A Year Like No Other: The Year In Pictures 2020, The New York Times
Author: Dean Baquet, executive editor
“A Year Like No Other: 2020 in Pictures.” Edited by Dean Baquet The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2020, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/year-in-pictures.html.
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Certain years are so eventful they are regarded as pivotal in history, years when wars and slavery ended and deep generational fissures burst into the open — 1865, 1945 and 1968 among them. The year 2020 will certainly join this list. It will long be remembered and studied as a time when more than 1.5 million people globally died during a pandemic, racial unrest gripped the world, and democracy itself faced extraordinary tests.
The photographs in this collection capture those historic 12 months. Jeffrey Henson Scales, who edited The Year in Pictures with David Furst, said he had never felt such sweep and emotion from a single year’s images — from the “joy and optimism” of a New Year’s Eve kiss in Times Square, to angry crowds on the streets of Hong Kong and in American cities, to scenes of painful debates over race and policing, to the “seemingly countless graves and coffins across the globe.”
The impeachment of an American president culminated in early 2020. But two pictures taken in late January in Wuhan, China, are hints of a larger cataclysm to come. In one aerial shot, construction workers are building a giant hospital virtually overnight to handle hundreds of patients stricken with the coronavirus. The other looks like a still from a sci-fi film: A man dressed in black, wearing a white mask, lies dead on a city street; two emergency workers have stepped away from him and gaze at the viewer — all but their eyes hidden by face coverings and ghostly white protective suits.
Then the virus swept the world, recorded in indelible images. The scenes of people comforting beloved family members through glass and cellphones are heartbreaking. Some of the most haunting images are of emptiness. Still cities. Vacant streets of London and the Place de la Concorde. A desolate Munich subway station. Among the most disturbing is a photo of a refrigerated trailer set up as a makeshift morgue in Greenwich Village.
I agree with you about this statement. There were many times that I wished that I could have been with my family, but due to the virus, I could not.
I agree with you on families not being able to see each other. I have not seen my aunt, uncle, or one of my little cousins because he has cystic fibrosis. My older cousin works so he is living with my grandparents because if my younger cousin gets covid he would not make it through it. This is really making a toll on my aunt and uncle with not being out. These times really make families separate a lot.
Henry you could not be more correct I have seen people not wearing masks and not caring about anyone but themselves. I am sure you have heard of the term karen and those types of people have been all over the place this year causing trouble when it is not needed
This is actually very horrible. Very creative but terrible as that shouldn’t be something that happens.
Punctuating these scenes are photographs of a tumultuous American election that even without the ravages of the virus would end up looming large in history books. As the year progresses, fueled by police shootings of young Black men, powerfully symbolic pictures of protests begin appearing. In May, a lone demonstrator carries an upside-down American flag past a burning liquor store in Minneapolis, in protest of the killing of George Floyd.
In 2020, a year when all aspects of life seemed transformed, so was the process of making these photographs. Journalists are observers, not participants, but the most striking sense to emerge from interviews with the photographers who took these pictures — described by Mr. Henson Scales as the most diverse group in his more than a decade curating this annual compilation — was how much they too lived what they witnessed. No one could escape the virus and vitalness of 2020. It gave photographers fresh perspective. And they gave us unforgettable images from a historic year in our lives.
January
When the author, Dean Baquet, names each month, the reader is given an exaggerated sense of disaster. We are reminded of the extent of disasters that happened around the world this previous year.
As mentioned in the comment made on this piece, “When the author, Dean Baquet, names each month, the reader is given an exaggerated sense of disaster.” The word disaster presented in this quote represents what the world has gone through in the past year. 2020 was a year of unfortunate events that will go down in history as something that has made an impression on people all around the world.
In Times Square, an ebullient start to the year that would bring a pandemic, a recession and a race for a vaccine to restore normal life.
Calla Kessler/The New York Times
This reminds me of a simpler, more free time in which we could gather without the fear of someone getting a disease and possibly dying. It’s all too weird in how long it has been since I have seen a gathering like this.
This picture captures a moment in which everyone is happy and excited for a new year with little idea of what is to come. It puts things into perspective and the fact that the future is unknown and we must live in the moment as everything can change in a short amount of time.
Daisy, I agree with your comment. I think the part of how excited the people are and not knowing what will happen is important. At that time, people celebrating the new year were unaware of the future. Things can and did change very quickly. This shows that life should be valued and enjoyed in each moment.
At the beginning of each year if the following year didn’t go as planned for someone, they typically say this year is going to be my year. Well in this case 2020 started out that way but instantly went downhill for there. To look at this photo and to see smiling faces, people in large crowds, and celebrating seems like a scene from a movie. It is hard to remember when life was “normal” and hard to know when and if it will ever return to “normal.”
It is interesting seeing how vast the difference is between ringing in the year of 2020 and just several days ago that of 2021. So much has changed: there was no widespread celebration in Times Square, all people who were able to be in Times Square wore masks and celebrated differently, and typically a New Year is rung in as there is excitement for a New Year, yet this year while that excitement still holds true, 2021 was rung in more so as a celebration of the good riddance of 2020.
I was having similar thoughts when I saw this photo but also everyone who just living in the moment and having a good time.
This looks so strange when it is compared to the New Year Celebration for 2021. People were actually happy! It feels completely different now. Although I was practically socially distancing myself even before the pandemic, It is sad to wonder if things will be back to normal… Of course things will get better eventually; I still have hope that we can fix all the problems 2020 has given us. Solve them one at a time, and, with patience and persistence, we can make the world better than it was even before 2020’s problems! I know this because even though people have lost so much, they are STILL working toward making things right. After all, gravity can only pull you so far down.
for many people,2020 brought them problems they never wanted. The new year is here now and that brings some relief to us, but hat does not mean the problems will go away.
“Everyone was so hopeful and excited making proclamations that 2020 was going to be their year. It just seems like a horrible joke now. It seemed like we were ringing in a very special year, and we were, but wow.” — Calla Kessler
After weeks of relative calm, pro-democracy protesters took to the streets, resuming mass demonstrations that had begun the previous June.
Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
It’s interesting to notice how I immediately respond when I see images of large crowds now that they seem to only be something of the past. Whenever I see a movie, TV show, or picture like this of so many people together, there’s an automatic panic that the pandemic has ingrained in so many of us. It’s hard to grasp at times that this was once our normal, that at one time we never would have imagined having a second thought about seeing something like this.
Nicolette, I agree with you. A crowd of people, or even joining together with loved ones has become something of the past. Who would have thought we would recollect our memories of the time there was a crowded event, such as basketball game, or the New Years Eve gathering in New York City. The panic is definitely there, and I hope one day that is able to go away. It is often difficult to wrap our heads around what used to be “normal” and how we may have taken that for granted. Or to even be able to shake the feeling of having a mask covering our mouths and noses everywhere we go, like it is something we cannot live without…
In our lovely United States of America, a lot of people like to say that democracy does not work, or it’s failing. These people, that live in a communist country ruled by a selfish, corrupt ruler are fighting for their independence. They want to fight for their ideology of government, democracy.
I have little desire to be in a crowd this size again anytime soon.
and the BLM movement. Here in China, these rioters are fighting for democracy. We can see in this picture just one of the many thing that will be remembered in the history books from this historic year.
Thank you Carter for your comments. The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong has been a really important story so thank you for highlighting it … it is also a story that continues a year later with yesterdays arrest of a number of organizers and leaders of the movement.
In terms of language, I tend to not use the term “rioters” to describe these people/leaders unless they are actually rioting. What I have seen in the news about Hong Kong is more like what I see people doing in this photo, ie. coming together and demonstrating about something they care about; so maybe I’d call them organizers, demonstrators, activists, or something. In the US, I talk about the BLM Uprisings.
Are you based in China?
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. prayed at the Corinthian Baptist Church during his presidential campaign, in which he promised to restore the “soul of America.”
Brittainy Newman/The New York Times
This trip to Iowa was Brittainy Newman’s first time on the campaign trail, and this image came from one of her last opportunities to photograph anyone in such close quarters this year.
“They were praying for him on his journey, on this trail he’s going on, and for him to become president and wishing the world would get someone new,” she said. “Everyone was trying desperately to believe. Even Biden’s face — he’s staring right at Clara Jones. He was just staring at her, and her hands — they never let go. They just kept saying ‘Amen, amen.’ You could feel it. It was like a crescendo building up. Everyone at the end had goosebumps.”
The Dakar Rally, an annual off-road endurance event that has been held in dozens of countries, was hosted in 2020 by the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
Bernat Armangue/Associated Press
Supporters of Nicolás Maduro tried blocking the re-election of Juan Guaidó as leader of the National Assembly.
Since 2019, both men have claimed to be Venezuela’s rightful president.
Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
Fidaa Zaidan performing in “Grey Rock,” a play about a Palestinian man who decides to build a rocket to the moon.
Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times
A dehydrated and underfed wild horse was on the verge of collapse as Australia battled one of the worst wildfire seasons in its history.
Matthew Abbott for The New York Times
Thank you for this, Owen. The insight into the horse you mentioned caught my eye. In the picture, the horse struggles physically, which is apparent to the naked eye. I would compare the horse to humanity itself, struggling through a dark, dull woods trying to find a light, just as us humans are trying to find a light in this world.
I do not know how others view the past, or how the presence of time shakes and moves them as it passes, but for me the fires seem a life time away. When Australia was set ablaze, the virus was a whisper that was not something to stress about. At that point the fire was something I thought about constantly, then covid went from a measly whisper to an ear piercing shriek and the thought of the fires dissolved. I do not believe I have heard anything about how Australia is healing or the aftermath. When was the last time you saw the media cover the Australia wildfires?
climate change as much as other topics.
“Once a fire goes through, things are just so quiet. You don’t realize all the bugs, all the birds, all the little beings make these noises. It’s just so disconcerting to be walking through this destroyed forest and have complete silence.” — Matthew Abbott
President Trump at a “Keep America Great” rally, two days before the official start of his impeachment trial for charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Aside from the democratic and republican political point of view, I feel that we should observe the meaning behind the phrase “Keep America Great”. Yes, everyday things are changing around us. This is inevitable, change is coming our way whether we agree or disagree with what is to come. How can we keep America running smooth, or keep this a great place to be? How can we help our neighbors out? Or just make sure everyone is doing okay during this uncertain time. I believe anything could help and this is something we as citizens should be more mindful of, even if it is just a simple gesture sometimes.
Keep America Great. An action we should all be determined to carry out despite one’s political views. As a country we should come together as one and overcome the adversity we face. The disheartening reality of it all is that it has taken an attack like 9/11 to unite our country, so what will it take to make us whole again. As a country we have allowed our political views, and opinions in general tear us apart.
Eric Fisher of the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Chiefs’ 35-24 victory over the Tennessee Titans in the A.F.C. championship game sent the Chiefs to Super Bowl LIV, which they went on to win.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Sports are dangerous because of the spread of Covid, but overall they take our minds off of everything going on and are fun to participate in even if life is difficult.
After years of conflict, Libyan factions edged briefly toward a cease-fire, but this street in Benghazi best told the story of life in the exhausted country.
Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
In 2020, I feel as if many of us have lost our light or spark, causing many of us to be dark and gloomy like the streets of Benghazi. Waiting and hoping for more light in 2021.
Ivor Prickett traveled to Benghazi in Libya, from where he had reported years earlier, after being granted the rare permission to photograph the eastern part of the country.
“It was basically unrecognizable,” Mr. Prickett said after his chance to get a look at a part of the nation that had been largely cut off to foreigners for years. “I couldn’t really figure out what was where. It did come back to me, but it was one of the most heavily destroyed scenes I’ve seen in years, and that’s saying a lot because I’ve been in Mosul and Raqqa.”
Officials in Benghazi kept steering Mr. Prickett away from the old, colonial part of the city. He found a way to sneak in with the help of friends, and eventually persuaded officials to let him work there.
“At night it was particularly poignant, because there was no electricity and would just be lit by lights of cars,” he said. “There were people living amongst the ruins. It was really evocative and spooky. And I was walking around and saw one of the most heavily destroyed streets and saw this one light probably as far as the eye could see across three or four blocks on the second or third floor of an apartment block. It looked so out of place in this completely gutted building.
