Pulitzer Center Update December 2, 2019

2019: A Year in Photos

Media: Author:

Rising sea levels along United States coastlines, crowded refugee camps in Mexico, the lingering scars of war in Afghanistan. As we look back on a year of photojournalism supported by the Pulitzer Center, I'm struck by the ways these photos tell multiple stories. The story of Indigenous resistance to logging in the Amazon rainforest is not just an environmental story— it's also about trade, politics, land rights, and more. The story of a market in the West Bank is a story of food and culture, but also a story of access to land and critical natural resources. 

The problems we face today are deeply interlinked. These are not single-issue stories, nor are they for a single audience. In order to understand the depth and breadth of climate change, migration, public health, and more, we need deep reporting on stories that serve the public good.

The Pulitzer Center invests more than $2 million a year to enable journalists to bring these complex issues to light, and must raise every dollar we spend. And this year, we're partnering with NewsMatch, who will match individual donations up to $1,000— will you support us

Images like the ones below help us see and understand people across the world. I invite you to reflect with us on the stories these photos tell, and read through the reasons Pulitzer Center staff were moved by these images. 

The more we realize that these stories affect us all, the better equipped we will be to serve humanity far and wide. 

 

Conflict & Peacebuilding

Haroon, age twelve, witnessed a Zero-Two raid on his family home. He was the oldest male survivor. Image by Adam Ferguson. Afghanistan, 2019.
Haroon, age twelve, witnessed a Zero-Two raid on his family home. He was the oldest male survivor. Image by Adam Ferguson. Afghanistan, 2019.

Tom Hundley, Senior Editor: Modern warfare takes a heavy toll on civilians, especially women and children. Over the years, photographers on the frontlines have produced a remarkable body of work that captures the shocking destructive violence of warfare. What Adam Ferguson has done in his gallery of photos for The New Yorker is capture the lingering trauma. I was struck by Ferguson’s understated portrait of Haroon, a 12-year-old Afghan boy, the oldest male survivor of a raid on his home. It is the face of a stolen childhood.

 

Culture & Identity

Zahra Ahmad kisses her father, Mohammad Ahmad Sibte, whom she calls Baba, on the cheek before departing to Iraq from Detroit on Feb. 1, 2019. Zahra's parents, Mohammad Ahmad Sibte and Lamiya Adil Mahdi, survived the Irani-Iraqi revolution. Image by Brontë Wittpenn. United States, 2019.
Zahra Ahmad kisses her father, Mohammad Ahmad Sibte, whom she calls Baba, on the cheek before departing to Iraq from Detroit on Feb. 1, 2019. Zahra's parents, Mohammad Ahmad Sibte and Lamiya Adil Mahdi, survived the Irani-Iraqi revolution. Image by Brontë Wittpenn. United States, 2019.

Fareed Mostoufi, Senior Education Manager: This image by Brontë Wittpenn from MLive journalist Zahra Ahmad's intimate series on her journey to reconnect with her family in Iraq radiates with a joy that feels both personal and universal. As a child of immigrants from Iran, this image of pure affection feels so familiar and so beautifully expresses the Middle Eastern communities I grew up with. For me, it also acts as a reminder to notice and celebrate the love that continues to flourish in all communities despite the world's ongoing conflicts.

 

Economy & Trade

Emily Harris, from left, and her wife, Brandi Harris, talk with cattle buyer Ed Flood while their young livestock eats one last time before being loaded onto a trailer for transport to farms in Indiana and New York. Image by Mark Hoffman. United States, 2019.
Emily Harris, from left, and her wife, Brandi Harris, talk with cattle buyer Ed Flood while their young livestock eats one last time before being loaded onto a trailer for transport to farms in Indiana and New York. Image by Mark Hoffman. United States, 2019.

Jeff Barrus, Communications Director: In his work for "Dairyland in Distress," a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel project supported through the Pulitzer Center's Bringing Stories Home initiative, photographer Mark Hoffman shows Wisconsin dairy farmers living on the edge of financial collapse as global economic forces threaten to destroy the industry. In this photo, Emily Harris and her wife Brandi talk to a cattle buyer while several of their former herd eat for the last time on their farm. Emily and Brandi are smiling cheerfully, even though their dairy business is ending. Mark's photography catches farmers in gentle human moments like this—ordinary people, splattered with muck from hard work on the farm, living their lives with dignity in the face of difficult circumstances. The herd may be leaving, but the work doesn't end for Emily and Brandi.

