Curated by Elizabeth Krist
Women Photograph is proud to share our 2025 Year in Pictures — a collection of images that once again shows us a world on the brink of political turmoil, climate crisis, and an extensive range of human-made disasters. This year’s annual retrospective takes us from Malaysia to South Sudan to Peru, from the ongoing immigration raids happening across the U.S. to efforts to control the spread of malaria in Uganda. As our planet continued to emerge from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and wars raged on in Ukraine and Congo, we also were buoyed by images of birth, family, celebration, and connection. This year’s Year in Pictures was curated by Women Photograph board member and former National Geographic magazine editor Elizabeth Krist — you can pre-order the 2025 Women Photograph Annual here, and donate to Women Photograph here to support our ongoing work to diversify the visual media industry.
ALICE PROUJANSKY
www.aliceproujansky.com | @aliceproujansky
January Murray, 10, outside her home in Brooklyn.
RAJA LÄUBLI
www.rajalaeubli.com | @raja.laeubli
A cherry tree reflected in a mirror in a public courtyard in Zurich.
ANNICE LYN
www.annicelyn.com | @annicelyn
A puppet represents Mawas during the Awas! Mawas! parade on January 25, 2025, in Banting, Selangor, Malaysia. During the event, which is organized by local artists, Indigenous children from the low-income housing program Kampung Orang Asli Pulau Kempas showcased the cultural heritage of the Temuan people through storytelling and performance, followed by a theatrical presentation of newly created puppetry. The initiative celebrates Temuan folklore while highlighting challenges the community faces from ongoing development of their ancestral land.
For Getty Images.
XIMENA NATERA
www.ximenanatera.com | @menanatera
Devlin Loto Tinae wears a wreath made by his family and symbolizing abundance and luck. Loto Tinae is one of 29 seniors graduating from Alta Vista High School, in Mountain View, Northern California, on June 5, 2025. The school serves students who have struggle with academic programs and takes pride in getting them across the finish line.
For Mountain View Voice.
HOPE MORA
www.hopemora.com | @levariomora
Go Tejano Day carnival at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, March 16, 2025. The festive atmosphere draws crowds for rides, games, and food.
AMANDA LUCIER
www.amandalucier.com | @amandalucier
Downtown Enterprise, Ore., at dawn, October 24, 2025.
GRETA RYBUS
www.gretarybus.com | @gretarybus
Kailan takes daily medication to keep her opioid use in check but says she is just not ready to let go of meth, which she calls, with some bitterness, her “best friend.”
For The New York Times.
KAOLY GUTIERREZ
www.kaolygutierrez.com | @kaolygtz
Michael Caulo holds his wife, Cari Rae, as she experiences contractions during a homebirth in Waynesville, N.C., on April 23, 2025. Micheal held Cari’s hand throughout the delivery.
KELSEY BRUNNER
www.kelseybrunner.com | @kelseybrunnerphoto
Julianne Guy measures the belly of Julia Picurro during a prenatal visit at their home in Carbondale, Colo., on July 26, 2025, while Picurro’s two boys explore their mom’s belly and their soon-to-be baby brother. Guy has been a midwife in the state’s Roaring Fork Valley for nearly four decades.
MICHAELA VATCHEVA
www.michaelavatcheva.com | @mvatcheva
Lilyana Koleva holds her newborn’s foot under refracted light in her apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria, on August 6, 2025. Before experiencing postpartum depression, Koleva was a healthy young adult with no history of mental health issues.
HAJARAH NALWADDA
@ajar_nalwadda
Patrica Atim sleeps in a treated mosquito net with her baby on April 7, 2025, in Apac District, Uganda. The East African nation's Ministry of Health began the rollout of a massive malaria vaccine campaign that is expected to prevent at least 800 severe cases among children daily, with an initial target of vaccinating 1.1 million under the age of two in the most affected districts. The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine is administered in four doses—at 6, 7, 8, and 18 months—and will be integrated into routine immunizations of young children, for whom the mosquito-transmitted disease is the leading cause of illness and death in Uganda.
SYLVIA JARRUS
www.sylviajarrus.com | @sylviajarrusphoto
Bree Stallings, 44, a doula in Detroit, stands by the hospital bed of Tennette Mitchell, 28, before her scheduled C-section on April 22, 2025. Stallings not only cares for the mother during labor and delivery but also performs home visits during the prenatal and postpartum phases. Mitchell had a high-risk pregnancy requiring a pacemaker and experienced major bleeding complications after her C-section, which resolved only after a blood transfusion. A recent study conducted by the Michigan Maternal Mortality Surveillance Program found that Black women are 4.5 times more likely than their white counterparts to die during childbirth, and Detroit's maternal death rate is already three times higher than the national average.