“I was waiting for a car to come down the street to light the buildings with a slow exposure, then just by chance this cat walked across in front of the car, and that was the picture. I had the car and the cat, and I knew I had the picture and just packed up and went home.”
During President Vladimir V. Putin’s state of the nation speech, displayed on a facade, he called for constitutional changes that would allow him to hold power past 2024.
Anton Vaganov/Reuters
It is little secret that Vladimir Putin and his cronies are some of the most ubiquitously anti-democratic forces at work in the world today. But this most recent power grab is a perfect example of how they operate; in the dark, behind closed doors, and out of the public consciousness of the Western World.
This is one of my favorite pictures. Not only does the big crowd remind what life was like pre-COVID, but it also gives me a goof feeling to see all of these people become citizens.
New citizens were sworn in at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Just seeing this picture makes me feel uncomfortable. I get uncomfortable when I see people come around me with no masks on. It also is crazy thinking about the day I went home from school thinking we would only be out for a month at the most.
Even when I watch movies I still pick out all the things that I am no longer able to do, and that the people on screen are doing. I wonder when things will finally be normal, and how it will feel to be in crowds this size again.
I totally agree. While this feeling made fade with time, there are some places I can’t believe I ever went to without a mask. Watching movies and seeing pictures from just a couple years ago have a strange feeling to them now — it just feels wrong somehow to see people close without masks.
I completely understand what you’re saying. Every time I look at a picture and see that people are not wearing masks, it immediately feels so weird and illegal. It is going to feel so surreal to finally go somewhere without a mask when it comes time.
I find it so weird how wrong it feels when you forget to put your mask on in public, like Emily said it feels like your doing an illegal activity even though your entire life before this pandemic a mask was almost an unheard of word.
Alexandra, that is absolutely wonderful for your father and also your entire family. Certainly, this is a feat to be proud of, and it is also certainly an event that is able to illuminate a year that was dark in so many areas. Additionally, I feel that many of us lack the ability to find the bright spots and shining lights of a year that was so dark. It is encouraging to see from you a certain event that was able to illuminate your year, and I hope many of us others can begin to find those as well.
That is great to hear Alexandra, seeing as this year was a time of grieving and sadness for many it is good to know that for some, it was a year of new beginnings and happiness, as people who have lived in the US and see it as their home now have the right to call themselves US citizens.
Milagros Vásquez, seated, was turned away by five hospitals as she went into labor.
Venezuela’s public health system has been shattered by a broken economy, with maternity wards the most damaged.
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
This picture sheds light upon how grateful we are to live in a country that allows us to have freedoms and rights that wouldn’t allow for a situation like this. It is so heart wrenching to witness the adversity those in other countries face due to the rules put in place by those in authority. As someone who has been to a third world country and witnessed firsthand the struggles those in poverty face, this picture brings me hope that a change will be made. It is so disheartening that this woman was treated like this, and that she lost her baby.
This is a devastating example of how much the global pandemic has effected not just those infected with Corona, but the family’s lively hoods. Like Brianna mentioned, “it shows how much the world has been impacted by this wretched year.” The pain and hurt on this women’s face gives us a glimpse of this horrid year.
I agree with you Brianna. I feel like I didn’t focus on other countries dealing with COVID as much as I should have. It puts into perspective that other people in other countries are suffering too. I couldn’t even imagine how much healthcare in Venezuela has been depleted.
In this picture, it is not about what you see, but about what you do not see. She was denied by health care facilities while she was in labor. The baby died because of the lack of proper healthcare.This was a heart wrenching moment for the entire family. To me, this picture is devastating, and really shows how much we rely on economic prosperity. A lack of a growing economy can completely change the lives of an entire country.
Meridith Kohut wanted to show how the economic collapse in Venezuela was devastating the country’s health care system by illustrating the plight of pregnant women.
Ms. Kohut and Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times, followed one woman in laborwho was turned away from several hospitals before planting herself in front of one and refusing to leave.
“She had been in labor for 40 hours,” Ms. Kohut said. “She just said, ‘I’m not going to go try anywhere else.’ She eventually fainted and a bunch of other pregnant women who had just started labor were there and they and their families all started banging on the door.
“We were afraid she was going to die. I took a photo of her when she fainted, and her mom was screaming and pleading for help. Then everyone in the Times team dropped our cameras and everything and we all started banging on the door, too, and then they finally let her inside. And unfortunately, her baby died the next morning.
“The crisis is so bad that to do a funeral is like the equivalent of a year’s worth of minimum-wage salary. So she couldn’t afford to bury the baby and had to leave the body in the morgue. It was absolutely heartbreaking.”
Construction teams worked around the clock on a field hospital that was mostly built in 10 days to help cope with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Getty Images
Jack, I completely agree with you. Back when the word “coronavirus” was only a word and was not a for certain “tangible” thing, we as citizens were not as worried or fearful of what was to come. However, seeing a hospital be constructed this fast could easily cause Americans to realize this could be a serious thing we are dealing with. This was a time when I started to fear the corona virus as well. I also agree, it is sure impressive to see work be put in this fast to provide for our sick citizens.
I agree, China took great measures to control and minimize the spread of COVID. However in the process of attempting to keep their country safe, they were blamed and put at fault for a pandemic in which they did their best to control a situation that could not have been handled by one country alone.
A month into the coronavirus outbreak, workers in hazmat suits attended to an elderly man who collapsed near a hospital.
Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Back in December 2019, I had no fear of what I considered a hoax virus. I expected it to not be a big deal, something that would stay in other countries that wouldn’t even touch American soil. I made a plethora of jokes based around the virus. Looking back I now know that I was extremely naive.
I agree Lindsey, I recall back in late 2019 and early 2020 as the new year began how many American, including myself, saw the spread of this new virus in China as something to not be worried about. I remember checking social media and noticing multiple people joking about this situation that,at the time, did not seem dire in any way. Looking back from today,this virus has come to affect every person’s life in some way.
Hector Retamal remembers taking the train from Shanghai to Wuhan, China, in January, as the city was locking down.
A woman approached him and asked where he was going.“‘ It’s no good. It’s dangerous. Don’t go to Wuhan,’” he recalled her saying. “People were really afraid of the virus.”
I find it so crazy that this was such a big thing and something that so many people were scared of in different countries. It is amazing to me that the states did not take the covid outbreak as seriously as other countries and that some people don’t even believe in it when people were collapsing in the street.
Mr. Retamal arrived to find a deserted train station and a ghost town of a city of some 11 million people.
He and a videographer spent about 10 days there. The two men often had to walk, lugging their gear across the sprawling city and trying to keep a low profile from the police, who would shoo them back to their hotels.
Coming across a man’s body on the ground not far from one hospital was startling, Mr. Retamal said. The scene unfolded in utter chaos and confusion.
“My question was what was he doing there,” Mr. Retamal said. “He didn’t move and, wow, is he dead? I was starting to take photos because it was strange and at that exact moment a woman started to scream, saying ‘No, no, no,’ and she asked us to leave the place, and she was angry.”
More people arrived, surrounding Mr. Retamal and telling him not to take photos.
Everyone kept their distance from the man until people in white protective suits and masks arrived and placed him in a yellow body bag. They sprayed disinfectant around the area where he had lain.
The police began to arrive, and Mr. Retamal hurried away. He and his colleagues never officially confirmed that the man had died of Covid-19; nobody would answer their questions.
February
President Trump holding up a copy of The Washington Post to show its banner headline about his acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial.
Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
The failure to hold Donald Trump accountable for his crimes will be considered a watershed moment in American politics. Comparable to Watergate (and potentially even worse,) Trumps disregard for rule of law and accountability was what galvanized the American people to finally oust him in November of 2020.
“This event was an hour of him saying, you guys tried and failed. It was celebratory. He was oozing confidence. The room was just filled with confidence.” — Anna Moneymaker
A full slate of candidates awaited the support of Iowa Democrats as the caucuses began.
Joseph R. Biden Jr., who won his party’s nomination, came in fourth in the contest.
Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times
The Democratic candidates for the 2020 election sit, waiting to be endorsed and supported by the public. Meanwhile, the portrait of an African American girl sits, and waits to be supported by her country. She leaves the message “We the People, Protect each Other.” In our country’s state, I agree with her statement wholeheartedly. As a collective people, without unity, no steps can be taken forward from this unprecedented year.
Even though he is a democrat, which isn’t the party I identify with at all, I really respect Andrew Yang because he despises the two party system and the political divide in this country, as well as I do. America has never been this divided and we are seeing more issues come from that than ever. America is a democratic country now, and we all have to come to terms with that, regardless of our views.
I believe this a phenomenal accomplishment for someone such as Maya Gabeira to have. The biggest wave “ever” ridden by a woman, let alone the biggest wave surfed by anyone during the 2019-2020 winter season. I believe it is also an accomplishment for this to be a first for women in professional surfing. I love seeing women be able to hold such high standards in such rigorous sports, such as surfing. Although this is an amazing accomplishment, this makes me wonder how much Maya was able to be celebrated through her accomplishment, considering this occurred during the uprising of the coronavirus. I believe there are many other accomplishments which could not be given the deserved recognition because of the consumption covid-19 took to the media. How might have Maya Gabeira been recognized differently if this would have occurred in a different year, other than 2020?
Maya Gabeira of Brazil on the biggest wave ever ridden by a woman, and the biggest wave surfed by anyone during the 2019-20 winter season, a first for women in professional surfing.
Armando Franca/Associated Press
This image shows us an amazing accomplishment by a woman in Brazil. This is the first time I am seeing this picture, and I feel as if it should be a bigger deal. This year, many things like this have been overlooked. The pandemic and politics seem to be the only subject matter anywhere we go.
Armando Franca has been going to Nazaré, Portugal, for the past decade to watch surfers brave huge waves.
“It is crazy to be there and watch these people going out into a really scary sea,” he said. “Every time I go I’m still amazed at what they’re willing to do.”
The competition was especially poignant for one of the surfers, Maya Gabeira, who several years ago was injured and had to be rescued in what could have been a deadly accident on the waves.
Thousands of spectators were lined on cliffs above the water this year.
“The waves are so big that if you’re down below by the beach you don’t see anything other than just spray and foam,” Mr. Franca said.
The surfers are careful and organized. They wear life vests, carry a small canister of oxygen and work in teams of two, with one riding a Jet Ski in case a surfer needs help.
Still, the waves are huge and dangerous. Ms. Gabeira conquered a massive 73½-foot wave, setting a record for the biggest ever surfed by a woman.
A public memorial service for the basketball star Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, at the Staples Center, where Bryant played for the bulk of his career.
They died in a helicopter crash.
Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times
The feeling of this death was almost like a superhero had fallen. It seemed that the untouchable had died and now anything was possible, (in the bad way).
I agree that it did feel like the unthinkable happened. I think his death just left everyone silent for a while. It affected everyone whether you were in the basketball community or not.
I agree with your statement. After Kobe’s death, no one knew what to do or say. It felt as if nothing else mattered. I almost feel like this tragic event started the “terrible”, or different year of 2020.
Emily and Isabel, I agree with you both. This event seemed like the moment we all knew 2020 was just going to keep going downhill. Kobe’s death rocked our world. Literally. I know people who still have yet to recover from this tragedy. I am not a big basketball-watcher myself but him and his daughter’s death devastated me. Not only were they leaving behind the rest of their soon-to-be amazing lives, they were leaving behind their family and a whole world that loved them. Like I said, I’m not a big basketball fan, but this took me a while to recover from.
I was working at a pizza joint at the time when I saw on the news that he died. I never really watched a lot of basketball but the videos I would see of him, he was always trying his best to be an inspiration and leader for his teammates and others around him. His daughter was a up and coming prodigy in the basketball space. It was not Kobe’s time to go, and it wasn’t Gianna’s either.
I believe that the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and those who accompanied them was then beginning of the decline of the year 2020 for many of us. Seeing a role model that so many athletes and people in general looked up to pass away silenced the country. This horrific event left us all pondering on the what ifs, it made us all hug those around us a little tighter and for a little longer.