A cofferdam—an enclosure built within a body of water to allow the enclosed area to be pumped out—on the fringe of a parcel of reclaimed land intended for the planned second airport in Xiamen, southern China. The prosperous southern coastal city of Xiamen started in 2016 to reclaim land in preparation to build a controversial second airport on Dadeng Island, a 13 square kilometer island on the border of Xiamen and Kinmen island which belongs to Taiwan.When the airport is completed on reclaimed land, the size of Dadeng island will have doubled.The plans are that by 2025, the airport will have two runways, and be able to serve 45 million passengers per year. Right now, highways and subways connecting Xiamen and Dadeng Island are under construction. Although it’s widely reported that the airport is scheduled to be operational by 2020, there is at present no evidence that the central government and the military have given the final approval to the construction of the airport. Image by Sim Chi Yin. China, 2018.
A cofferdam—an enclosure built within a body of water to allow the enclosed area to be pumped out—on the fringe of a parcel of reclaimed land intended for the planned second airport in Xiamen, southern China. The prosperous southern coastal city of Xiamen started in 2016 to reclaim land in preparation to build a controversial second airport on Dadeng Island, a 13 square kilometer island on the border of Xiamen and Kinmen island which belongs to Taiwan.When the airport is completed on reclaimed land, the size of Dadeng island will have doubled.The plans are that by 2025, the airport will have two runways, and be able to serve 45 million passengers per year. Right now, highways and subways connecting Xiamen and Dadeng Island are under construction. Although it’s widely reported that the airport is scheduled to be operational by 2020, there is at present no evidence that the central government and the military have given the final approval to the construction of the airport. Image by Sim Chi Yin. China, 2018.

Jon Sawyer, Executive Director: This luminous photograph by Sim Chi Yin projects beauty and mystery, the sense of something natural and harmonious. In fact it is neither. The photo captures a massive land reclamation project, one of many that is contributing to the world’s rapidly depleting reserves of sand, as Yin documents for Bloomberg Businessweek in "The Deadly Global War for Sand." 

 

Environment & Climate Change

Savoonga villager Denny Akeya holds a fat Pacific cod, one of many caught this summer by a skiff crew that included his son Derek Akeya. Denny Akeya also used to fish, and remembers when cod were scarce and halibut were bigger. Image by Steve Ringman. United States, 2019.
Savoonga villager Denny Akeya holds a fat Pacific cod, one of many caught this summer by a skiff crew that included his son Derek Akeya. Denny Akeya also used to fish, and remembers when cod were scarce and halibut were bigger. Image by Steve Ringman / The Seattle Times. United States, 2019.

Ann Peters, University & Community Outreach Director: Why is it all doom and gloom? On climate change reporting that is often the question. I find Steve Ringman's photo of Savoonga villager Denny Akeya a hopeful one. A glint in his eye, peeking out behind a fat Pacific cod. Not what he’s fished for before, but he’s working to figure out this changing world. Now his son has returned to the community to build a life with his family there. Reading these stories in The Seattle Times about the Bering Sea, we should remember our futures are connected in this great big world of ours, and we need to seek out solutions together.

A portion of Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey, carved out of a marsh. Channels cut into the wetland give every homeowner access to the water. A 2015 study predicted that by 2050, 31 percent of Egg Harbor’s land, worth $237.5-million at the time of the report, will be inundated part of every day. Image by Alex MacLean. United States, 2019.
A portion of Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey, carved out of a marsh. Channels cut into the wetland give every homeowner access to the water. A 2015 study predicted that by 2050, 31 percent of Egg Harbor’s land, worth $237.5-million at the time of the report, will be inundated part of every day. Image by Alex MacLean. United States, 2019.

Libby Moeller, Intern: Alex MacLean’s images are stark representations of the threat already posed to our cities by sea level rise. In this photo published in Hakai Magazine, Egg Harbor Township is almost entirely surrounded by water. It represents a minute fraction of what we have to lose if we continue our inaction toward combating climate change.

A Wampis child plays in the Ayambis community. Image by Marcio Pimenta. Peru, 2019.
A Wampis child plays in the Ayambis community. Image by Marcio Pimenta. Peru, 2019.

Nora Moraga-Lewy, Rainforest Journalism Fund Coordinator: Marcio Pimenta’s photo captures part of a mischievous smile in the eyes of a Wampis child. The Wampis are adapting in the face natural resource extractivism, ever-changing politics and broken promises, and the impacts of a changing climate. This image, for Mongabay and National Geographic Brazil, makes me think about the burden that global institutions and discourse place on Indigenous communities and future generations to address the climate crisis for which they are least responsible. But it also represents resistance through existence and joy.