GRETA RICO
www.gretarico.com | @gretarico
In Mexican traditional midwifery, babies enter an herbal bath with their mothers as the final step of the postpartum ritual. This moment is very significant and emotional as it embodies the women’s larger transition into motherhood. In this photograph from September 5, 2025, Kay hugs Inti while playing with her in the tub.
For The New York Times.
MAHÉ ELIPE
www.mahelipe.com | @_mahelipe_
Gabriela holding her daughter's hand, January 10, 2025. This gesture embodies the transmission of essential values and other ancestral knowledge to the new generation. By planting seeds in the soil of Xochimilco, in southern Mexico City, she introduces her child to the importance of cultivating not only the land but also culture and heritage.
SONAM CHOEKYI LAMA
www.sonamchoekyi.com | @dolpo_tales_
Kusang celebrates her sixth birthday at her parents’ house in Woodside, Queens. The family migrated to New York from the remote Himalayan region of Mustang, Nepal.
ARIN YOON
www.arinyoon.com | @arinyoon
I didn't realize that my daughter, Mila, was hiding in the moving box until I heard a rustle.
For CNN.
LANNA APISUKH
www.lannaapisukh.com | @apisukh
Vichit Apisukh, 83, and Chitlada Apisukh, 76, snap a selfie at the EPCOT Theme Park of the Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, October 17, 2025. The couple visited to celebrate Vichit's birthday.
KRISTINA BARKER
www.kristinabarker.com | @kristinabarker
Waking my mom up in the morning at her home in Island Park, Idaho. My mom, Kate, was diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s in spring 2013. In the years since, she has completely lost the ability to feed herself, to walk unassisted, and even to speak. She is entirely dependent on my dad for her needs, around the clock. I spend weeks at a time looking after my mom while he gets a much-needed break from the emotionally exhausting role of full-time caregiver. Every year, it becomes more difficult to remember her as herself—before her brain and body began to rob her of her personality and independence.
ROBIN RAYNE
www.creativerayne.com | @robin.rayne
Riley Runyon with his son Asher in their Denham Springs, La., mobile home after a night in the emergency room for a dangerously high fever. Asher, who has Down syndrome, severe heart complications, and multiple other developmental challenges, is nonspeaking and far smaller than typical boys his age.
RACHEL WISNIEWSKI
www.rachelwisniewski.com | @rachelwizphoto
Alana Tedmon, right, and her husband, Evan Streb, Philadelphia, March 7, 2025. The couple moved from Texas to Pennsylvania when Alana chose to end a pregnancy but feared being unable to do so under Texas law. She is far from alone: three years after the fall of Roe v. Wade, studies find that abortion bans have driven some residents from conservative states.
For The Wall Street Journal.
DESIREE RIOS
www.desireerios.com | @ddrios
Community members inside the prayer room of the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), Tex., April 7, 2025. Since plans surfaced for a 400-acre Muslim-centric residential project north of Josephine, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has launched multiple state investigations into Community Capital Partners, the development group behind the initiative.
For The New York Times.
ESTHER N’SAPU
www.visura.co/esthernsapu | @esther_nsapu
A young Burundian woman sits on a traditional mat in a rural setting, with a rooster and a clay water jar in the background. She wears a white gown and veil and holds a bouquet of flowers. This staged portrait pays tribute to the natural beauty and simplicity of Burundian women of earlier times—no jewelry, no makeup, her natural curly hair left free. The woman symbolizes the continuity of cultural heritage and the pride of marrying as one truly is.
SUSANA GIRON
www.susanagiron.com | @susana_giron_photo
The descent of the famous Christ of the Gypsies through the Sacromonte neighborhood of Granada, Andalusia, Spain, days before the beginning of Holy Week celebrations. Sacromonte is known for its strong Romani (Gypsy) presence, as well as its steep hills. As the procession makes its way through the district, residents take to the streets to venerate their local icon of Christ.
MARINA CALDERON
www.marina-calderon.com | @marinacalderon
Tatiana Ledkov, 21, an Indigenous Nenets woman, stands beneath the northern lights near Salekhard, Russia, on March 8, 2025. Raised in the Siberian tundra and now living in the city of Vorkuta, she navigates between her family’s nomadic traditions and the demands of modern urban life. The eldest of 10 siblings, she belongs to a generation that is leaving their traditional reindeer-herding lifestyle behind; only three of her siblings still migrate across the tundra with their parents, while she visits occasionally to help them. The Nenets’ nomadic culture, tied to seasonal migration and reindeer pastures, faces growing threats from climate change, shrinking grazing lands, and industrial development in the Russian Arctic.