The death of Kobe had a very large affect on me. I remember sitting on my bed when I got a notification from CNN saying that Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter crash. At first I just could not accept it. I just kept thinking " There is no way! There is no way right?" I remember telling my dad and he started to tear up. I was so in shock. It was the start of a very unfortunate hero. It is so unbelievable to see someone who looks like he cannot be touched die so suddenly.
This moment was history. Kobe Bryant was a legend and a influence to millions- billions of people. His name was known by all and when I heard he passed I was playing basketball with my boyfriend. It felt unreal, the one in few times I decided to mess around and play a legend passed. Felt goosebumps that day..
I completely agree, this event was historic. He was a legend and it was so sad and heartbreaking. When it occurred it felt like a low point, though due to the pandemic it was only the beginning of losing people entirely too soon, both legends and America’s common men and women alike.
Kobe will not be forgotten,not because of his ability to play basketball, but because of the way he thought and the great things he did.
It very sad and I could not believe Kobe had actually died so early and along with one of his daughter’s which was the worst part because she only in her teens. Kobe was so iconic in his play on the court but what will live on was his mentality for the game of basketball and also life.
Supporters of Senator Elizabeth Warren at an event that was held on the same day as the Nevada caucuses, in which she finished in fourth place.
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
A worker walking in a convention center that was converted into a temporary hospital to treat people with the coronavirus.
Chinatopix, via Associated Press
I think it is safe to say that the year 2020 left many of us feeling empty. Our “normal” lives were taken away from us in the blink of an eye, and left us feeling uneasy about what was to come. This picture makes me think about the lives that have been lost due to Covid, each empty bed resembling one’s body. The loneliness this healthcare worker and each healthcare worker must feel working with cover patients and losing them.
It is surreal to think about how catastrophic the early stages of covid-19 were on our society. We were so unprepared and unequipped which then resulted the lives of so many individuals to be lost. Although our health care workers tried their hardest to provide the care needed, nothing like this was ever anticipated. The effects of covid-19 in my opinion will long continue in further years and as sad as it is to say, I do not believe we will ever get back to our ‘normal’.
I completely agree with you here that our society has and will continue to be impacted by Covid-19. I think that what was our ‘normal’ will never be the same because our world has gone through a major issue that has impacted every single person in some way or another. This time has been tough for everyone, but I especially think it has been worse for our health care workers because they are first hand seeing how bad it is and putting their own lives at risk to try and save others.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up her copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address.
Earlier in the evening, he declined to shake her hand.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
One of the biggest issues that are present in politics today is the complete loss of respect people show to those with different opinions. We see this on BOTH sides. Biden supporters are called stupid by the right, and Trump supporters are called racist by the left. It goes both ways. Both sides have bad people, for example, the people who cross the fine line between peaceful protesting and rioting. The people who stormed the capitol and the people who rioted and looted buildings during the Black Lives Matter movement. The people that were directly involved with that are the ones who should be held accountable. Although there are clear differences, neither situations should be justified. The people who have left-leaning moral values and the people right-leaning moral values do not particularly have to identify with a candidate. We should stop assuming they do. Most importantly, we need to do a better job at accepting people’s ideologies that are different than ours, and stop the assuming the worst out of someone based on stereotypes. Again, for BOTH sides.
I completely agree with you. We were created to be different, to have different interests, and opinions. We were also created to respect one another, to treat one another as we would like to be treated. Our country has lost all sense of respect, whether it be towards the President, police officers, military personnel, and anyone in authority. Not only have we lost respect for those in positions of authority but also for our peers. We no longer respect that others are allowed to have a difference in opinions, and that we have the freedom of speech.
Senator Bernie Sanders at a field office the day before Iowa’s Democratic caucuses.
The release of results in the race was delayed by errors and inconsistencies.
Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Kenya battled its worst desert locust outbreak in 70 years, threatening the food security of millions.
Khadija Farah for The New York Times
Having travelled to areas filled with poverty in Kenya, I can only imagine the struggle people faced during this time. Relying on the wild to provide them with food and water, and that already being scarce then having it stripped away by the desert locust.
Manuel Liñán’s flamenco company represents something new to mainstream flamenco audiences: a frank and joyful expression of gay identity.
Camila Falquez for The New York Times
Rogan, an Irish setter, during the 144th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
A black standard poodle named Siba took the pageant’s top prize.
Victor Llorente for The New York Times
“This was at the end of the day and the dog was just sitting there, just waiting.” — Victor Llorente
The French writer Gabriel Matzneff, who for decades wrote openly of his pedophilia, went into hiding after one of his victims spoke out, prompting an investigation.
Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times
To contain the coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese government sealed off Wuhan and banned most public transportation and private cars from its streets.
Getty Images
Seeing the emptiness of a usual bustling country is unsettling. I look at this and I remember the feeling and realization that this was going to be around for awhile. That this was my life for the time being. The lone white car symbolizes the loneliness and seeing what was once full of my loved ones, as nothing but an empty space.
A lone diner in a neighborhood known for its nightlife.
The Chinese government imposed restrictions on practically every aspect of life amid the coronavirus crisis.
Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
Henry, as an employee at a restaurant for over a year now, I completely agree with you. Coming into work after the shutdown in the beginning of the year, was shocking to me. Where I work people love to bring their kids and grand-kids and just have a good time and make memories, but after the shutdown the whole mood in the building had changed. It really is sad how much the food industry has changed because of COVID. You never know how good it is until it’s gone.
Near the site of the city’s old bazaar, which was demolished to make way for a new dam.
The project flooded the Tigris River, submerging the valley and displacing 70,000 people.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
March
Claudio Travelli, 61, a coronavirus patient, being examined at his home.
The following day, his family called an ambulance again because his condition had worsened.
Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times
This picture spoke to me because the global pandemic caused many deaths as well as sadness. For me personally,the pandemic was one of those things that I thought could never happen, it just seemed unlikely. But it did happen, and it shocked all of us. People are losing their loved ones with rapidly, with little to no warning. This put the whole world in a slump in 2020, and we are still trying to get out of this slump in 2021.
AN UNIMAGINABLE TOLL AROUND THE WORLD
The Price of the Pandemic
By the end of January, the World Health Organization had declared the coronavirus outbreak, first identified in Wuhan, China, a global health emergency. As the virus made its way around the world, fear of contagion changed everything about how photographers worked, undermining the intimacy that comes from spending time in proximity to subjects.
In late March, Fabio Bucciarelli was in Bergamo, Italy, where infections were surging. “It was some kind of laboratory for the world,” he said. “But there were no images from inside.”
Every day, Italian television reported a counting of the dead. Still, Mr. Bucciarelli said, “nobody was ready for this.”
He trailed health care workers inside the home of Claudio Travelli, who was ill with the virus, as they examined him. Mr. Travelli was eventually taken to a hospital, where he stayed for three weeks.
By early December, the global toll of the pandemic had reached staggering numbers: 65 million people sickened and 1.5 million people dead.
Mr. Travelli was not among those who lost their lives.
“He started back to work and started living his life again,” Mr. Bucciarelli said. “It was one of the few happy stories.”
Make no mistake, the Taliban and the organizations they support are Islamic Terror organizations. Although the United States has been embroiled in conflict in Afghanistan for far too long, it is frankly disappointing that more could not be done to free this part of the world from the grip of radical Islamic rule by terror. These groups are not accountable to the people over which they rule nor to the International community at large, making them a dangerous force in an already unstable part of the world. Furthermore, this sets the precedent that as long as a group is violent enough and persistent enough, the forces for peace and justice will get tired of fighting and roll over. This reminds me of the Fascist takeover of Italy during the 1930s; the United States seems to have given into the idea of meno frego (the motto of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, meaning “I don’t give a damn,” their habitual response to political violence and eventually the attitude of acceptance that pervaded the country.)
Two children walked past members of a Taliban unit in an area the group controlled.
In February, the U.S. signed a deal with Taliban leaders, setting the stage to end America’s longest war.
Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Jim Huylebroek had been trying to photograph the Taliban on their home turf for years, constantly being denied permission when he inquired.
Finally, an opportunity arose this year when he was allowed to travel with Mujib Mashal, a New York Times senior correspondent, to the eastern part of Afghanistan. The trip was nerve-racking, especially when the asphalt road turned into dirt as his car crossed from government-controlled territory to the Taliban’s turf, and camouflaged men with guns approached the car. The men allowed Mr. Huylebroek to photograph them, and as they stood to the side of the road and children passed, he captured the moment.
A municipal worker fumigating a vegetable market.
It was the second day of a national lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
Atul Loke for The New York Times
Members of the Italian Army and military police loaded coffins onto trucks to be taken out of the city.
Cemeteries and cremation services in the Bergamo region struggled to cope with a surge in coronavirus deaths.
Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times
The head to toe hazmat suits, the men carrying multiple caskets… I can’t believe this is the world that we are currently living in. This may have been in March, but the state of the world is so much worse now.
Residents of the Copan building gathered at their windows to protest the pandemic response of President Jair Bolsonaro, who called the coronavirus a “fantasy” that was being blown out of proportion by political rivals and the press to weaken his government.
Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
Victor Moriyama had been traveling for work in mid-March when he arrived back home in São Paulo to find the city was bracing for the virus.
President Jair Bolsonaro had been downplaying the threat of the illness, and citizens were worried and angry. They were protesting, but doing so safely from inside their homes. Mr. Moriyama wanted to capture the protest from outside one of the city’s most famous buildings, and took the photo as dozens of residents came to their windows to express their displeasure with their president.
“It was fantastic,” he said. “The noise from the people was like a kind of orchestra.”
This picture just goes to shows the isolated that people have felt during these difficult times. I related to this picture because my mom, sister, and me all tested positive. While my dad tested negative,so we did not get to see him for a little while. It was hard knowing he was alone and not being able to see him. I’m glad that I was not alone and had my mom and sister with me. Ms. Newman was losing her sense of taste. This was the first symptom that developed for my sister and I. COVID-19 has caused a lot of changes in our precaution methods. Before, we used to not think twice about someone having a cough or being sick. Now any sign of sickness can be a sign of COVID, so our methods for reducing contact have changed.
Brittainy Newman, a photographer, and her mother, Erika Kirkland, ate their dinner in separate rooms.
Ms. Newman had a dry cough and was losing her sense of taste, and was isolating from her mother as a precaution.
Brittainy Newman/The New York Times
An empty street during rush hour in London.
Early on, the coronavirus outbreak brought major metropolises to a screeching halt.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
I think this photo is really powerful because it shows what it was like quarentining. I think the fact that there was only one girl in the photo shows the feeling of isolation a lot of people experienced during the pandemic. This also shows how there weren’t people going out. It can show how the economy was going to go down because we had to protect people from getting corona and slow the spread.
“What this picture shows is that the people in the U.K. were actually acting a long time before the government did, which is exactly what the government has been accused of — dragging its feet.” — Andrew Testa
A commuterless subway station in the early days of the pandemic.
Many images of empty public spaces appeared to be both haunted and haunting.
Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times
Jewish families celebrated Purim in Borough Park, Brooklyn, one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities outside Israel.
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Barred by the imposed isolation of the coronavirus, a Jewish family struggles to celebrate their own holidays during the pandemic. Multitudes of people around the world have experienced this, being isolated from family members during holidays, and even during everyday life. The children look out, hoping for a brighter, more hopeful tomorrow, unbeknownst of the global pandemic that causes their solitude.
In February and March, Ashley Gilbertson was trying to document how New Yorkers were feeling as they watched the news about the virus devastating first Wuhan, China, and then cities in Italy.
To Mr. Gilbertson, the photo represented the moment when New Yorkers knew what was coming their way but didn’t quite know what to do. “We were trying to be normal, but trying to start taking some sort of precautions — but what? What do you do? It was a picture of walking a line with virtually no information.”
In March, a coronavirus outbreak hit Jewish communities in New Rochelle, and Mr. Gilbertson knew people there traveled back and forth to Borough Park, Brooklyn. With the Jewish holiday of Purim approaching, he went to Borough Park to see whether people were being cautious or celebrating. He found hundreds of people dressed up and dancing in the streets.
“I hopped in my car to go to a different part of the neighborhood and as I pulled up to the block, I saw those three little girls crammed into the window, watching everyone celebrating,” he said. “I took the picture. In the frame after that photo, the girls were looking at me. In the next frame, they were gone. It was one of these moments that was absolutely stolen. It existed for a tiny moment before they saw me.”
