More is not always better. When we are bombarded with hundreds of digital photographs in a day, the odds mount against the impact of any single image, no matter the meanings and emotions it contains. A frame brimming with insight, passion and hard work can scroll by in a flash.
In an attempt to remedy that, the TIME photo department every year selects the ten images that made us, first, pause…then dig a little deeper into what went into bringing that image to your eyes. The idea is to delve deeper not only into the impact an image has on viewers, or the people in the photograph, but also on the person behind the camera. Photographers often live the stories they document, and find themselves grappling not only with form, approach or ethics, but with personal feelings.
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What follows is an attempt to slow down, sit with images, and hear the stories behind them. – Kim Bubello, Deputy Director of Photography
‘Tender Humanity’
Four-time Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist Carol Guzy has been documenting migrant hearings at the Jacob Javits Federal Building for months. “The most heart wrenching scenes are family separations,” says Guzy. “Innocent children are caught in the crossfire of controversial immigration reform tactics and traumatized watching their parent taken away by masked men in a place where they came for due process.”
“In a moment of tender humanity, a security guard sheds tears witnessing the heartbreak of a distraught woman from Ecuador and her children after her husband was detained by ICE when leaving his immigration court hearing,” says Guzy. “‘Please help me, please help me. Take me too,’ she wept as he was led away.”
“Security guards are tangled in the middle of ICE, respondents, observers, activists and press as courthouse dynamics play out during this new normal in America,” Guzy explains. “This nation is engulfed in a great political divide. Some protest, decrying a slippery slide into fascism. Others applaud. And daily detentions continue.”
When asked about what lessons guide her image making, Guzy says, “Photojournalism is the practice of visual empathy. I believe we need to check bias at the door and let the photos speak volumes. It can be soul crushing to bear witness, but vital. Some stories are greater than us. This is one of them.”
‘Recognize the Uniqueness of Their Lives’
Photographer Moises Saman was on assignment for TIME when he was embedded with MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in Al Junaynah, a town in Darfur state in western Sudan. “On this day, I had the rare opportunity to accompany a mobile MSF team bringing aid to families displaced from Khartoum who were now living in an abandoned former orphanage on the outskirts of town,” says Saman. “When we stepped inside the building, I remember entering quietly, almost hesitantly. The space had been transformed into a makeshift home, a cluster of dark, concrete rooms where several families were sharing whatever safety they could find. Light came in through broken windows and a hallway, revealing layers of peeling paint, but inside the room the air felt heavier, more intimate, as a woman stirred a pot over a small fire, preparing what would be the only meal her family would have that day”.
“In these situations, I am always aware of the tension between documenting and intruding,” Saman explains, when asked about what was going through his mind at that moment. “People here had already been stripped of so much privacy and control over their lives. I didn’t want the camera or my presence to represent yet another force taking something from them. Every decision, from where to stand, to how long to stay, carries an ethical weight. At the same time, there’s the internal challenge of staying open and attentive to what people are living through, without letting the weight of their circumstances paralyze you or numb you. There is a risk of falling into visual clichés, of becoming desensitized by the familiarity of scenes like these, because I have witnessed them so many times before elsewhere. Each encounter demands that I resist the impulse to see people as types or symbols of their suffering, and instead recognize the uniqueness of their lives.”
‘I Could Sense Her Desperation’
Longtime Star Tribune photojournalist Richard Tsong-Taatarii was on his way to cover garbage collection at the Minnesota State Fair when he got a call to head to Annunciation Church, where there was an active shooter. “I quickly headed south on I-35W,” Tsong-Taatarii recalls. “Knowing that cops probably had the north entrance under lockdown, I headed for the south part of the property and parked three blocks or so away.”
After photographing the scene, Tsong-Taatarii was leaving the church campus when he noticed a mother running towards it in sandals. “At one point, she just took them off so she could run faster barefoot. I could sense her desperation in those moments.” Tsong-Taatarii did not discover the woman’s identity until later and while she would like to stay anonymous, it turned out her child was not injured during the shooting.