SANDRA CHEN WEINSTEIN
www.sandrachenphoto.com | @sandra.chen.weinstein
J. Sanchez, originally from Mexico, performs Danza Azteca with his dancing group at the 56th San Francisco Pride Parade, “Queer Joy Is Resistance.” He moved to the Sacramento area as a child and has since performed periodically in the local Latino community. Danza Azteca is a modern Indigenous spiritual practice from Mexico that mixes prayer with dancing and singing.
LUCY VALDÉS ABARCA
www.lucyvaldes.com | @luvaldesa
A woman selling masks modeled on the faces of female celebrities during an International Women’s Day march, Santiago, Chile, March 8, 2025. Her own depicts Mon Laferte, a Chilean singer widely acclaimed in Latin America.
ANGELA PONCE
www.angela-ponce.com | @angelaponce_photo
A demonstrator in Lima falls to the ground amid smoke during a protest against rising crime, economic insecurity, and corruption on October 15, 2025, a day after Peru’s president José Jeri presented his cabinet.
For Reuters.
TRACY BARBUTES
www.tracybarbutes.com | @tracybarbutes
A fired park ranger and friends hang an upside-down American flag from El Capitan (Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La), a granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, Calif., on February 22, 2025. This act of protest against the thousands of federal job cuts by the current administration coincided with the “firefall” event, which draws thousands of spectators and photographers annually.
The image went viral and ignited protests on public lands throughout the United States. I stood under El Cap—something I’d done hundreds of times—and as I documented the unfurling of that upside down flag, an act signaling distress, I couldn’t help but observe that we were gathered on colonized Indigenous land.
CAROLINE GUTMAN
www.carolinegutman.com | @carolinegutman
A puppet of President Donald Trump above a view of the United States Capitol, during the No Kings protest in Washington, D.C., October 18, 2025. Sculptor Marcos Smyth made the puppet from paper-mache. Nearly 7 million people attended these protests across the U.S., according to organizers.
For The New York Times.
PAOLA CHAPDELAINE
www.paolachapdelaine.com | @paola.chapdelaine
Tim McConnell, 12, traveled from Philadelphia with his parents to witness the presidential inauguration in Washington D.C. on January 20, 2025.
LAUREL GOLIO
www.laurelgolio.com | @laurelgolio
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, campaigns in the Bronx on October 29, 2025.
Photographed for NBC News.
SVET JACQUELINE
www.svetjacqueline.com | @___svetj
Two women embrace in a shelter during a missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, in the early hours of September 7, 2025.
IVA SIDASH
www.ivasidash.com | @iva_sidash
Residents of Rodynske, a frontline village near Pokrovsk, Ukraine, are evacuated as the situation rapidly deteriorates. The settlement is under relentless Russian shelling, communications and electricity have been cut, and drones circle overhead. This July 2025 removal operation would be one of the last in Rodynske: only days later, the encroachment of Russian sabotage groups prevented evacuation teams from returning.
ROSEM MORTON
www.rosem.xyz | @rosemmorton
Serhii Kubrakov lies in eastern Hungary’s Hortobágy National Park on April 25, 2025, engaged in a “sit-spot” mindfulness practice of stillness and observation in nature. Kubrakov manages Desna–Stara Huta National Nature Park, on the shifting frontlines of northeastern Ukraine just 30 kilometers from the Russian border. “There is shelling on a daily basis, and the area is full of mines,” he says. Like many locals, he hopes to return one day and recharge in his hometown forests.
For The Washington Post.
KASIA STREK
www.kasiastrek.com | @kasia_strek
Weapons and a gas mask in a boy’s room. Between battles, soldiers from the 115th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces rest in abandoned houses like this one. Few civilians are left in Lyman, which lies just a few kilometers west of the Donetsk Oblast frontline.
For Les Jours.
HANNAH YOON
www.hannahyoon.com | @hanloveyoon
Amna sits with her children, Elias, 4, left, Taline, 5, and Khaled, 9, at their temporary residence in Philadelphia, on March 2, 2025. Elias and Taline are being treated in the United States for damage to their legs. They will have to go either to Egypt or back to Gaza when their care is over.
For The Guardian.
SOHEILA SANAMNO
www.sanamno.com | @soheilasanamno
Two young demonstrators with “Free” and “Gaza” painted across their faces join an October 3 march as part of a general strike in Rome. During the nationwide day of resistance, thousands filled the streets to condemn Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla while en route to Gaza in international waters.
MAYA ALLERUZZO
www.mayaalleruzzo.net | @mayaalleruzzo
Gathered in Holon, Israel, on October 13, 2025, friends and family of Israeli hostage Bar Kupershtein react to a live broadcast of his release from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.