A hospital worker peered into a tent connected to a refrigerated trailer, which was used as a morgue outside Lenox Health Greenwich Village.
The coronavirus crisis pushed the city’s system for caring for the dead to its limits.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
I agree with you 100%. It’s pictures like these that make you realize the virus is real and affecting many people. Not only is it killing people, but each person that dies is a person lost to many other people. It was a truly depressing year and this image help capture that.
A firefighter talking to a family member of a suspected coronavirus patient.
As the virus hit the city hard in late March, nearly 80 percent of ambulance calls for the coronavirus required transportation to the hospital.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Members of the National Guard disinfecting surfaces at the Jewish Community Center of Mid-Westchester.
New York created a “containment area” in Westchester County to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Andrew Seng for The New York Times
Shoppers scrambled to load up with supplies at a Costco in Manhattan.
As the coronavirus spread and lockdowns loomed, panic-buying of grocery staples, medicines and cleaning products skyrocketed.
Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times
Italians played music on their balconies as a show of solidarity in the face of the coronavirus, which spread rapidly through the country that month.
Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times
I personally have family who lives in Italy and remember them being affected by the virus back in March. Back then it hadn’t reached the United States and I remember thinking that it would blow over and that the Chinese government would contain the spread. However my indifference along with many others’ is why it got as bad is it did. I remember my uncle, who lives in Milan, was not able to leave his house for about a month, as well as my grandparents in Lucera. It was at this moment that I realized that the virus was serious and that it would take every single person to stop the spread. Every one of us needs to cooperate in order for us to stop it otherwise it may become an issue for much longer.
Place de la Concorde was empty in what would normally have been the morning rush hour as France entered lockdown.
Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times
Andrea Mantovani started the first morning of the Paris lockdown in the iconic Place de la Concorde.
Her father used to take her there as a child to show her the vibrant, busting life of her hometown. She was stunned to find it empty amid a gray sky that served as the backdrop.
“I felt like the Americans landing on the moon,” she said.
She snapped just one photo before she carried on with her work and it was only when she returned home and viewed the photo on her laptop that she realized how breathtaking it was to see the plaza so devoid of life.
“I wasn’t looking for a masterpiece,” she said. “For me, my emotions were the masterpiece. I was totally in shock.”
April
Kristen Dirks, an I.C.U. nurse, checked her personal protective equipment in a mirror in Central Park, where an emergency field hospital was set up to help care for patients.
Misha Friedman for The New York Times
Shawn’te Harvell, the manager of Smith Funeral Home, prepared a socially distanced visitation for a Covid-19 victim.
The spread of the virus robbed many families of the usual rituals of mourning.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
“Now, whether it’s going into people’s homes or covering a protest, I am constantly making calculations as to how much risk I am taking — wondering how much time is too much in any one place.” — Todd Heisler
A 92-year-old man with severe Covid-19 symptoms was intubated at his home by medics before he was transported to a hospital.
John Moore/Getty Images
This powerful picture depicts the severity of COVID-19. This is a very real, terrifying disease that is taking the lives of so many people. It’s scary seeing this actually happening to people, while there are others refusing to wear masks and putting people’s lives at stake for their own benefit.
People are still saying that it is not that big of a deal and that we don’t need to wear masks just because their life isn’t as threatened by the virus as someone else’s. The ignorance is unbelievable. Everyone needs to realize just how badly this can affect some people, especially those who are immunocompromised.
Crowds chanted “Open Ohio now!” at the Statehouse in a protest against Gov. Mike DeWine’s stay-at-home order and the closure of schools and nonessential businesses.
Joshua A. Bickel/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated Press
I do not understand why people refuse to wear masks. It shows that the person is being selfish and unwilling to protect themselves and others during the pandemic. Even when someone sees a sign that says “Masks Required” and the blatantly ignore the sign. Especially with Trump supporters thinking the virus is not real.
Joshua Bickel was sent to cover Gov. Mike DeWine’s daily briefing at the Ohio Statehouse in April because his colleague at The Columbus Dispatch had been furloughed, part of an attempt to stem pandemic-related financial losses at the paper.
Mr. Bickel had seen several protesters at the Capitol a few days earlier and had heard more were expected there to register their opposition to the governor’s mask mandate. Some photographers were outside taking pictures of the protesters, but Mr. Bickel made a conscious choice to remain inside. The protesters were unmasked and he didn’t want to risk it.
“It was April and I didn’t know what was going to go on,” he said. “I wanted to keep myself safe and keep my family safe.”
During the news conference, some of the protesters approached the outside of the briefing room and began banging on the windows and chanting. There was a lull in the briefing, so Mr. Bickel had a moment to walk around.
“I looked out the doors where they were and saw them standing there and I thought to myself, ‘That is really intense.’ They were up on the doors banging. The framing of the doors was kind of interesting to me in terms of the composition. I went to a more forward angle. They were chanting outside, and you could hear them all doing it at once, and I was trying to get them all visually doing it at the same time. In the photo, their mouths were all open and that was a choice that accurately reflected what they’re doing at the time. I wanted to do something that would have an impact. And I was only in front of it for 10 to 15 seconds at the most. I walked farther down by the windows and a guy outside flipped me off, and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m good.’”
Mourners said goodbye to Wilma Bassuti, a Covid-19 victim, at Vila Formosa cemetery, where workers in protective clothing were busy digging line upon line of open graves.
Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
A Covid-19 patient at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
Doctors soon learned that flipping people onto their bellies could improve breathing in those stricken by respiratory distress.
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
The patient in this photo is laying on their stomach to help with breathing, (as the caption states). What caused the doctors to try such a thing? We still know so little about the virus, and each time we gain a footing, it mutates, and the solution slips from out grasp once again.
Precious Anderson, a Covid-19 patient, was shown her newborn baby for the first time with the help of Dr. Erroll Byer Jr. and a live video feed at the Brooklyn Hospital Center.
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
This photo, in my opinion, is one of the saddest photos from 2020. 2020 brought so many hardships, so many challenges, so many heartbreaking moments, but to me this is one of the hardest sacrifices people had to make. Women become mothers everyday, some women spend their whole lives preparing to become a mother. This once in a lifetime opportunity is something, that if taken away, ruins the whole experience for women. To be a new mother during this pandemic has to be one of the most challenging things to come out of this. My heart goes out to all of them.
Some say the first touch of a child to parent is one of the most important things in the child’s life. The first connection to another human being. With Covid, that chance for connection is, in a way, stolen. And the mothers are left alone in a room, wondering where they’re newborn child is. That’s not even mentioning the emotional turmoil of birthing a child in general. The hormone fluctuation is immense and the added stress of Covid is likely to increase the chances of postpartum depression.
Victor Blue worked with the New York Times reporter Sheri Fink at the start of the pandemic, documenting Covid-19 as it raged through hospitals in New York.
“Everybody in the city was scared,” Mr. Blue said. “The hardest thing at first was so much confusion around the virus and what it meant for vulnerable people, especially pregnant mothers.” Mr. Blue had seen Precious Anderson, who was pregnant, on a ventilator in an intensive care unit. “She was not doing well — it did not appear she was going to make it,” he said. While Ms. Anderson was intubated, doctors delivered her baby by cesarean section, and within a couple of days, Ms. Anderson improved. “We were happy to be able to do a story early on that brought some kind of hope, that people could see there were folks who were surviving it,” he said. “That wasn’t the case for most people intubated.”
Paramedics worked to resuscitate a coronavirus patient at a hospital.
The borough emerged as the center of New York City’s raging outbreak.
Philip Montgomery for The New York Times
There’s something just so… dehumanizing I suppose to realize that all those boxes crowded together in this room are people; who were alive and loved by those around them but now because of how crowded funeral homes are, they don’t get the chance to have a proper farewell and service.
Coffins before being collected at a funeral home.
As the virus ravaged New York, overflowing hospitals and backed-up cemeteries left funeral homes stretched to capacity.
Stephen Speranza for The New York Times
Stephen Speranza had been photographing chaotic scenes in April in New York near Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, among the facilities hit hardest by the virus early on. He went to a nearby family-owned funeral home.
“They had been working so long and so hard,” he said. “They had a good camaraderie going.” In the funeral home, the hallway led to one big room in the very back. “It had one of those curtain dividers and it was pulled wide open and the boxes were just laid out across the chairs. Cardboard boxes made for bodies.”
“I don’t know if they ran out of boxes or what, but they had a couple chairs with just a piece of plywood across and there was a deceased person on it with just a sheet laid out over it.”
A woman wearing medical scrubs, a protective mask and a face shield traveled on a nearly empty subway train in the Far Rockaway neighborhood as subway ridership plunged.
Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times
Pope Francis celebrated Good Friday in an empty St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, a far cry from the usual procession that draws tens of thousands each year.
Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times
August Jane Harness-Jimenez, 2, took her daily spot at her bedroom window, from which she called hello to people who walked by in a welcome interaction with neighbors amid a statewide stay-at-home order.
Angela Jimenez for The New York Times
As the pandemic claimed more lives, many bodies were sent to New York’s potter’s field off the coast of the Bronx, where for 150 years the city has buried its poor or unclaimed dead.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Eliana Marcela Rendón was comforted by her husband, Edilson Valencia, as her grandmother, Carmen Evelia Toro, 74, lost her battle against Covid-19 at a hospital on Long Island.
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
Heath care workers during the pandemic are exhausted. Exhausted because of the amount of patients lost contrary to their tireless work this year. They have no choice but to lean on each other, physically and emotionally. With a widespread lack of physical touch due to the pandemic, this picture is impactful due to the heartfelt embrace.
Sal Farenga, an owner of the Farenga Brothers Funeral Home, prepared a body for the embalming process.
As the virus death toll mounted, he turned his casket showroom into a makeshift morgue.
Philip Montgomery for The New York Times
Bodies were stacked in a refrigerated trailer at the Brooklyn Hospital Center.
More than 20,000 New Yorkers died in the spring surge of coronavirus infections.
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
While looking at this picture does give a disturbing feeling, it is also a sad scene to comprehend. Putting yourself in the shoes of the man in the trailer could really change the way you think about it. People this man might have known personally, laying in bags, at rest due to a foreign virus.
A nurse took a moment in a massage chair in an “oasis” room at Christiana Hospital, set up to give stressed medical workers a breather.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
May
A third night of protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
Explosive footage of Mr. Floyd’s arrest led to an F.B.I. civil rights investigation and the firing of all four officers involved.
Julio Cortez/Associated Press
Julio Cortez has long searched out the American flag to tell a story, knowing the important role it has played from Iwo Jima to the landing on the moon to the raising of the banner by firefighters after the attacks of Sept. 11.
On the last Thursday in May, days after the killing of George Floyd, Mr. Cortez was standing outside the Minneapolis police precinct that had been evacuated and set on fire by protesters.
“This photo was taken at 11:59 and 38 seconds,” he said. “It was just kind of symbolic of the turning point of the day. This was taken after spending about five hours photographing a lot of destruction, a lot of anger, a lot of emotion.”
“I was able to spot this man kind of away from everything,” he said. “He was a very tall person, and I’m not a tall person, and so for me to keep up I had to walk quickly. I wanted to position myself to show him with the fire behind him, knowing that the upside down flag is a symbol of distress.”
Mr. Cortez did not find out the man’s name, but believes his anonymity adds to the symbolism of the moment. “I kind of like it that he’s not identifiable. My director of photography said it perfectly: This could be anybody. That’s what makes it kind of special.”
President Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House during a meeting with governors to discuss their states’ handling of the pandemic.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Doug Mills has been photographing President Trump for The New York Times for the past four years. For most of 2020, fears about contracting the coronavirus while working in the White House and traveling with the president have weighed heavily on his mind.
“I think about it 24-7, from being worried about getting Covid, to sleepless nights thinking I had it, to worrying about bringing it home to my wife and my family, to dealing with it at every rally,” he said. “Literally from the time you wake up in the morning you thought about it. Everything you covered was impacted by Covid and being in the White House. Knock on wood, I didn’t get it, but I’m pretty religious about wearing a mask and I’m sure there’s some luck involved, too. It affected my work, day in and day out. It never leaves your mind — when you get off a plane and are fully masked up and you go into a rally, and no one is in a mask.”