“I tried to make impactful images that captured the situation without, as much as possible, further aggravating those present,” says Tsong-Taatarii. In this case, what the image captured was “a situation in which any of us could find ourselves.”
‘Instinct for Space and Timing’
No matter what photographer Andres Kudacki is covering, whether it be a protest or a dog show, he approaches his craft with the same intensity. “For me,” says Kudacki, “each [assignment] is an opportunity to make strong photographs and to tell a story visually in a way that reflects who I am as a photographer. I try to bring all my skills to that process, from reading light and composition to timing and technical execution, while always maintaining high ethical standards.”
At the Westminster show, he says, “the environment was highly energetic, and chaotic, where timing and precision matter constantly. While the chaos is part of the story, I was also interested in moments of pause, those brief instants when the energy settles and a scene becomes readable.” Although he was finished for the day he felt compelled to make more images, which is when he came across a perfectly identical group of Bedlington Terriers. “The dogs were simply there together, repeating themselves visually within the space. I started moving around them, then everything aligned.”
“My approach is fundamentally observational. I do not direct scenes or interfere with what is unfolding. I avoid anything that might cause people or animals to change their behavior because of my presence,” says Kudacki. “A colleague once told me that I have an instinct for space and timing, an ability to enter a situation and organize visual information quickly. What this image reaffirmed for me is something I have always believed. Even assignments that might not seem particularly relevant or trendy can hold the potential for a strong photograph. I am interested in showing something that even those inside the scene might not notice, or might not see in the same way. That pursuit continues to drive my work.”
‘Being Present and Empathetic’
Los Angeles based photographer Ethan Swope had been immersed in the LA wildfires as their destruction continued throughout February. After spending the previous day and night photographing the active destruction of the Palisades fire, he moved to the Eaton fire. With the winds moving rapidly and alerts sounding, Swope was on high alert “Safety is paramount to avoid becoming the story,” he says. “I have trained with Cal Fire and wear the same protective equipment as firefighters.”
He came across this scene on his second day on the Eaton Fire. “The flames were jumping from house to house. As the sun rose, it revealed the horrific destruction from the previous night. As a photojournalist, my job is to provide an eyewitness account of what is happening and a visual context. With so much destruction everywhere I looked, it felt overwhelming trying to encapsulate it in a single photo. Often, fires are depicted in an overly dramatic or glamorized way, but each home represents a person’s life. These are people facing the worst days of their lives, so it’s important to cover these stories with respect.”
“Climate change, the environment, and the human story made this important and timely,” Swope says. “I’m honored that my photo has been seen by so many people. I hope it gives people a better understanding of what it’s like to be at the center of these tragedies. It’s a comparatively quiet photo, but often the images that resonate happen when you slow down and pay attention. Being present and empathetic is vital to being a journalist.”
‘Strong But Also Beautiful’
Getty photographer Chris McGrath was covering protests that erupted after the arrest of Istanbul’s popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “This night saw the heaviest clashes between protesters and police,” says McGrath “Several other photographers were already surrounding him, I got there late and pushed my way through the legs of other photographers, I managed to only get a few frames before he stepped away after being heavily pepper sprayed by the police”.
To capture the scene, Mcgrath had to squat down. “The low angle shooting up into the police lights enhanced the pepper spray giving it this feeling, the calmness of the protester and the spectre of the police behind packaged the image well and communicated the situation in a strong but also beautiful image.”
‘Ordinary Lives Under Attack’
Visual journalist and documentary photographer David Guttenfelder was covering the ongoing conflict in Ukraine for the New York Times when the air-raid alert sounded in Kharkiv. “The app showed that incoming ballistic missiles were just minutes out,” says Guttenfelder. “When I grabbed my gear and body armor, I heard loud explosions somewhere in the city. We drove our truck toward a rising column of smoke. As we neared the impact site, families were running through the haze, and I moved forward in the direction they were fleeing from. Residents emerged from the apartment block doorways carrying a few belongings and family pets in their arms. This woman was running with two curly-haired dogs held tightly against her. I photographed her as she passed on their way toward a safe spot.”