For The Wall Street Journal.
LISA ELMALEH
lisaelmaleh.com | @elmalayheehoo
A father says goodbye to his son in Atlanta on July 18, 2025. Although in the United States legally as they await their asylum hearing, the family is leaving for Mexico after multiple scares from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The father has decided to stay behind and continue working so he can send money to help the family restart its life in Mexico.
ALLISON DINNER
www.allisondinner.com | @allisondinner
An activist holds a sign as cars burn during protests sparked by immigration raids in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. Following large protests against ongoing immigration enforcement raids in the Los Angeles area over the last couple of days, United States President Donald Trump has deployed 2,000 National Guard troops, though the state of California requested no such assistance.
ELIZABETH FRANTZ
www.elizabethfrantz.com | @lizfrantz
Kilmar Ábrego García, the migrant whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of United States President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies, holds hands with his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura before appearing for a check-in at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Baltimore Field Office. The photograph was taken, through glass, on August 25, 2025, three days after Ábrego García’s release from criminal custody in Tennessee.
JUDITH CRICO
www.judithcrico.com | @judithcrico
Clarence, Axis, and their child, Aylin, in Saugerties, N.Y. They are active in communities grounded in autonomy and ecology—choosing to inhabit the world differently and shaping a life guided by self-sufficiency, shared knowledge, and a steady return to the land.
ELYSE BUTLER
www.elysebutler.com | @oceanelyse
Tim Lorge, 16, swims the Kaiwi Channel, from the Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi to O‘ahu, as the sun rises on April 19, 2025. He departed from a deserted beach at 3:26 am, in total darkness, and arrived at O‘ahu at 6:53 pm, after 15 hours and 27 minutes of nonstop swimming. The distance of 27 miles expanded to 34 due to rough seas, strong currents, and wind swells. Lorge’s parents paddled alongside him. Despite being stung by multiple jellyfish, seeing sharks, and vomiting several times, he persevered and became the youngest person from Hawaii to swim the channel.
KATE WOOL
www.katewool.com | @kateswool
Leigh Anne Williams, far left, floats with friends visiting her on Wadmalaw Island, S.C. Williams is the owner of Williams Wildlife Removal, the only woman-owned wildlife removal business in the state. This photograph is from a long-term project about her and how she is helping to save the ecology and wildlife of the island’s salt marshes.
KATE MEDLEY
www.katemedley.com | @katemedley
Mike Riggs and Mollie Kotzen farm a diverse set of crops on three acres in Durham, N.C. They are pictured on June 1, 2025, with their children, Max Kotzen-Riggs, 3, and Leo Kotzen-Riggs, 16 months, who like to help weed and water.
For The Washington Post.
JACKIE MOLLOY
www.jackiemolloy.com | @jackiemolloyphoto
Campers read in the pool at the Bad Bitch Book Club on July 26, 2025. This summer camp took place at Northern Outdoors, in The Forks, Maine, over three weekends. Book lovers come and connect in person. The only guideline: You can skip anything but dinner, if you just want to read.
RAÏSSA KARAMA
@dear_rkar
As part of Foto Mtaani, a collaborative project led by the Alliance Française de Mombasa, I had the freedom to explore the Kenyan city and to tell its story from colonial times to the present day. Through images capturing the buildings, the beach, and visible as well as silent traces of the past, I sought to reveal the soul of Mombasa—its contrasts, its memory, and its beauty.
ANA ELISA SOTELO
www.anaelisasotelo.com | @anaelisasotelov
Christian exercising his legs in a pool, Washington, D.C., June 2025.
LAUREN PETRACCA
www.laurenpetracca.com | @laurenpetracca
Tourists react to the power of the American Falls while on the Cave of the Winds tour in Niagara Falls, N.Y., on August 24, 2025.
For Smithsonian Magazine.
NATALIE GRONO
www.nataliegrono.com | @nataliegrono
This photograph is from Summer Highway, a documentary study of the 790-kilometer (nearly 491-mile) Pacific Highway that connects Sydney and Brisbane along one of Australia’s most iconic stretches of shoreline. Following the road north, the project traces how beach life shapes the towns, economies, and communities that sit just beyond the sand.
KATE PETERS
www.katepeters.co.uk | @misskatiepeters
Cousins play together in an outdoor bath while the rain comes down on a summer's day in Gloucestershire, southwest England. This photograph is part of a series documenting family.
LOUISE AMELIE
www.louiseamelie.com | @louise.amelie
Summer 2025, Spreenhagen, just outside Berlin. Mom and Mark go for an early evening swim in the River Spree. Their routine. My escape.