Circles painted on the grass at Domino Park in Williamsburg helped people spend time outdoors while staying socially distanced from others.
Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Megan Vassallo of the Rony Roller Circus practiced her aerial silk techniques.
The circus had been camped out on the outskirts of Rome since March, when the coronavirus lockdown began.
Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times
“Since the circus was closed and a lot of the performers were stuck elsewhere, the older kids of the circus were able to play on this aerial hoop every day. It was the center of this closed-down circus.” — Nadia Shira Cohen
Light from the Guggenheim Museum’s shuttered exhibition “Countryside, The Future” cast an alien glow onto Fifth Avenue.
Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
In a pandemic-proof interview, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld spoke from his home quarantine about his new stand-up special and the future of comedy.
“I’m not in the mood to be funny,” he said.
Daniel Arnold for The New York Times
“It was so weird,” said Daniel Arnold, of his assignment to take a portrait of Jerry Seinfeld over FaceTime. As a street photographer, Mr. Arnold had been photographing city life since the pandemic began.
“I just went out every day no matter what and walked and looked and rubbed my face in it, but I hadn’t had a job the whole time, so this was a curveball to have a FaceTime with Jerry Seinfeld.”
It was the beginning of May, and an in-person portrait seemed too risky.
“It was in my apartment, completely alone and visibly nervous; for some reason I really choked,” Mr. Arnold said. “I’m in my apartment taking pictures of Jerry Seinfeld on my TV, the most natural place for him to be, and there was a shockwave in the room, but also there was nothing I was going to do to change that. At that point, it was way too nerve-racking to be in a room with anybody. Everyone was in this stage of trying to figure out how to take pictures of each other.”
Olivia Grant hugged her grandmother, Mary Grace Sileo, through a plastic drop cloth hung on a clothesline.
It was their first contact since the start of the lockdown caused by the pandemic.
Al Bello/Getty Images
Al Bello, a sports photographer at Getty, was asked to cover the coronavirus outbreak since almost every kind of sport had been shut down.
On Memorial Day weekend, Mr. Bello learned that extended family on Long Island was gathering for the first time since the pandemic took hold. The grandparents were sad that they couldn’t touch their grandchildren. The family set up an elaborate backyard system with a plastic dropcloth strung over a clothesline so everyone could safely hug.
“It was translucent and I thought, ‘Well, if they hug, they might make some shapes with their faces,’” Mr. Bello said. “I just thought, ‘We’ll see what happens.’ Then the parents came. The kids, the grandparents, the husband, the wife. The grandmother got extremely emotional and was hugging the kids and holding their faces — grabbing their faces and not letting go.
“It was much more emotional than I’d anticipated, and I was just like, ‘Oof, this is happening right now.’ I just stood off to one side. It was nothing fancy, it was just what was happening in front of me.”
Rows of newly dug graves at a cemetery in Manaus, the Brazilian Amazon’s biggest city, where at one point every Covid-19 ward was full and 100 people a day were dying.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
People lined up for food at a Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens pop-up at St. Finbar Catholic Church in the Bensonhurst neighborhood.
Unemployment and hunger rose with pandemic-related job losses.
Yunghi Kim/Contact Press Images
“The realization that New York City needs to be fed and there are people hurting and the virus was still bad as people were starting to venture out — the whole thing just broke my heart. This wasn’t an assignment. This was my initiated story. I thought it was important. — Yunghi Kim
A sealed-off entrance at the Wakefield-241st Street subway station.
In its first overnight shutdown in 115 years, the New York subway system was closed from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. to disinfect trains and equipment.
Hilary Swift for The New York Times
“They had kicked all the homeless people off the trains and I thought it was really eerie to see the police tape up there. The whole scene felt like a noir film. It actually looked pretty spooky, which is really what the feeling of the city was and is. At the time there was so much unknown, and they were cleaning up the subways as if they were a crime scene.” — Hilary Swift
Father Ryan Connors administered the Roman Catholic sacrament of anointing at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center.
The archdiocese designated 21 priests to be trained to safely offer last rites to Covid-19 patients.
Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times
Ryan Christopher Jones was holed up in a hotel room in the Boston area in May, and every time the phone rang, he steeled himself. He was assigned to photograph last rites for victims of the coronavirus, and each phone call meant a death was imminent.
“It was definitely a difficult head place to be in,” Mr. Jones said. “I was just waiting for people to die.
“Once I got the call I would mobilize and hop in the car and put on my P.P.E. and had to be in the hospital within 20 minutes.
“I knew it was going to be an emotional challenge, but I had photographed sensitive stories before — a lot of addiction and overdose and immigration at the border. I’m used to situations fraught with emotion, but this was a different experience.”
The last rites were condensed to limit the priests’ exposure to the virus, so what normally would have been a 15-minute event lasted only about 90 seconds.
“I wanted to maintain the dignity of these people but I had to watch where I stepped because there were tubes all over and lines that were primed, and I didn’t want to block someone from getting fluids. I’m literally tiptoeing around this room for 90 seconds trying to make meaningful photos. It was by far the most intense thing I’ve ever photographed.”
A woman at a protest against the killing of George Floyd, whose death in police custody led to demonstrations in more than 150 American cities.
Patience Zalanga
“This woman, she really broke my heart. It really reflects this deep pain that the city has felt over the past years. George Floyd wasn’t the only high-profile killing. This moment felt like a culmination of all those moments of injustice that have happened in Minneapolis and Minnesota.” — Patience Zalanga
Officers confronted protesters nearly a week after George Floyd was killed.
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota activated the National Guard to help the police patrol the streets.
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
Demonstrators outside a burning fast food restaurant, four days after the killing of George Floyd.
Businesses around the country sustained damage from widespread looting and arson.
John Minchillo/Associated Press
What good does destroying entire cities, burning places to the ground, breaking and entering do? How will destruction bring peace? This chaos led to the closing of many businesses which people made a living off of. Destruction does not lead to justice. Violence does not lead to justice. Without a doubt those who lost their lives would not want their life to be remembered this way, but they would want their name to be remembered through peace.
I understand that people were angered by the death of George Floyd, I was too. It is a right for people to protest what they see as unjust; however, it is not a right to destroy businesses and communities out of that anger and for the people that do these things to pretend that they are some sort of hero. If you want to change the system, do not commit criminal acts, like the arson seen in this image.
i know there was a lot of anger surrounding the death of George floyd. i was also angry about it but these restaurants are they are burning are peoples lively hoods. people risk everything on those stores working out and by those people destroying them they could be ruined
Exactly, Ethan. The death of George Floyd was a tragedy and arguably an example of police brutality. Regardless of your opinion on this, we can all agree the force used on George Floyd was not justified whatsoever, but neither is the unnecessary rioting and looting that took place shortly after. This is NOT how things should be handled. I am all for demonstration, but there is a fine line between peace and violence. This was also seen by the people who stormed the capitol. Absolutely unacceptable.
A protester took a knee in front of a line of police officers during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd.
Dai Sugano/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News, via Getty Images
June
Protesters marched in Manhattan as anger spread across the country over the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times
FROM A DEATH IN POLICE CUSTODY TO A NATIONAL RECKONING
Black Lives Matter
The video from the night of May 25 in Minneapolis made its way around the United States and eventually the world: George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was pinned to the ground by a white police officer, could be heard repeatedly saying the words
“I can’t breathe.”
Mr. Floyd’s death in police custody led to protests against racial injustice in more than 150 American cities.
The photographer Demetrius Freeman has been documenting the Black Lives Matter movement since 2013, when he was assigned to cover the protests after the acquittal of the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager.
“There are a lot of stories that pull at me, but in this case I kept thinking, ‘Wow, that could have been me,’ and hearing my parents say the same thing,” he said.
A week after Mr. Floyd’s death, Mr. Freeman was at a protest in New York when he noticed a man with “I can’t breathe” on a flag. He felt as though the movement had taken on new urgency.
“Marching down a street you would see people — young white people — who you never would have thought of in 2013, banging pots and pans together and chanting ‘Black Lives Matter,’” he said.
For days on end, thousands of demonstrators took to the city’s streets to denounce racial injustice and police brutality.
Simbarashe Cha for The New York Times
Simbarashe Cha photographed a march in Harlem, where he lives, on the day of a memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Protesters in New York had decided to dress up in honor of the day since they couldn’t attend the funeral in person.
“I was really proud of us as people of color who wanted to recognize and be in solidarity with Mr. Floyd’s family,” he said.
“I think this group stopped to kneel three times in different places in the street, and every time it just seemed like people in the neighborhood were very respectful of protesters taking up the space. And when they got up to the hill there was this cascade of people going up 96th Street. It was such an amazing perspective. When you’re at the front of a march you never really know how big a crowd is until you move around, and everyone had stopped, and I could see everyone down the hill and it was breathtaking.”
A mother sheltered from the rain with her children as supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement gathered on the village green.
The protests reached every corner of America.
Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Tomika Miller mourned at the coffin of her husband, Rayshard Brooks.
Mr. Brooks was killed in an encounter with the police after falling asleep in his car outside a Wendy’s restaurant.
Pool photo by Curtis Compton
Demonstrators during a rally at the Lincoln Memorial, on a day when half a million people turned out to protest systemic racism in nearly 550 places across the United States.
Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times
The fact that this woman felt the need to threaten people who were simply protesting by her home, not even destroying it. And despite “protecting” herself, she apparently didn’t feel threatened by the possibility of getting COVID. Trump admiring her nasty display while saying the people were at protests were in the wrong, goes to show how skewed his views are. I have to disagree, this woman would not have felt the need to be outside of her own home with a firearm if she did not feel threatened. Although peaceful protests took place, violent rioting also took place. The destruction of entire cities took place, burning businesses to the ground and closing them down for good. I can see why this woman felt threatened, and she has every right to feel that way based on the destruction that has occurred within these protests. She was frightened for her and her family’s life, and for the destruction of their home that I am sure they worked hard to get.
Patricia and Mark McCloskey brandished firearms as protesters marched by their home.
Their menacing display earned them the admiration of President Trump and a spot at the Republican National Convention.
Lawrence Bryant/Reuters
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
This picture captures the raw white privilege of being able to draw a pistol on an unarmed black protestor. Playing the fear card.
This is the mask drawn away from the horror. Diane Arbus did this all the time: https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/7553778-1×1-xlarge.jpg?v=3
We joke in Kansas City that people in St. Louis claim to have invented everything – baseball, soccer, pizza, barbecue. They didn’t invent entrenched racism and privilege, but I can tell you that they’ve really taken it to new heights.
Lawrence Bryant was trailing a protest in St. Louis as demonstrators marched to the mayor’s house. Then they encountered Mark and Patricia McCloskey.
“The initial thing we heard was ‘Get out.’ I turned around and looked, and that’s when the wife came out toward the crowd. I was scared — I’m not going to lie. She looked really nervous. The husband was in the back with the AR. And I just didn’t know what their intentions were. My initial thought was to get behind something, so I tried to stay clear of the barrel of the gun. I was going back and forth and trying to stay out of her eyesight. Her finger was on the trigger. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know whether she was just going to go Rambo. I was just confused about why they were even out there.”
A moment of silence in front of the Hall of Justice.
It was announced that Derek Chauvin, the officer who had pinned George Floyd to the ground, would face a charge of second-degree murder.
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
After protesters were dispersed with tear gas, President Trump headed to St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been damaged in the unrest.
There, the president held aloft a Bible as he posed for photos.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Protesters gathered near the site where George Floyd was arrested.
More than a week after his death, demonstrators marched in cities including New York, Nashville, Seattle and Santa Monica, Calif.
Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times
A visitor sat among the flowers, tributes and protest signs adorning a memorial at the intersection where George Floyd was fatally pinned with an officer’s knee on his neck.
Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times
Joshua Rashaad McFadden had already photographed unrest in Minneapolis and a memorial service for George Floyd. He drove from Minneapolis to Atlanta, to pick up some things in storage, and the night he arrived there another Black man, Rayshard Brooks, was killed by a police officer.
