“I wanted to get her to my studio but that was simply impossible with her schedule, so I told Jen, my contact at Standing Rock, give me 15 minutes, and sure enough, I got my 15 minutes with her. And the rest is history.”
Technology has democratized the process of photography to the point where any year-end “Best of” reflection of the previous 365 days in nature photography has become both crowded and surprisingly — or perhaps not so surprisingly — revealing.
Everyone has a camera at hand these days, whether a smartphone, SLR or heavy view camera.
The result — deciding which images speak best to you personally — is that no two person’s lists are likely to be the same. The temptation is to narrow our choices down to between 50 and 100 or so but, seriously, who has time to sift through all that?
I’ve chosen to single out three images, less than a handful, images that jumped out at me over the past year and left an indelible, unforgettable impression.
No doubt, your list, if you have to choose just two or three, will be different. That’s probably as it should be.
That said, by narrowing the choices down to a select handful, images that genuinely deserve attention but might otherwise pass unnoticed are more likely to reach an audience. Less is more — always.
©Shane Balkowitsch
1. Standing for Us All. Shane Balkowitsch’s glass wet-plate collodion of 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019, has been officially catalogued for posterity by the US Library of Congress.
Balkowitsch’s lifelong relationship with the indigenous people of North Dakota, following in the footsteps of early 20th-century photographer Edward Curtis, who documented generations of Lakota Sioux in the formative days of photography, encountered Thunberg during her sojourn across North America this past fall, when she passed through the same land where, generations earlier, Curtis took more than 40,000 images of First Nations indigenous tribes.
“I pretend to take portraits of historic people when there are real historic people around
me,” Balkowitsch told Analog Forever earlier this month. “That history is not always about the past, but it is about the present day.”
Balkowitsch’s glass plate image of Greta Thunberg at Standing Rock, North Dakota, taken this past November, is now on permanent display at the National Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
The image has also been recognized by the (UK) Royal Photographic Society in RPS’ “2019 in Pictures” collection.
“I had been following Greta and her journey for months before I got to meet her,” Balkowitsch explained. “I have four children on this planet, and climate change has been a concern of mine for the last decade or so. To think that I would get my opportunity, I could never have imagined.”
©Mathieu Shamavu
2. Another Day at the Office. Congolese park ranger Mathieu Shamavu, who works with mountain gorillas in DRC’s Virunga National Park, snapped this selfie with mountain gorillas in April on his smartphone, and the image went viral.
“All my thanks to all worlds that loved and shared this experience, also for the recognition of our (work),” Shamavu posted on Facebook, days ago. “Not easy, but the courage. . . . This year was marked by several events on that. I still take these wishes to all our friends who have and continue to love this image a Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year 2020.”
No good deed goes unpunished. Recently, a rueful Shamavu noted, his selfie star smashed his smartphone to pieces while playing with it. Selfies sometimes come at a price. Shamavu has since replaced his smartphone.
The often dangerous work of protecting the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas, in DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, continues however, with park rangers facing constant and occasionally deadly harassment from armed bandits and poachers.
©Justin Mott
3. Kindred Guardians. In 2018, Vietnam-based photographer Justin Mott writes on his website, the last remaining male northern white rhino passed away of natural causes at Ol Pejeta conservancy in Laikipia County, Kenya, sealing the subspecies’ fate.
Not far from Sudan’s grave, as the iconic rhino was known, live Fatu and Najin, mother and daughter. They’re the last living northern white rhinos on the planet. Once gone, the subspecies will vanish forever,
Rhinos have been in trouble for a number of decades now, but never more so than in the past year. Habitat loss and poaching for their valuable horn — sold on the black market for traditional Eastern medicine purposes in countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam and Laos — is leading to the demise of all rhinos.
Fatu and Najin live in a large, fenced protected area on Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau, where they are guarded 24 hours a day by caretakers and heavily armed National Police reservists. The caretakers look after the rhinos, feed them, provide human companionship and educate visitors to Ol Pejeta about their plight. Armed patrols roam the 360 square kilometre (140 square mile) conservancy around the clock, looking for signs of poachers.
Mott’s poignant image of a caretaker lying against his resting companion is both a memento and a powerful reminder of what the world is about to lose. Good photos stir our emotions. Great photos leave an indelible impression. The greatest photos are unforgettable.
©Justin Mott