SOPHIA CALDERON
www.sophiacalderon.com | @sophiacalderonfoto
Cari with her goose in the back of her home, Centro Habana district, Havana, Cuba, April 1, 2025.
MAGGIE SHANNON
www.maggieshannon.com | @maggiehshannon
American social media personality and actress Dylan Mulvaney at Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles.
For Rolling Stone.
ESZTER HALASI
eszterhalasi.myportfolio.com | @eszterhalasi
Mares huddle together with their foals amid the bustle of the Kent Horse Fair, in southeastern England, as owners negotiate nearby. For centuries, horse trading and related fairs have been central to the cultures of the Romani Gypsies and Travellers, with horses representing not only livelihood but also tradition and identity.
AGNESE MORGANTI
www.aggiemorganti.com | @aggiemorganti
Two young Chinese girls and their pet dogs at a neighborhood playground, Prato, Italy, May 29, 2025.
For De Groene Amsterdammer.
GLORIANNA XIMENDAZ
www.ximendaz.com | @gloriannaximendaz
An Indigenous Ngäbe boy, 10, holds a rooster outside his home after returning from a day’s work on a banana plantation, labor that is illegal in Costa Rica. “I’m not a chick anymore, I’m a rooster, a fighting rooster,” he says, describing his 12-hour workdays.
LUCY LU
www.lucyluphoto.com | @lucyluphoto
Kim Gaffett, a naturalist at the Ocean View Foundation, examines a wren under a magnifying glass, on September 12, 2025. Block Island, R.I., is not only home to the bird-banding station where Gaffett works but also to the nation’s first commercial offshore wind farm.
For The New York Times.
AMRITA CHANDRADAS
www.amritachandradas.com | @amritachandradas
Berani, a big male Sunda pangolin whose name means “Brave One” in Malay, undergoes a skin check under anesthesia at Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Reserve. . Veterinarian Charlene Yeong and her assistant gently lift his scales. Berani was a wild pangolin who was admitted to the clinic in 2018 following a traffic accident, requiring a plate to be surgically implanted to support his fractured femur. Shortly after, he began battling a skin condition, eventually diagnosed as pemphigus. Due to this autoimmune disorder, Berani was euthanized in September 2025—a few months after these photographs were taken.
For Nature.
MAILEE OSTEN-TAN
www.maileeostentan.com | @maileeostentan
This photograph is part of a long-term project exploring the intersections of culture and agriculture in Dansai, Loei, Thailand.
EMILY SCHIFFER
www.emilyschiffer.com | @emilyschiffer
Bubba Schiffer-Kehou, 5, walks through a frozen swamp at Cape Cod National Seashore in Provincetown, Mass. This photograph is part of “Remembering to Live,” a project centering joy as a form of resistance against oppression, with inspiration from past social movements that saw love as a force for liberation.
MONÍK MOLINET
www.lapistolademonik.com | @lapistolademonik
Oney and Dayron have been friends since they were very young. Now they work together, tending the gardens of this forest in Havana as part of a social inclusion program. Every day, they share a snack. While searching for the perfect spot to photograph their story, I came across this colossal ceiba tree and found it to be the perfect symbol: a refuge, a place of solace, and a breath of fresh air for the marginalized individuals who engage in the program.
ADWOA FOFIE
www.adwoafofie.com | @blendnwhip
Africa's foodways are under constant threat. In exploring ingredients central to Black African cuisines, this project interrogates the very meaning of sustainability: What do we keep, and what must we leave behind? What does it mean when we say a cuisine is sustainable?
NICKY QUAMINA-WOO
www.nickywoo.com | @nickywoophoto
Every harvest season for over 15 years, Mr. Abdel has sold watermelons in Cairo, from the back of his truck. The watermelon is a symbol of Palestinian solidarity because its colors—red pulp, green rind, and black seeds—match the Palestinian flag, which was banned by Israel in 1967 and is still policed today. When asked if he understood this symbolic importance of the fruit, he responded: “Of course, they are our brothers and sisters. We are Palestine, they are us.”
DOAA NASR
www.doaanasrphoto.wordpress.com | @du_doaa
A farmworker holds cotton freshly collected from the surrounding field in Itsa, Egypt, on September 26, 2025. She covers her face with a black cloth to conceal her identity and shield from the sun.
RANITA ROY
www.ranitaroy.com | @ranita1roy
Kavita Mehra and her neighbor’s son collect rhododendrons from trees in their village in Uttarakhand, India. The blossoms, used at home to make juice and jam, are the state flower and a key biological indicator of climate change. Once known to bloom in March or April, they now flower as early as January, signaling rising winter and spring temperatures in the Himalayan region.