Protests that already had been underway in Atlanta over Mr. Floyd’s death took on more urgency after Mr. Brooks was killed.
“Things just went to another level,” he said. “I really don’t have the words for it. It was heartbreaking.”
He photographed a Black police officer during a standoff in which protesters were shouting at officers. “You couldn’t tell if he was listening or not and what’s going on in his head,” he said about the image. “That’s what draws you in.”
Officers were confronted by protesters after the killing of Rayshard Brooks, which left many once again incensed by the death of another Black man at the hands of the police.
Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times
A self-portrait by Dana Scruggs.
Reflecting on her life amid the raging pandemic and mass protests, she said: “I haven’t felt like making work.
I haven’t felt like doing much of anything since quarantine started.”
Dana Scruggs for The New York Times
“I’m a pretty morbid person, so when all of this was happening I was wondering, is Manhattan going to shut down? Maybe they’ll shut down the bridges,” said Dana Scruggs, a photographer who lives in Brooklyn and made self-portraits of her time in isolation.
“It was a very scary time and we didn’t know what was going on. I was pretty much preparing for the apocalypse. I got all these water-purification tablets in case the water went out; solar-powered batteries in case the infrastructure of America or New York just collapsed. A friend of mine had a walkie-talkie set and I got the same walkie-talkie set she had in case the phones went out. We had escape routes. I prepared for the worst.”
“I live by myself and I’m single and just the thought of dying alone in this apartment was very scary for me. That’s also why I ended up getting a dog. She probably would have eaten me. I just wanted somebody to spend time with and take care of. I guess when I was taking those photographs it was me making these vignettes of what my life was like.”
The views of Manhattan from Williamsburg in Brooklyn usually draw out the crowds on a sunny day.
But picnic tables remained empty as residents stayed home in the pandemic.
John Taggart for The New York Times
Clara McMillin, 4, and her family did not face food insecurity before the pandemic.
But then her mother lost her job as a military contractor and had to turn to a food bank for help.
Brenda Ann Kenneally for The New York Times
Brenda Kenneally went to Jackson, Miss., to photograph food insecurity in America during the pandemic.
“Lillian and her family were among the newly minted food insecure,” Ms. Kenneally said. “Her mom had come from a childhood of a lot of precarity and she was determined not to create that for her kids. She agreed to do the article because she wanted to let people know she had a well-paying job and was living the American dream and with the onset of Covid, all that disappeared.”
“At the time of the photo, she had not told her children where all the food was coming from,” Ms. Kenneally said.
Some of the food she received from pantries was more extravagant than what she would normally serve her family because donations had been pouring in from restaurants that had shuttered.
“Those were trickling down to food banks until it came to Clara’s birthday cake,” Ms. Kenneally said. “Normally, they would have gotten the traditional cake that you throw down 30 bucks for at the store, but they had this box cake and some food coloring and some ingenuity and they made this unicorn cake. They were kind of embarrassed by the cake in a certain way. It was this kind of class and food insecurity sting of shame and anxiety that still stayed with this young woman so much. The layers of shame that even when you’ve pulled yourself out you keep apologizing and laughing self-consciously about the cake. It was telling and deeply nuanced and not something you talk about usually when showing a food line. She thought it was important that people know it’s not some other folks who are suffering, it’s all of us.”
Hammocks, like the one being used to lift this man, became stretchers to carry coronavirus patients to boat ambulances in the hard-hit Amazon region.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Tyler Hicks had been working in Manaus, a regional capital city in Brazil, to document the spread of the coronavirus across the Amazon.
He wound up traveling to Manacapuru, a small, remote area where the effects of the virus were even more apparent.
He donned protective gear and trailed health care workers from the hospital as they paid visits to sick patients. The team arrived at one building that housed several families. Mr. Hicks followed them down a long, poorly lit hallway.
“This man when I first saw him was in a hammock that was strung across the room,” Mr. Hicks said. “Part of this has to do with a lack of supplies and equipment but in this case they simply untied the hammock from both ends and carried this man in his own hammock out of his room down the hallway and outside to where the ambulance was waiting.
“It wasn’t very apparent when we were inside because it was so poorly lit, but as we got outside, that was the first time I really saw his face and how ill he looked,” Mr. Hicks said. “Once the light hit the pores of his skin and the wrinkles in his face, it was clear that he had been very ill and probably hadn’t been eating very well and was dehydrated. I just was able to take one or two frames as they were hoisting him along. Just moments later he was loaded into an ambulance and that was the last time I saw him.”
Workers burned the coffins of Covid-19 victims after their bodies had been cremated.
Mexico had one of the highest coronavirus death tolls in the world.
Marco Ugarte/Associated Press
This image is devastating to look at to say the least. Bodies burning on the street is the main focus of this photo. But the men in the back give a powerful message. Watching victims burn, in the middle of some kind of street it looks like. They just patiently wait for the job to be done.
July
A horse-drawn carriage carried the body of Representative John Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where, in 1965, Mr. Lewis was beaten while marching with voting rights activists.
Timothy Ivy for The New York Times
When he was a student at the University of Mississippi, Timothy Ivy first learned about Representative John Lewis. Mr. Ivy, who was studying journalism, was transfixed by Mr. Lewis’s civil rights struggles.
“So now, some 30-plus years later, I had of course grown this respect for him — respect and admiration. I always had wanted to capture a nice portrait of him when he was alive,” Mr. Ivy said, but he never had the chance.
In July, when he learned that the body of Mr. Lewis would be carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where five decades earlier he had been beaten while leading a march for voting rights that came to be known as Bloody Sunday, Mr. Ivy decided to photograph the event.
“My goal was to capture the wagon as it was coming over the crest of the bridge with this sign in the background to show his last crossing,” Mr. Ivy said. “I’m kneeling down low and before they started the procession, some people from the funeral home put a bunch of rose petals on the bridge, which was kind of eerie, to signify Bloody Sunday.”
The bridge crossing offered a moment of reflection after weeks of tumult over racial injustice in America, he said.
“Considering all that’s been going on this year and the past few years — and of course, if you speak to any Black person in America they’ll say it’s been going on our whole lives — this moment was a sense of pause to pay respect and pay honor to someone who symbolized the efforts. It was a passing of the guard for his history and activism. To me, it was also fascinating to see the crowd and how many people showed up far and wide to pay this last honor to him.”
Michele Jones Galvin and her mother, Joyce Stokes Jones, who are descendants of the abolitionist and suffragist Harriet Tubman.
The 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was ratified 100 years ago.
Haruka Sakaguchi for The New York Times
New York City painted a Black Lives Matter mural on Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower.
The city’s announcement of the painting provoked an inflammatory response from President Trump.
Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times
A drive-in movie in San Antonio.
During the pandemic, the drive-in theater, a low-tech vestige of another era, emerged across the country as a popular pastime.
Christopher Lee for The New York Times
“When you’re looking for these pictures, you’re looking for these moments, and these two lovers, they made it a point to string up some lights and make it a little bit of a homey experience. People were just trying to enjoy as much of the experience as possible. I really appreciated the ingenuity and how delicate the moment was.” — Christopher Lee
Showgirls wearing protective masks inside the Ocean Casino Resort.
Some casinos reopened in July with coronavirus restrictions, including temperature checks, limited capacity and mask requirements.
Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times
Jorge and Rosangela Gavilan celebrated the Fourth of July with their families on the beach at Coney Island.
Sarah Blesener for The New York Times
The New York Mets hosted the Atlanta Braves for their season opener.
Instead of fans sitting in the stands, there were cardboard cutouts.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Vehicles lining up at a drive-through testing site during a surge of coronavirus cases in the state.
Texas was one of the first states to lift its lockdown.
Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
A coronavirus patient on a ventilator at Houston Methodist Hospital.
During the summer surge, the hospital created new virus wards, hired traveling nurses and ramped up testing efforts.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Federal agents clashed with protesters near the federal courthouse downtown.
The Trump administration sent federal agents to Portland and other cities to stamp out protests.
Mason Trinca for The New York Times
Mason Trinca covered the racial injustice protests that roiled Portland, Ore., for weeks.
“Every day felt like folks were trying to ask for something they couldn’t attain ever,” he said. “They wanted the Feds to leave and it felt like there wasn’t going to be a compromise.”
To Mr. Trinca, the photograph captured a moment that was a recurring theme of every protest during that period: a stalemate.
“This was one of those nights we were seeing the Feds periodically coming out and clearing the park and federal buildings. You can see the tear gas fuming into the streets. It seems theatrical and it really was, but that was a moment when there was a pause and a standoff between several protesters in the street and the Feds. It was this moment where both sides knew this was a stalemate. You would see time and again these moments like that where both sides were like, ‘Now what?’”
August
President Trump returning from a rally in Londonderry, N.H. Despite the pandemic, he resumed campaigning for re-election in key battleground states.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Two explosions, one very powerful, killed over 190 people and injured more than 6,000.
No one had taken action to secure 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a hangar in the city’s port.
Hussein Malla/Associated Press
Hussein Malla was at home in Beirut editing photos when a loud explosion rocked his apartment.
“The ground underneath me started shaking,” he said. “My family started screaming and we ran to each other and held each other. I thought it was an earthquake. I thought it was an airstrike.”
Mr. Malla went outside to investigate and realized the blast had come from the seaport, about three miles from his home. He headed there immediately and spent the day photographing the horrific scene. It was only when he returned home just before midnight and turned on the local television news that he realized the blast had caused such widespread destruction throughout the entire city.
He woke up before sunrise the next day and took his drone for a better view of the seaport and skyline of the city. “I didn’t believe what I was looking at on the screen,” he said. “From the air you could see everything. All the damage.”
One of the hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the disaster in the city’s port, which reduced some neighborhoods to rubble.
Diego Ibarra Sánchez for The New York Times
Diego Ibarra Sánchez, who lives in Beirut, Lebanon, had just left the city to vacation in Spain when a blast at the seaport shook his home city. He immediately flew home and began taking pictures as he wandered amid the destruction.
Many photographers headed to wealthy neighborhoods to document the damage but at about 5:30 one morning Mr. Sánchez went to a working-class neighborhood that is home to many immigrants. He came across a man whose apartment had been destroyed in the explosion. He was left to sleep outside.
“He lost everything,” Mr. Sánchez said. “His whole house that he was renting was not only completely destroyed but all his furniture and everything was gone.”
Mr. Sánchez has stayed in touch with the man, Mohamed, who has six children. The family is now crammed into a small, one-room apartment. The owner of the apartment building where he had been living received financial help from the government, but tenants like Mohamed weren’t so lucky.
The widow of a man shot during a confrontation between the police and drug gangs.
Police killings surged in Rio, with officers protected by their bosses and politicians.
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
A wildfire burned more than 4,200 acres during the most active wildfire year on record for the West Coast.
Climate change and outdated forest management practices provided kindling for the infernos.
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
“I chased fires up and down California for weeks then finally came to this fire. There was a stream running behind the neighborhood so I had this clear shot of an actual neighborhood with fire coming down the hills.” — Meridith Kohut
Outside a motel after Hurricane Laura slammed into the Louisiana coast.
With winds up to 150 miles per hour, the storm was one of the strongest ever to hit the U.S. mainland.
William Widmer for The New York Times
Chrissy Sample with her son Cassius, whose twin died in the womb.
Black mothers and infants are more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts, a problem worsened by the pandemic.
Flo Ngala for The New York Times
Flo Ngala always tries to make the subjects of her photographs feel at ease. But she felt a special emotional connection with a Black woman who had been pregnant with twins, and had lost one of them after she experienced pain but was unable to get an appointment to see a doctor.
Statistics show that women of color are more likely to face undesirable outcomes in their pregnancies for reasons that public health experts are trying to understand.
“It was very personally and culturally relevant,” she said. “Me being a Black woman, photographing a Black woman, it’s almost like we jumped into it like we knew each other. I showed up to what would normally be a 20-minute portrait, but I ended up hanging out for about an hour. This is not just about a newspaper, this is your life and your unborn child.
“Her best friend was there and we all just started talking and it was crazy to see how emotional I got,” she said.
“I cried when I was photographing. The stories were just heartbreaking.”