In the highlands of western Guatemala, in an area affected by deforestation, a man cuts firewood for cooking. Image by Mauricio Lima. Guatemala, 2019.
In the highlands of western Guatemala, in an area affected by deforestation, a man cuts firewood for cooking. Image by Mauricio Lima. Guatemala, 2019.

Claire Seaton, Multimedia Coordinator: This image by Mauricio Lima reminds me that climate change and migration are both incredibly complex and inextricably linked. The choice to cut firewood in deforested land, or to cross a border, is often motivated by far more complicated reasons than we in wealthy, powerful countries might fully grasp — reporting like this from The New Yorker helps us begin to understand those reasons.

Larissa is a Borari, indigenous woman which is part of Suraras of Tapajos, a group of indigenous women who live in Alter do Chao, a small town on the Tapajos river. They protect their village from pollution as well as from real state projects. Left: Larissa floating on the Tapajos river in Alter do Chao. Right: Boats that offer transport to tourists in Alter do Chao. Image by Pablo Albarenga. Brazil, 2019.
Larissa is a Borari, indigenous woman which is part of Suraras of Tapajos, a group of indigenous women who live in Alter do Chao, a small town on the Tapajos river. They protect their village from pollution as well as from real state projects. Left: Larissa floating on the Tapajos river in Alter do Chao. Right: Boats that offer transport to tourists in Alter do Chao. Image by Pablo Albarenga. Brazil, 2019.

Lucille Crelli, Communications Assistant: In Pablo Albarenga's photography, the Indigenous land defenders in Brazil are literally laying down their lives on the land that they are fiercely defending. This series from The Washington Post is beautifully shot and masterfully composed. By offering a bird’s eye view of both the activists and the topography side by side, Albarenga illuminates the intimate connection between the two in a way that I hadn't seen before.

 

Food

Classic dishes like falafel and hummus are served with pickled veggies to act as palate cleansers. Vegetables such as cauliflower, radish and eggplant steep in turmeric- and beet-infused solutions, which gives them these vibrant colors. A pickled delicacy is makdous, small eggplants cured in olive oil and stuffed with walnuts, garlic, and red pepper. Image by Carly Graf. Palestine, 2019.
Classic dishes like falafel and hummus are served with pickled veggies to act as palate cleansers. Vegetables such as cauliflower, radish and eggplant steep in turmeric- and beet-infused solutions, which gives them these vibrant colors. A pickled delicacy is makdous, small eggplants cured in olive oil and stuffed with walnuts, garlic, and red pepper. Image by Carly Graf. Palestine, 2019.

Kem Sawyer, Contributing Editor: It was the bright pink of the cauliflower pickled with beets that drew me to student Reporting Fellow Carly Graf's photograph of a market in the West Bank. Palestinian farmers face tremendous difficulties in accessing land and water, yet they persevere. Here the produce is bountiful—a symbol of hope that shared food will bring together people of disparate beliefs.

 

Land & Property Rights

Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz walks between buildings to the beach around the Bravos de Boston neighborhood, where vacation homes, small hotels and Airbnbs proliferate. Image by Kari Lydersen. Puerto Rico, 2019.
Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz walks between buildings to the beach around the Bravos de Boston neighborhood, where vacation homes, small hotels and Airbnbs proliferate. Image by Kari Lydersen. Puerto Rico, 2019.

Peterson Njamunge, Office Assistant: This photo for Public Radio International by Kari Lyderson juxtaposes the local versus invasive new development in Puerto Rico, in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria. The local resident walking in the shrunken space feels like a powerful reminder of why we need to be more vigilant in protecting our personal and shared spaces from the threat of encroachment by an ever-expanding and unchecked digital economy.

 

Migration

A girl from the Mexican state of Guerrero looks towards the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros as her family members ready their tent for the night. Image by Miguel Gutierrez Jr. Mexico, 2019.
A girl from the Mexican state of Guerrero looks towards the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros as her family members ready their tent for the night. Image by Miguel Gutierrez Jr. Mexico, 2019.

Jackie Calderon, Editorial Assistant: Men, women, and children were made to wait at this makeshift refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico for their asylum hearings, set months into the future. This photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr. for The Texas Tribune captures the anxiety of migrants caught up in the U.S.-Mexico border crisis, complicated further by the "remain in Mexico" policy. 