ANA CAROLINE DE LIMA
www.anacarolinedelima.com | @antropologiavisual
Totonho, 80, among dryland flowers, Minas Gerais, Brazil, July 28, 2025. The flowers have supported his community for generations. “These plants give us food, work, and a reason to keep going,” he says. “They have taught me to live with the land, not against it.”
CELESTE NOCHE
www.celestenoche.com | @extracelestial
Nicole Manguramas, Alexa Domenden, and Jane Barmore recreate Mango Harvesters, by the classical Filipino painter Fernando Amorsolo, at Powell Butte in Portland, Oregon, on May 18, 2025. The project Overland, Overseas explores how we carry legacies when removed from ancestral lands and seas.
CY LIU
www.cy-liu.com | @cy___liu
This is a self-portrait from my series Boy, which visualizes my journey of healing and becoming. I explore what it feels like to live as a transgender person in a human body, and how photography can be used as a practice for self-acceptance and transformation.
ERIN BRETHAUER
www.erinbrethauer.com | @erinbrethauer
Near her home in Celo, N.C., on February 6, 2025, Mila Roeder touches a boulder unearthed by mudslides during Hurricane Helene. Nothing could have prepared Roeder, a nonbinary writer, artist, and mother of two children, for the surreality of parenting through a natural disaster.
For the Bitter Southerner.
BRENDA BAZAN
www.brendabazan.com | @brendabazan
A tree wrapped around the pier of a bridge in Kerrville, Tex., on July 5, 2025, after the devastating Hill Country floods.
For The Texas Tribune.
PRESTON GANNAWAY
www.prestongannaway.com | @pgannawayphoto
The remnants of a Forestville, Calif., home the day after it slid from Westside Road into the Russian River, February 6, 2025.
SALGU WISSMATH
www.salguwissmath.com | @salguwissmath
Rylan Wilt, 19, hugs her mom, Keri Wilt, while listening to her grandmother Penny Deupree recount the flooding of her Hunt, Tex., home the weekend prior. Deupree, 82, and eight family members survived the ordeal by punching a hole through an exterior wall and swimming through it and eventually onto the roof of the house. Over July Fourth weekend 2025, devastating flooding along the Guadalupe River killed more than 135 people in central Texas.
For The Wall Street Journal.
DANIELLE VILLASANA
www.daniellevillasana.com | @davillasana
One week after the Central Texas floods, Roberto Márquez fixes a flag to a memorial wall for those affected. A painter from Dallas, Márquez erected the memorial in Kerrville, Tex., to “create solidarity and a place for people to come together during this difficult situation.”
In the early morning hours of July 4, 2025, when most were sleeping, torrential rains caused flash flooding along the Guadalupe River—causing it to surge 26 feet in 45 minutes, to a record high of nearly 38 feet. The event took 135 lives, including 27 from Camp Mystic, most of whom were young campers and counselors.
“These families are going through such a critical moment,” said Márquez.
For The Washington Post.
ELIZABETH DALZIEL
www.elizabethdalziel.com | @edalziel
A sofa, a blanket, and a pair of sandals—items like those found in any home—lie ruined in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi, which swept through the Philippines in 2024. The objects were photographed at an improvised studio in a container park in London on January 23, 2025, as part of a catalogue documenting possessions destroyed by the storm. Making these damaged items a point of focus encourages us to reflect on the value they once held for the families who lost them. Scientists say the intensification of typhoons in the Philippines is driven by a warming planet, and the communities bearing the brunt of climate impacts are often those least responsible for global emissions. While oil companies report record profits, more and more families face displacement—a contrast leading to growing calls for climate reparations.
For Greenpeace.
LOUIZA VRADI
www.louizavradi.com | @louizavradi
On August 2, 2025—nearly two years after the catastrophic floods in Greece’s Thessaly region—a wedding photograph belonging to Konstantinos Tsioukas lies water-damaged in his home in the village of Metamorfosi.
For Politico Europe.
CAMILA FALCÃO
www.camifalcao.com | @camifalcao
This photomontage of a portrait is part of my ongoing project The Man Does Not Exist. In front of an image of a steel mill, Manuela, a visual artist, appears in black pants and a tank top, holding an axe with both hands. Her legs and arms assume a widened stance, just as kings preferred to be portrayed to signify virility and readiness for war.
LOUISE JOHNS
www.louisejohnsphoto.com | @louisejohnsphoto
Lightning flashes beyond the Colstrip Steam Electric Station on July 2, 2025. The plant sits in Montana’s Powder River Basin, the top coal-producing region of the United States, and is among the nation’s largest such facilities. The Trump administration pushes to revive the coal industry despite environmental and health concerns.