“The Dream Continues,” a 30-minute outdoor dance program at the Kaatsbaan Summer Festival.
It was one of the few places in America to offer live dance during the pandemic.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Sara Krulwich, a theater photographer, had 36 photo assignments lined up for the spring canceled on a single day, March 13, as fears about the coronavirus mounted in New York.
“Spring is a really, really busy time when an enormous amount of theater happens and new shows open right before the Tony Awards deadline,” she said. “Usually I would work seven plays and maybe some opera every week. For me to just suddenly have it all disappear was crazy.”
She had a single job, a portrait assignment, until Aug. 1, when she was assigned to photograph one of the first dance performances held in New York since the start of the outbreak. It was upstate, on an outdoor stage.
She had to download an app that guided her through health questions to make sure she was not showing Covid symptoms, something that is now routine for many institutions but was new back then.
“It was all new for everybody,” she said. “It was a beautiful day and a gorgeous space, and we were all almost weeping at the end for the sheer relief that people could perform again.”
Juanita Lujan, 94, at a nursing home that was converted into a center to treat coronavirus patients.
Ms. Lujan later recovered and was transferred back to her senior community in Las Cruces.
Isadora Kosofsky for The New York Times
Senator Kamala Harris accepting the Democratic nomination for vice president, becoming the first Black woman and the first person of Indian descent to be nominated for national office by a major party.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
A livestream projected on a wall, top, showed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. accepting the Democratic presidential nomination.
A home theater projector displayed President Trump accepting the Republican nomination for a second term.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Damon Winter had to change his plans when the national political conventions became largely remote events.
Mr. Winter decided that since he wasn’t going to be photographing a crowded auditorium of giddy delegates, he would project livestreamed images from the conventions into people’s homes. “I love this idea of the conventions coming into their bedroom or living room. Wherever people consume news.”
September
The fast-moving Bear fire, propelled by winds as strong as 45 miles an hour, burned a hillside by the Bidwell Bar Bridge.
The wildfire tore through 230,000 acres in one 24-hour period.
Noah Berger/Associated Press
Noah Berger slept in his car while covering protests for racial justice in Portland, Ore., because a car seemed safer than a hotel when it came to the coronavirus. He left the marches to immediately drive four or five hours south, to the wildfires raging in California.
He was working outside Fresno for two days, and at one point became trapped when the only road out of the area was engulfed in flames. He and a colleague were watching the footage of fires elsewhere on a webcam, astonished at the images coming across even in a grainy, low-quality format. He drove to the site.
The fires were among the deadliest on record, consuming millions of acres. He started taking photos from various vantage points at 11:30 p.m., and then came across the Bidwell Bar Bridge set against a blazing orange backdrop.
“It was this whole impressive scene with the hillside glowing. I couldn’t find a piece that goes on my tripod, so I rested the camera on the hood of a car. I used a consumer device meant to hold an iPad. Then I used a post that was part of guardrail. I shot about 23 frames and almost all of them are blurred or something is in the way. Luckily I did have this one frame that was sharp and didn’t have grass sticking up in the middle.”
He checked the time when he was finished photographing. He had worked 32 hours straight.
Francisco España, 60, a Covid-19 patient who had spent weeks in an intensive care unit, was brought out of the hospital by medical staff for a calming look at the sea.
Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press
Emilio Morenatti photographed medical workers at a Barcelona hospital who were trying to understand whether trips to the seaside would help patients recovering from traumatic intensive care.
“They would put them outside the hospital when they were in a good enough condition to try to offer them their first contact with the outside air and the sun and use the ambience of the sea to try to normalize their life,” Mr. Morenatti said.
The subject of the photo, Francisco España, had spent 52 days in an intensive care unit trying to recover from Covid-19. He was allowed to spend 10 minutes on the promenade overlooking the sea, just across the street from the hospital.
It was not that long after Spain had been locked down to stop the spread of the virus, and passers-by along the promenade kept a wide berth from the patient in a hospital bed who appeared on the sidewalk.
“He told me he thought he was going to die, and when he spent this time in front of the sea he realized he was alive,” Mr. Morenatti said. “When he came back, he felt full of energy.”
Supporters of President Trump took part in a boat parade along the Intracoastal Waterway, starting in Jupiter and ending near the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Kamala Harris — rear left, in a dark suit and white shirt — campaigned in a backyard.
She urged Black Americans in the city, and across the country, to vote.
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
I can’t imagine the struggle of losing the place you live during a pandemic. This has provides such a stark contrast to all the celebrities and rich people who complain so much about stuck being inside their houses/mansions. I think the fact that people have to be kicked out of their homes and the government didn’t help that much is both sad and shameful.
Darlene Martinez, a Maricopa County constable, escorted a family out of their apartment after serving an eviction order.
The pandemic left millions of people unemployed and struggling to keep up payments on their homes.
John Moore/Getty Images
John Moore spent time in September and October photographing Covid-related evictions in Arizona in Maricopa County, one of the largest counties in the country.
The state had enacted a moratorium on evictions to protect the vulnerable, and a nationwide moratorium had also been put in place, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yet an alarming number of people were still finding themselves forced from their homes.
“There are many people on the lower end of the economic spectrum who do not know about the C.D.C. guidelines and state protections they should have,” Mr. Moore said. “It sounds strange to say, but many low-income people who have been affected by this pandemic have lives that are in utter chaos right now, whether it’s physical effects on family members or the economic situation they find themselves in. Even though all one needs to do is download a form from the C.D.C. website and give it to their landlord, many people don’t know to do that. They don’t show up to court dates because their lives are in chaos. This is happening all over the United States. If the C.D.C. moratorium on evictions lapses at the end of this year without additional solutions, we can expect a nationwide tidal wave of evictions in early 2021. The pandemic economy has put many renters, and in some cases landlords, in an extremely precarious situation.”
Migrants fled as fires tore through the Moria refugee camp, leaving 12,000 people homeless, including 4,000 children.
Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press
Supporters of Maria Kolesnikova, an opposition leader, resisted detention by the police.
Ms. Kolesnikova had been abducted by security agents and taken to the Ukrainian border, where she destroyed her passport to avoid expulsion.
Yauhen Yerchak/European Pressphoto Agency, via Shutterstock
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
Nothing in any of these photos says solidarity like this one. You want to take her, you gotta go through us. Our feckless politicians could take a page from the arms linked power of these folk.
Belarus is an interesting conundrum. Belarus and its textbook illiberal democracy see themselves as the last bastion between Russia and the ‘Western homosexual agenda.’ They have quite literally made themselves Russia’s chew toy. And no wonder; Belarus is the one place in the world where the Soviet Union seems never to have ended. Secret police, military parades, and medals for workers, Belarus and its rejection of liberal democracy are a curious case of nostalgia for being a Soviet satellite state.
The women of Congress lined the steps as the coffin of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was carried from the Capitol.
She was the first woman to lie in state there.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Supporters of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, prayed at the doors of the court as Jacquelyn Booth lay on the marble portico mourning the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Judge Amy Coney Barrett met with Vice President Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, as Republicans moved to swiftly secure her confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Erin Schaff photographed Amy Coney Barrett’s first meeting with senators on Capitol Hill not long after the White House announcement of Ms. Barrett’s nomination, which wound up being a Covid super-spreader event.
Ms. Schaff had also photographed an intensive care unit for Covid patients. In some ways, the hospital felt safer than Capitol Hill.
“In a Covid ward, everyone is wearing face masks, sanitizing and taking the virus seriously. It’s not political, it’s their lives. These folks are the ones holding the iPad as families try to communicate with loved ones on ventilators. There are specific protocols for how to protect yourself when you enter the room of a patient with Covid-19, and then when you leave and disinfect yourself you can go outside, eat food and generally be safe,” she said. “There’s no clean area in politics.”
Before the pandemic, Ms. Schaff was accustomed to jostling among photographers and crowds as she went about her work on Capitol Hill. With Covid, she was often one of just two pool photographers shooting events.
“I look back at photos from the beginning of the year with impeachment, when we were all in these big crowds or around politicians, and any time I look back at a photo with so many people close together I kind of cringe. It’ll take a long time for that to go away.”
President Trump met the prime minister of Israel and the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates at the White House, where agreements were signed to normalize relations between Israel and the two Arab nations.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, spoke about climate change at a socially distanced campaign stop at the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
An orange haze hung over Lake Oroville after the Bear fire, which became part of the deadly North Complex fire, burned through the area.
Max Whittaker for The New York Times
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water, the fire next time
Prince’s “Mary Don’t You Weep”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5-HEBGPzFM
Max Whittaker arrived in Plumas National Forest in California on Sept. 9, the day after high winds fanned the smoldering North Complex fire as it raged through the area.
“I found this apocalyptic scene of molten-orange sky and dark clouds of smoke over Lake Oroville,” he said. “I’d already been documenting California’s record-shattering wildfire season for weeks, and this vista seemed to provide a vision of the state’s future.”
Wildfires fueled by climate change threaten not only the forests and the homes of those directly affected, but also the smoke-choked communities hundreds of miles away.
Mr. Whittaker continued driving around the lake before finding the small town of Berry Creek reduced to ashes. Fifteen of its residents had been killed.
“I was stunned to see the town completely annihilated,” he said. “Its only store, school and even firehouse with engines inside were burned completely. At one residence, dogs limped up to me on burned paws. I gave them all my water.”
The fashion designer Christian Siriano showed his spring 2021 collection, featuring poufs, flamenco ruffles and face masks, at his Connecticut home.
Simbarashe Cha for The New York Times
I try not to praise them for this because it should be an expectation now that people try their best to stay safe.
“Even though it was a Covid situation it was one of the best fashion show experiences I’ve had. The intimacy and the relaxed nature of it — you kind of got the feeling that Christian knew most of the people there or had a connection to them, so there wasn’t this facade or air or any one person or group of people being above each other.” — Simbarashe Cha
October
President Trump removed his mask upon returning to the White House after his hospitalization for Covid-19.
He played down the risks of the coronavirus, even as an outbreak was growing among his staff members.
Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Anna Moneymaker landed the assignment to photograph Mr. Trump returning to the White House after being hospitalized for Covid-19 at a time when other photographers who work there were in quarantine.
“We were taken out to the South Lawn and it was just like a normal Marine One landing, but this one was different because he was just coming back from the hospital. Usually the president goes into the Diplomatic Reception Room, but this time they said he was going to walk up to the Truman Balcony and wave to Marine One.”
Photographers are generally penned in on the side of a driveway for Marine One landings, but the Secret Service this time allowed Ms. Moneymaker and others to get a bit closer.
“Things just started happening. It was a scramble. I wanted to frame him well so he lined up with the columns and the door behind him. I lifted my camera up. There’s a helicopter blaring behind us and he had a mask on, and the agents were kind of pushing us and saying it’s not safe to be this close to the helicopter, and he took the mask off. It was surreal.”
Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg set up over 220,000 white flags as part of an art installation outside the D.C. Armory to represent the nation’s death toll from the coronavirus at the time.
Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
For months, Michigan Election Resources and other printing plants across the country struggled to meet the surge in demand for mail ballots, which required the work of additional machines and people.
Christopher Payne for The New York Times
Joseph R. Biden Jr. after delivering an impassioned call for unity at a campaign event near the Civil War battlefield that serves as a symbol of a country split against itself.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Damon Winter had been hoping to photograph a portrait of Joseph R. Biden Jr. for months.
Finally, the opportunity arose in October in Gettysburg after Mr. Biden made a speech focusing on national reconciliation. Mr. Winter, who shoots for the New York Times Opinion section, wanted a formal portrait yet one that would signify that these were different times, so he chose an outdoor setting.
“I found this little area next to a lake and was hoping he would come down and do this. I had read our New York Times endorsement of him and was thinking of the tranquility and hopefully calm that a Biden presidency would represent. There were all these competing notions in my head.”
A drive-through testing site for the coronavirus.
Florida, which locked down late and rushed to reopen, was one of the hardest-hit states.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Waiting for the nurse to walk up to the car, the shields, and masks between us, veiled safety actually. Then the wait begins, and I was thinking the whole time, my son does this every day in the ER. How does he do it?
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
If this meme is the metaphor, then what we have here is that we all seem to be heading down the road being chased not by a T-Rex, but the Coronasaurus Rex.