In this Oct. 11, 2019 photo, crosses covered with the names of people who have drowned trying to cross the river stand on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico. Migrants who make it this far, tell stories of being captured by armed bandits who demand a ransom: They can pay for illegal passage to the border, or merely for their freedom, but either way they must pay. Image by Fernando Llano. Mexico, 2019.
In this Oct. 11, 2019 photo, crosses covered with the names of people who have drowned trying to cross the river stand on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico. Migrants who make it this far, tell stories of being captured by armed bandits who demand a ransom: They can pay for illegal passage to the border, or merely for their freedom, but either way they must pay. Image by Fernando Llano. Mexico, 2019.

Indira Lakshmanan, Executive Editor: The desperate trail of human migration fueled by war, gang violence, poverty, and oppression is a defining story of our era. How rich nations treat those refugees will define us. The Associated Press this year took us along the perilous Rio Grande crossing into the squalor of camps at the southern border of the US, and led us through a gauntlet of horrors suffered by Africans as they cross Yemen for a better life. Fernando Llano's picture of handmade crosses and relics marking lives lost at a Mexican river crossing — even as more migrants brave the journey nonetheless — forces readers to reckon with the moral consequences of shutting doors on desperate neighbors.

The Valdez family — Joy, daughter Catalina, Rafael and daughter Maya — lives in the city of Zacatecas, Mexico, but hopes eventually to return to the Seattle area. Image by Erika Schultz. Mexico, 2019.
The Valdez family — Joy, daughter Catalina, Rafael and daughter Maya — lives in the city of Zacatecas, Mexico, but hopes eventually to return to the Seattle area. Image by Erika Schultz. Mexico, 2019.

Katie Brown, Intern: With immigration raids and deportations encouraged, many long-time residents have been kicked out of the United States. The Valdez family was deported after raising their family in Seattle, leaving them with emotional and financial strain. This photo by Erika Schultz for The Seattle Times highlights the ongoing pain and unwavering strength required to remain hopeful despite difficult circumstances.

Rosemanie 'Rosie' Prospere, 35, left, manicures the nails of her assistant Dieuny Delizin, 19, at her beauty salon in the Canaan 5 neighborhood. Prospere came to the area in 2015 with a dream of opening a salon of her own. Now almost four years later, she says that business is hard but at least she is not stressed about having to make rent. Now she dreams of opening a chain of beauty salons all across the region – all pink, of course. 'When you have a business, you have to make it stand out,' Prospere says. Image by Allison Shelley. Haiti, 2019.
Rosemanie "Rosie" Prospere, 35, left, manicures the nails of her assistant Dieuny Delizin, 19, at her beauty salon in the Canaan 5 neighborhood. Prospere came to the area in 2015 with a dream of opening a salon of her own. Now almost four years later, she says that business is hard but at least she is not stressed about having to make rent. Now she dreams of opening a chain of beauty salons all across the region – all pink, of course. "When you have a business, you have to make it stand out," Prospere says. Image by Allison Shelley. Haiti, 2019.

Meerabelle Jesuthasan, Education Intern: In this photo for U.S. News and World Report, a beautician in Canaan, Haiti, manicures the nails of her assistant in the salon she hopes to turn into a chain across the region eventually. Allison Shelley's photojournalism on this city without access to government resources or infrastructure illustrates a society building itself after devastation. I was struck by the questions raised by this project, which also touched on the role—often either absent or detrimental—of the government and international aid: what does it mean to have access, to have a community, and what does it take to build those?

In Tijuana, the poorest asylum seekers bide their time in shelters, where they do their laundry and eat communal meals. Image by Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun. Mexico, 2019.
In Tijuana, the poorest asylum seekers bide their time in shelters, where they do their laundry and eat communal meals. Image by Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun. Mexico, 2019.

Fernanda Peréz, Intern: These asylum-seekers in Tijuana dry their clothes the same way I helped my grandma do so in our own border city. As my hometown of El Paso, Texas and the rest of the border region has become a place where human rights are constantly violated in an attempt to uphold a constructed idea of what a country should look like at the expense of human lives, Omar Ornela captures the complexity of the cross-border crisis for The Desert Sun

 

Public Health

A cobra inside a fishing trap on the river Rukie. Image by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham. Congo, 2019.
A cobra inside a fishing trap on the river Rukie. Image by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham. Congo, 2019.