DIANA ZEYNEB ALHINDAWI
www.dianazeynebalhindawi.com | @dianazeynebalhindawi
A woman tends to her cattle at dawn on June 4, 2025, on the outskirts of Rier Village in Koch County, South Sudan. Meanwhile, smoke rises from an oil production facility once operated by Petronas, Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas company and a longtime partner of Mercedes-Benz’s Formula 1 team. Residents and local officials say that years of leaks, seasonal flooding, and improper disposal of toxic “produced water” have polluted ponds, streams, and boreholes and that these developments coincide with a rise in miscarriages and severe birth defects among nearby residents. Herders report parallel impacts on their livestock, including deformities, unexplained illnesses, and sudden deaths.
For Bloomberg.
JULIE DERMANSKY
www.jsdart.com | @juliedermansky
A large plume of toxic smoke rises from Smitty’s Supply, a manufacturer and distributor of motor vehicles products in Roseland, La. This photograph was taken on August 22, 2025, from “The Groves,” a low-income housing development in nearby Amite.
JUSTYNA MIELNIKIEWICZ
www.justmiel.com | @justmiel
A swing at the empty resort town of Anaklia, Georgia. Visible on the horizon are ships working to construct a deep sea port for a Chinese company. China-linked firms are heavily involved in upgrading the north–south transport corridor in this Eurasian country, a key route connecting Russia with Armenia and the broader South Caucasus. However, local analysts warn that the project raises environmental, governance, and geopolitical concerns—including a threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and development as a result of growing dependency on China. This comes at a time when the Georgian government—amid ongoing protests—is distancing itself from Western allies.
MAÍRA ERLICH
www.mairaerlich.com | @mairaerlich
Luzia Odete with her grandson Enzo at the edge of Mundaú Lagoon in Maceió, Brazil, January 26, 2025. She lived for more than 20 years in a wooden shack on this shoreline, catching shellfish to support her family. But in 2018 a 2.5-magnitude tremor revealed widespread cracks and holes across five neighborhoods of Maceió, displacing Odete and about 60,000 other residents. For over four decades and counting, underground rock-salt mining has destabilized the ground beneath the city, a process that researchers describe as the world’s largest ongoing urban socioenvironmental disaster. The lagoon itself has also been affected: fishermen and shellfish catchers say they have been forced to reshape their livelihoods due to contamination of its waters.
Supported by the National Geographic Society.
LAUREN GRABELLE
www.laurengrabelle.com | @laurengrabelle
“Detroit riprap” lines the banks of the Flathead River, in northwest Montana. Evidence of the erosion-control experiments of the 1950s are visible above and below the surface—relics from a bygone time of automobile manufacturing and environmental stewardship. Unbelievably, the chrome on the mostly 1930s cars remains shiny even after more than seven decades of exposure to extreme temperatures and submersion in water and the soil; hexavalent chromium is the culprit here. Little information is available about potential dangers to the health of the animals who survive in and on these waters, though we know it was toxic to people involved in its manufacture. It is a good reminder that a "clean and healthful environment," as guaranteed to Montanans in the state constitution, is a continual work in progress and learning curve. The riverbanks still hold, however. This photograph is from a project documenting environmental and agricultural changes in the region.
SMITA SHARMA
www.smitasharma.com | @smitashrm
Rahul Dantani and Baluram Mena at the Kishangarh Dumping Yard in Rajasthan, India. Waste from the marble industry has transformed the landscape into a surreal scene that appears dusted with snow and attracts curious visitors. Dantani and Mena both work for Snow Moments, a local company specializing in set design for celebratory photo shoots. Despite the environmental hazards and health risks posed by inhaling the rock particles, this unique location continues to grow in popularity each year.
STELLA KALININA
www.stellakalinina.com | @stella_kalinina
Bobak Lotfipour and Courtney Tindall in front of the remains of their home, Altadena, Calif., January 24, 2025. The home was lost to the Eaton Fire.
For NBC News.
MARLENA SLOSS
www.marlenasloss.com | @marlenasloss
A statue of the Buddha among properties destroyed in the Palisades Fire as it passed through Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates, January 17, 2025. The fire was the most destructive in Los Angeles history, killing 12 people and wiping out over 6,800 homes.
For The Washington Post.
PALOMA LAUDET
palomalaudet.com | @paloma_laudet
The Congolese Red Cross buries 18 unidentified bodies found in the streets of Bukavu following the February 16 seizure of the city by the M23 rebel group. Due to a lack of space in cemeteries, the bodies waited four days in the morgue before being laid to rest in nearby Musigiko.