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
The face of concern, larger than it appears?
This part of the image makes me think about all the hands of all the healthcare workers doing their lifesaving and healing work during the pandemic. It also brought to mind other images I have seen of healthcare worker’s faces, bruised from wearing masks for hours at a time
This reminds me of my drive-up Covid test in October. I was going to visit my 101 year-old dad, so my brother told me I should get tested so as not to be the one to infect him. It makes me think about testing in general in the US. If testing more widely available early on, things would be different.
This reminds me of how quarantine has been, for so many people, an experience of being contained in their own feelings/doubts/yearnings without relief of social interaction. I’ve seen so many teenagers, in particular, come down with isolation-triggered emotional difficulties this year.
A woman grieving over the body of her brother, who was killed in a rocket attack.
Decades-long tensions over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory exploded into open warfare between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
An antigovernment protester clashed with officers, who dispersed crowds with water cannons that sprayed a chemical irritant.
The peaceful protests went on for weeks, encapsulated by the slogan “Resign, Rewrite, Reform.”
Adam Dean for The New York Times
“There was this phalanx of riot police six deep backed up by water cannon trucks, and some of the older, maybe hard-line, faction had gone up to try and stop the advance of the riot police and built temporary barricades out of anything they could find on the street. And there was this standoff. Then the police fired a burst of water.” — Adam Dean
Former President Barack Obama at a drive-in rally for Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Obama criticized President Trump’s handling of the pandemic and warned that his re-election would “tear our democracy down.”
Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times
“It was interesting seeing this rally with everybody in their cars or standing in small groups with masks on. We were waiting for Obama to come out, and he finally comes out and the crowd goes crazy to see him and it felt like we were taken back to a moment in time that was pre-Covid and back to his presidency.” — Kriston Jae Bethel
A drive-in watch party for the final presidential debate.
The candidates’ microphones were muted at times to avoid a repeat of their first face-off, a chaotic spectacle with frequent interruptions.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
New Marine Corps recruits during basic training.
After missteps led to outbreaks in the U.S. military, a strict strategy of quarantining, mask-wearing and handwashing kept the coronavirus at bay.
Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
This past December I had a friend leave to join the Navy. I wonder how he is dealing with this.
Masks from the movie “The Strangers,” in which sadistic killers terrorize a young couple.
Even before the pandemic made masks an everyday inconvenience, they occupied a mighty space in our cultural imagination.
Yael Malka and Cait Oppermann for The New York Times
President Trump, eager to prove he was healthy and energetic despite his recent hospitalization for Covid-19, returned to the campaign trail in Florida, claiming he was immune to the virus.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
November
Counting ballots on election night.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. narrowly won the state, and President Trump contested the results, filing a flurry of lawsuits in Michigan and other states he lost.
Philip Montgomery for The New York Times
NEARLY 160 MILLION PEOPLE WEIGHED IN ON BIDEN VS. TRUMP
Voting in a Pandemic
The 2020 election featured a number of milestones: Kamala Harris became the first woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian descent to win the vice presidency. The Democratic National Convention held its first virtual convention, with video grids of people clapping along from home. And a record number of ballots were cast: nearly 160 million, with both parties getting more votes than in 2016 in nearly every county.
Some people got to the polls on horseback: Sharon Chischilly photographed members of the Navajo Nation riding to vote in Arizona. In Brooklyn, Andrew Seng captured people voting in a grand renovated theater. And many people around the country mailed in their ballots ahead of time because of fears around the virus.
On election night in the battleground state of Michigan, Philip Montgomery watched as election workers tallied votes.
“I didn’t realize how grass roots and analog it was,” he said. “The conversation around this election was how fragile the system is, but also how strong it is. The men and women in that room had been there very early. It was a thriving ecosystem among this organized chaos. It was such a small room and really the hands-on democracy was incredible to see.”
The Kings Theater, which reopened in the Flatbush neighborhood in 2015 after a $95 million renovation, served as a polling site.
Andrew Seng for The New York Times
“I just noticed this one dark corner of the theater and initially was drawn to the aesthetic of it. But it began to symbolize other things to me. I was thinking the election would serve as a beacon of light and hope and perceived change, but I saw a flip side as well.” — Andrew Seng
Members of the Navajo Nation heading to the polls.
The reservation’s geographic isolation made absentee voting a challenge.Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times
I have been reading Tommy Orange’s novel There There with my students, and we’ve been about how COVID impacted Native communities and decimated the reservation population, particularly older folks. I can’t stop thinking about what has been lost – not just in terms of lives, but actual living history – because of this pandemic.
Sharon Chischilly photographed members of the Navajo nation on Election Day, riding by horseback to vote. She trailed them on their more than an hourlong ride to the polls, hopping out of the car to photograph them at various points.
“They wanted to keep their tradition alive. I was pretty aware of this as a member of the Navajo Nation myself. It seemed like everybody knew each other, and you could see this energy of how excited they were. People were driving by in their cars and honking their horns when they passed them. I think it did really inspire a lot of Navajo people to go out and vote.”
A supporter of Joseph R. Biden Jr. held balloons in a parking lot where Mr. Biden was expected to speak.
The outcome of the election had still not been determined.
Amr Alfiky/The New York Times
Election ballots waiting to be sent for counting.
Californians played a major role in a historic surge in turnout, with the nation surpassing 150 million votes for the first time.
Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
Gabriella Angotti-Jones spent Election Day in Southern California, looking for unique images of the American act of voting in a year that was anything but ordinary.
She arrived a few minutes late at a sorting center where mail-in ballots were being counted and joined a tour of the facility. A few boxes of ballots caught her eye.
“There was this random glass door in a completely ugly room with a fluorescent light that allowed a beautiful stream of light to come through,” Ms. Angotti-Jones said. “Then the shaft of light left, and it was gone and I thought, Oh, if I wasn’t late I wouldn’t have got this picture.”
Joanne Young, a supporter of President Trump, demonstrating outside the city’s convention center as votes were counted.
Claims that election observers had not been allowed to watch the tally were deemed to be without merit.
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Laura Rodríguez and Ariana Lyon embraced as they watched Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s first address as president-elect.
His victory set off jubilant celebrations in Democratic-leaning cities nationwide.
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
to celebrate and those who celebrate that shouldn’t be judged upon supporting Biden.
President Trump acknowledged supporters as he left Trump National Golf Club.
He was golfing when major news outlets announced that he had lost his bid for re-election.
Pete Marovich for The New York Times
All while golfing during an impactful time in U.S. history as well as his own career. He still continues to make people believe the election was rigged, and was recently recorded trying to get almost 12,000 votes to turn the election he already lost.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris gave their first addresses to the nation as president-elect and vice president-elect, after Pennsylvania’s tally gave Mr. Biden the necessary Electoral College votes to secure victory.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Paige Myers, 5, arriving for her first day of in-person kindergarten since the pandemic began.
School districts across the country grappled with when and how to safely reopen classrooms.
Rosem Morton for The New York Times
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. introduced several picks for his national security team at The Queen theater, declaring they were “ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.”
Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
Is this photographer trying to get a job as White House photographer? And what about the sexist iconography of Harris as left hand ‘man’ not his right hand. I know these seem farfetched, but everything is in the frame for a reason, some of them are plotted and some are imposed.
Hi Terry, I really like how deeply you looked into the photo. I love how you brought up Harris being on his left and not his right. I, myself would have never noticed something like that. Your title was also interesting. There does seem to be a “halo” around Biden’s head. I think the photographer wanted this to be angled correctly in the photo because for a lot of people Biden is seen as an savior.
Medical workers tended to a patient with severe respiratory symptoms in the province of Bergamo.
The northern Italian province became one of the deadliest killing fields for the virus in the Western world.
Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times
A doctor comforted a Covid-19 patient in an intensive care unit.
The United States has had more confirmed coronavirus cases and related deaths than any other country.
Go Nakamura/Getty Images
Health care workers have been treating coronavirus patients, saving lives, and making heartbreaking sacrifices since the beginning of this pandemic. How are health care workers able to do every single day for long hours, through overwork, pain and loss? It didn’t have to be this way.
My head sinks into the sea
of sterile blue shimmer
where all I feel is the warmth
of clinically-wrapped skin
the beating of another heart.
This will be one the last sounds
This will be one of the sights
This will be the end of me
in a moment I’ve waited for. . .
all my life.
December
A medic inoculating a patient, who is also a doctor, with Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine at a clinic.
The final trial of the vaccine is yet to be completed.
Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
“Moscow authorities are mostly reluctant to give any access to foreign media, but at this moment it is important for public relations because they are basically the first ones to do this. Only 40 percent of people here support this idea of mass vaccination and trust the vaccine. Authorities are trying to overcome this reluctancy.” — Sergey Ponomarev
Visitors will soon be able to see the Mona Lisa again at the Louvre.
The museum, which has been closed since late October, is reopening on Dec. 16.
Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
The Netherlands expanded its approach to coronavirus testing with so called XL test streets like this one, where 5,000 tests can be administered per day.
Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
Ilvy Njiokiktjien went to the south of the Netherlands to photograph new coronavirus testing sites that opened to process tens of thousands of tests a day.
The city of Eindhoven, where revelers gathered in February to celebrate Carnival, had one of the country’s worst outbreaks.
“The Netherlands was very much behind in testing,” she said. “They’ve now scaled up the testing capacity, and this was the first day when it opened up, and it was quite calm.”
Ethiopian refugees shared a shelter in Sudan.
At least 45,000 people have fled war in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray.
Aid groups warn that another 100,000 refugees may follow in the next six months if fighting continues.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
The last supporter at a Republican rally in Georgia, where two runoffs will determine the majority in the U.S. Senate.
President Trump had made an appearance, but mainly to complain about his own election loss.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Lillian Foster and Teagan Glidden took a photograph with Santa at Bass Pro Shops, but there was no sitting on his lap.
This year, Santa is staying behind a screen and wearing a visor.
Ash Adams for The New York Times
My family and I went to Bass Pro to get pictures with Santa in 2020. It was exactly like in the picture. It was a very bitter-sweet moment because it was the first time my siblings had ever been to something like this, but they could not interact with Santa. It was not the same, and it was a completely accurate depiction of 2020. Separation and distance from those you want to spend time with. Every part of 2020 was just not the same.
2020 was an interesting year for communication because due to the virus people could no longer come into close contact with others. It changed the way people interact with each other, meeting virtually through a computer or phone, or in this case using masks/shields and keeping distance from one another. This is impactful because human connection is a vital part of life and it has been restricted in various ways but this change was necessary to ensure the health and safety of others.
“I am a mother with two kids, and just looking at their experience and thinking about connection and what it means for these little people, I started asking around to people, ‘Where’s Santa?’ I found him, and he had this glass plate and a visor so he didn’t have to have a mask on, and I just thought this was so telling of this time. These little girls were 3 years old. Almost a third of their life has been in the pandemic. And see how smiley they look, how normal it is, and it’s Santa in a box.” — Ash Adams
Medical workers cheered for Margaret Keenan, 90, after she became the first person in Britain to receive the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
“I feel so privileged,” she said.
Pool photo by Jacob King
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
I can’t help but think of the choice of a frame here that included “Way Out” was classic politicization. Lazy oversimplfication on the photographer’s part. Just makes me realize that framed=staged. Who’s zooming whom? The message here reinforces another trope: the hero. Keenan is a hero, the medical workers are heroes, and most importantly, BigPharma is the hero.
Curated by David Furst and Jeffrey Henson Scales. Interviews by Dionne Searcey. Editing by Rachel Dry. Design by Umi Syam. Production by Peter Blair, Eric Dyer, Natasha King, Veronica Majerol, Valencia Prashad and Jessica Schnall. Additional production by Justin Baek, Adriana Balsamo, Lily Benson, Mary Jane Callister, Elizabeth Pierson, Carrie Mifsud and Hannah Wise.
General Document Comments 0
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
Eternity is in love with the creations of time.
In light of Biden’s responsibility for the crime bill, his connections to the Dixiecrats and busing opposition, and his recent excoriation of African American leaders (https://theintercept.com/2020/12/10/biden-audio-meeting-civil-rights-leaders/)
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