Steve Sapienza, Senior Stategist, Collaborative News Partnerships: To photograph snakes, you have to go where snakes live. Hugh Kinsella Cunningham traveled up the Congo river and its tributaries to report for the BBC and The Guardian on snake bites — an under-reported health threat that, according to the World Health Organization, results in between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths worldwide each year. Cunningham reports that a lack of knowledge regarding basic treatments and poor access to anti-venom means that venomous snakes pose a severe threat to remote communities, especially those whose daily work by rivers and fields places them in snake habitats.

 

Religion

© Monika Bulaj. 2009-2012.
© Monika Bulaj. 2009-2012.

Mark Schulte, Education Director: Monika Bulaj's image, part of a story for Granta on the Hazara Shia in Afghanistan, captures a sense of perseverance under stress, and does so with grace and humanity.

 

Women

Animal Tracker, Kenya: A mother of three at 23, Mpayon Loboitong’o herds her family’s goats on her own; after her husband left to find work in Nairobi, she was told he’d been killed there. Her other full-time job: charting animal movements for Save the Elephants. For a monthly salary she and eight other women traverse the bush, unarmed, amid elephants, lions, and African buffalo. “I do this work so my kids don’t go to bed hungry,” she says. Image by Lynn Johnson. Kenya, 2019.
Animal Tracker, Kenya: A mother of three at 23, Mpayon Loboitong’o herds her family’s goats on her own; after her husband left to find work in Nairobi, she was told he’d been killed there. Her other full-time job: charting animal movements for Save the Elephants. For a monthly salary she and eight other women traverse the bush, unarmed, amid elephants, lions, and African buffalo. “I do this work so my kids don’t go to bed hungry,” she says. Image by Lynn Johnson. Kenya, 2019.

Holly Piepenburg, Outreach Coordinator: “I do this work so my kids don’t go to bed hungry,” says Mpayon Loboitong’o, a mother of three. Lynn Johnson's National Geographic photo reminds me of my mother, who continues to make many sacrifices in her personal and professional life in order to make sure her three children, myself included, are healthy and happy.

Male and female detainees attend an evangelical service at La Yaguara Detention Center, Caracas, where a preacher discussed forgiveness and reflection, followed by a religious play and a shared meal. Image by Ana María Arévalo. Venezuela, 2018.
Male and female detainees attend an evangelical service at La Yaguara Detention Center, Caracas, where a preacher discussed forgiveness and reflection, followed by a religious play and a shared meal. Image by Ana María Arévalo. Venezuela, 2018.

Hannah Berk, Education Coordinator: In "Días Eternos," Ana María Arévalo focuses her camera on one of Venezuela's most disenfranchised populations: its incarcerated women, who spend months and sometimes years warehoused in overcrowded cells awaiting trial. Her photo project for The New York Times is a portrait of how the collapse of civil society affects the most vulnerable, and an indictment of the use of jails and prisons as a means of containing problems they are unequipped to solve.

Lilias Diria with her son Abraham, age 2, in their home in the Bidi Bidi settlement in Uganda, June 25, 2019. Image by Adriane Ohanesian. Uganda, 2019.
Lilias Diria with her son Abraham, age 2, in their home in the Bidi Bidi settlement in Uganda, June 25, 2019. Image by Adriane Ohanesian. Uganda, 2019.

Nathalie Applewhite, Managing Director: Lilias Diria was gang raped trying to escape the civil war in South Sudan in 2016, leaving her pregnant with Abraham. Reporting for Glamour, Adriane Ohanesian has captured a loving tenderness layered with heaviness in the gaze between this mother and son — a tension shared by women survivors of sexualized violence around the world.

Teenage girls from Gulmit load up in a van after an all-female soccer tournament meant to promote gender equality in the Hunza valley of northern Pakistan. Image by Sara Hylton/National Geographic. Pakistan, 2019.
Teenage girls from Gulmit load up in a van after an all-female soccer tournament meant to promote gender equality in the Hunza valley of northern Pakistan. Image by Sara Hylton/National Geographic. Pakistan, 2019.

Karen Oliver, Director of Finance & Administration: I lived in Pakistan between 2005 and 2008, and friends and family marveled that we were there with our young daughters. Their stereotypes about the country and the people made that seem scary. But as these photos by Sara Hylton for National Geographic show, it is a beautiful country with inspiring women working to change their society.

 

Many thanks to the talented photojournalists — all grantees — featured here! Your work is crucial in this time of threats against freedoms of the press and information. Help us support more photojournalists—give to the Pulitzer Center before December 31, 2019, and your gift will automatically be doubled by NewsMatch! 

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