MARY GELMAN
www.marygelman.com | @marygelman
Tatyana, 70, sits tired in the bathroom of her apartment in Orenburg, Russia. Her two adult children both live with severe disabilities, and none of the family members has left the home in nearly five years. With little to no accessible infrastructure and no effective support from social services, they are trapped in a quiet, exhausting routine of care and isolation. Russia counts some 12 million people with disabilities; for many, even the simplest steps out of the door become insurmountable.
TAYLOR EDGERTON
www.tayloreedgerton.format.com | @TaylorEEdgerton
JJ in front of a velvet curtain, Metter, Ga., March 3, 2025. This is part of a series of photographs of Metter High School athletes against portable backdrops.
JORDIE HENNIGAR
www.jordiehennigar.com | @jordiehennigar
This photograph was taken backstage at New York Fashion week, a world in which you have a split second to make something happen. Where there is a frenzy of photographers pursuing a shot, I choose to step back, wait, and observe. In such an intense atmosphere, I refuse to let myself be engulfed by the frantic energy; instead, I let myself float, observing the forgotten moments. I try to use every ounce of my energy to create images that are more than just snapshots of a split second. Here, I was across the room when I saw this model step into the light, awaiting further instruction.
MIRIAM STRONG
www.miriamstrong.com | @miriam.strong
Two friends attend UK Black Pride 2025, at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
DEE DWYER
www.deedwyerjonts.com | @deedwyerjonts
Howard University’s band plays during their October 25 homecoming game against Morgan State University.
For EE72.
SUNNY QUINTERO
www.linktr.ee/sunnyquintero | @sunnyquintero
A couple during “A Dance for Peace,” a tribute to the singer Hector Lavoe, Mexico City, July 1, 2025. Various sonideros (tropical music DJs) gathered in the streets of Tepito—one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city—to honor the memory of Lavoe and the salsa music that is an essential part of Tepito’s popular culture.
ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ
www.erikaprodriguez.com | @erikaprodriguez
La Bomba de Caiko performs at El Imán Bar & Restaurant in Loiza, Puerto Rico, on July 24, 2025. This summer, the Puerto Rican artist Benito Martínez Ocasio, known as Bad Bunny, began the 30-show residency “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” at the island’s José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum. The series of weekend concerts is an ode to Puerto Rican culture and identity, as is his latest album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.
For The New York Times.
NORMA IBARRA
www.normaibarra.com | @lapir0
The women who organize the skateboarding collective ImillaSkate, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, February 2025. Wearing traditional polleras, they reclaim public space by showing young skaters that cultural pride and skating can roll together.
FOROUGH ALAEI
www.foroughalaei.com | @foroughalaei
Hana Aslani, 28, is a sculptor who views self-portraiture as a way to understand, accept, and love herself and to find peace with her path, wounds, and experiences. “Self-portraiture is my effort to see myself and define myself outside the frameworks set by society and family.” Asked about role models, Hana explains: “We stand on the shoulders of thousands of women before us. Those who influenced me may not have achieved extraordinary societal success, but they were essential to my growth. I come from a family of strong women whose strengths, flaws, and experiences were all instructive and inspiring.”
BÉNÉDICTE DESRUS
www.benedictedesrus.com | @benedicte.desrus.photography
Mary Carmen at her home in the heart of Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, March 30, 2025. This photograph belongs to ARRAIGO, a book documenting residents who maintain their connection to the center of Mérida as the city undergoes transformation. The project contributes to the construction of the memory of the city’s center. It’s a record of everyday life, culture, heritage, and Yucatecan identity in the heart of the city.
For Yucatán Magazine.
ANITA POUCHARD SERRA
www.anitapouchardserra.com | @anitapouchardserra
Ludmila Pagliero, danseuse étoile (principal dancer) at the Paris Opera Ballet, in her dressing room moments before her farewell performance, April 17, 2025. Pagliero was the first Latin American ballerina to achieve this highest title at the famous opera house.
APARNA JAYAKUMAR
www.aparnaphoto.com | @aparna_jay
A South Asian woman works as a security guard inside a space-themed children’s exhibition in Abu Dhabi. Surrounded by interactive displays about exploration and possibility, she becomes a quiet counterpoint to the narratives of progress around her. The photograph reflects the often unseen labor of women—many of them immigrants—who maintain the cultural and educational spaces of the Emirati capital, even as they remain far from the futures imagined within them.
CAROLINE YANG
www.carolineyang.com | @carolineyangphoto
A multiple-exposure portrait of my son on Elephant Mountain, looking out over Taipei. A third-generation Taiwanese-American, he possesses a love for Taiwan that both surprises and moves me.