“I was mainly thinking about how to get there and work quickly,” Guttenfelder shares when asked about what was going through his mind throughout the day. “The added challenge is the risk of follow-up ‘double-tap’ Russian strikes that target survivors of the first attack, as well as emergency crews and journalists arriving on the scene.”
“The scale of suffering on the grinding front lines is unimaginable. But Russia’s daily missile strikes, short- and long- range drone attacks, and aerial bombs falling far from the front mean that nowhere is out of range and no one in the country is truly safe,” Guttenfelder says. “If this photograph resonates or helps people see that, it may be because it shows the scary immediacy of otherwise ordinary lives under attack.”
‘Seeing Freedom for the First Time’
Photographer Saher Alghorra had just finished covering Hamas’ handover of the Israeli hostages under the ceasefire agreement when he was headed to Khan Younis to document the release of Palestinian prisoners. “I took my time capturing [this moment] and waited for the prisoners to lean their heads out of the truck windows, until one of their relatives climbed up spontaneously, and emotionally, to embrace one of his family members,” says Alghorra.
“The challenges I faced included the heavy crowding and my inability to move around due to the thousands of people waiting for their released family members,” Alghorra explains, when asked about the challenges of taking this photo. “Another challenge was the extensive gunfire into the air in celebration of the prisoners’ release, which made me fear being hit by a stray bullet that could kill me.”
“What was going through my mind was my own internal questioning about how the released prisoners must have felt, seeing freedom for the first time in so many years. I was curious to know what emotions they were experiencing. That moment filled me with great joy and mixed emotions of sadness and happiness. The prisoners’ faces were joyful yet exhausted at the same time—they were crying, as if they couldn’t believe they were free.”
‘Faces Hidden in Shadow’
After Pope Francis’ death, AFP photographer Jeff Pachoud was on assignment covering the funeral and the reactions in Saint Peter’s Square during the conclave that would choose his successor. “After many hours walking and observing the overcrowded place, these four nuns stood out from the crowd,” says Pachoud. “I was attracted to their attitude, the way they moved in their black and white suits, faces hidden in shadow—concerned, affected.”
“I needed to be fast to not break the moment,” Pachoud recalls.“In the end, I like this graphic and clean frame with symbols that sum up this out of time and atmosphere event. The nun wearing sunglasses adds a bit of humanity and mystery to this shot. I really appreciate working in the unofficial areas, witnessing the big event from a side point of view.”
‘The Weight of Their Gaze’
When he was invited to document the arrival of the Venezuelans at the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, photographer Philip Holsinger had spent more than a year in El Salvador covering its government’s war on gangs both inside and outside of prisons.“When the first plane opened its doors I ran up the stairs under the guise of wanting to document the Defense Minister and so I placed myself in the center of the drama from the start,” Holsinger says.
“This was a high stake security affair with a lot of heavily armed people from two nations,” he says, “and where I stood with my cameras at the top of the stairs to make this photo was a crowd of people way too large for the little metal platform. At one point a U.S. ICE Special Operations soldier grabbed me and held me while I shot the photo, in order to prevent me from being pushed over the rail.”
“This photo is the very first detainee coming off the plane. So he was the first detainee to see the wall of police and soldiers awaiting them, and he was the first detainee they saw. All eyes were literally on him. I felt the weight of their gaze…like the prisoner was something other than a contemporary human,” Holsinger says. “Even though the prisoner is being carried and is surrounded by police, I feel that his body looks powerful and the effect of the photo is that a crowd of police is required to contain one man, like this one man in a white shirt equals 50 heavily-armed police.” Holsinger says empathy was a guiding principle behind the images from that night. “I approached the moment not as a story about policy or deportation but as a story about fear,” he says. “I felt their fear as they came off the plane.”
