Park hosted the Night Sky Festival to watch as a partial solar eclipse was visible overhead. #

The "ring of fire" effect caused during the annular eclipse of the sun over Albuquerque, New Mexico, on October 14, 2023 #

Students of the Jennings School District view a solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, in St. Louis. #

A partial solar eclipse is seen behind the centuries-old Raghunath Hindu temple in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, on October 25, 2022. #

The sun rises next to the Statue of Liberty during an annular eclipse on June 10, 2021, in New York City. #

Crescent-shaped shadows are pictured on a sidewalk as light passes through tree leaves during a partial solar eclipse in Oklahoma City on August 21, 2017. #

A woman observes an annular solar eclipse at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, in Mexico City, on October 14, 2023. #

The sun's corona becomes visible during a total solar eclipse. #

Friends watch an eclipse together on a Menan Butte in Menan, Idaho, on August 21, 2017. #

A partial solar eclipse is seen above Manama, Bahrain, on December 26, 2019. #

Visitors to Shenandoah National Park look at images of the eclipsed sun seen through the holes of a colander on August 21, 2017. The tiny holes behave like pinhole lenses, showing the outline of the eclipsed sun on the ground. #

Spectators line the beach to view a total solar eclipse on November 14, 2012, in Palm Cove, Australia. #

The International Space Station is seen in silhouette as it transits the sun at roughly five miles a second during a partial solar eclipse, viewed from Ross Lake, Northern Cascades National Park, Washington, on August 21, 2017. #

People watch a total solar eclipse at Yonsei University in Seoul, on July 22, 2009. #

A view of the total solar eclipse from a commercial flight, seen while overflying La Serena, Chile, on July 2, 2019. #

The moon passes in front of the sun during a partial solar eclipse, as seen over Manila Bay, Philippines, on January 26, 2009. #

The enthusiasts Tanner Person ( right ) and Josh Bliek, both from Vacaville, California, watch a total solar eclipse while standing atop Carroll Rim Trail at Painted Hills, a unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, near Mitchell, Oregon, on August 21, 2017. #

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected].

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‘the walking dead: dead city’ adds kim coates to season 2, ‘ncis,’ ‘shameless’ actor nolan freeman arrested for allegedly storming the capitol on january 6.

By Tom Tapp

Deputy Managing Editor

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Yet another actor has been arrested on charges related to the January 6 , 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Nolan Freeman, who had bit parts on shows such as NCIS , The Rookie , Animal Kingdom , Days of Our Lives and Shameless , allegedly crawled through a broken window into the U.S. Capitol as the 2020 election was being certified inside. The FBI Statement of Fact in the case provides a surveillance camera still of what is says is Freeman, wearing a red hat and hoodie and a black jacket, at that very moment.

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Freeman allegedly entering the U.S. Capitol on January 6 (FBI)

Freeman allegedly inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 6 (FBI)

The document states that an investigation indicated that American Airlines records show the Nevada-based Freeman had a ticket to Washington, D.C. for January 4, returning on January 8. Cell records indicate his mobile phone was inside the Capitol during the time alleged. The document also states that, in an interview with FBI agents in June of last year, Freeman confirmed his cell number before requesting to speak with a lawyer when asked if he was inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6. He was reportedly arrested on March 19.

In June 2023 Bob’s Burgers voice actor Jay Johnston — who voiced Jimmy Pesto in dozens of episodes of the Fox animated series and also worked on Mr. Show with Bob and David ,  Better Call Saul  and  The Sarah Silverman Program — was arrested for or taking part in a “group assault,” according to other court documents, Johnston has been charged with obstruction of law enforcement performing their duties as well as misdemeanors of entering a restricted area and hampering the conduct of government business. Johnston had already been let go from the show.

Taylor pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — a federal felony — and testified against at least one of his co-defendants, according to reports.

According to Department of Justice figures released earlier this month , more than 1,358   defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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2024 White House Easter Egg Roll in photos