My picks of the best pics of 2014
The Guardian’s features picture editor Sarah Gilbert selects the most compelling images of 2014:
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“I took this picture the day after the violent protest turned into riots in Ferguson, Missouri. The police were trying to disperse a crowd and warning they would arrest anyone gathering on the street. This woman held her hands up and moved into the middle of the street and was detained. I think it is a strong picture because of her emotion and the iconic gesture of the raised hands contrasted with the police lights.” — Jewel Samad
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“I was in Ferguson, Missouri, on 24 November waiting for the verdict in the shooting of Michael Brown. It was a chaotic scene as the police had been shooting tear gas into the crowd and there were reports of gunfire. I could see the riot police had blocked off the street. They were lit only by the street and holiday lights and it made it an eerie scene.”
— Jim Young
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“My son and I spotted smoke, and given California’s extreme drought I knew it was not good. We jumped in the car but had only gone a mile when burning ash rained down like falling snow. The rangers and police were ordering a mandatory evacuation and we had to go home to prepare. Then we returned to the Falls area of Bass Lake and I resumed shooting. The picture combines a beautiful forest reflected in the calm waters, and then slams home the fact that it is being consumed by the fire. It conveys the sense of awe, horror and feeling of loss I felt while standing there watching the forest burn.” — Darvin Atkeson
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“I tried for two years to take this picture. I took the same photo the year before, again from a helicopter, of an almost identical boat. But we didn’t manage to get directly above: some of the people in the boat looked one way, others a different way. This year I tried again. I photograph the Italian navy calendar, so we collaborate. I waited 12 days on an Italian navy boat for the force seven sea to calm, for this moment. I took the shot outside the helicopter, my feet on the skids. The incredible thing is that every single person in the photo looks up.” — Massimo Sestini
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“This was taken just after 6am. Ed Miliband was touring Covent Garden market before the local elections and ordered a bacon sandwich. I noticed he was struggling. The bacon sandwich was extremely hot and he didn’t know what to do. It was probably worse than it looks, he just couldn’t cope with it. I didn’t set out to make him look bad. It just happened in front of my face.” — Jeremy Selwyn
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A “firenado” tears through a field in Chillicothe, Missouri on 3 May. Part fire, part tornado, this blazing twister was spotted by Missouri native Janae Copelin while she was out driving.
The Atlantic’s 2014: The Year in Photos, part 1, part 2, part 3:
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Four out of five Olympic rings are seen lit up during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, on February 7, 2014. Photographer David Gray: “This image is a great example of the cliche ‘always expect the unexpected’. Two days before, at the Olympic opening ceremony rehearsal, I had seen that the Olympic rings were supposed to open from a small, flower-shaped ball and then explode in flash of extreme brightness. The massive changes in light required a quick estimation as to how to adjust the exposure, so every photographer was anxious, knowing what was supposed to come next. I had just reduced my ISO and increased my shutter speed when I noticed the top-right ring was not forming like the others. So I took a few photographs, still anticipating the next stage. But no. Nothing. The incomplete Olympic symbol just hung there before disappearing completely. Did I manage to correctly adjust the camera settings for the unpredicted dull Olympic ring? Thankfully, you see the answer before you. Needless to say, it was the talking point of the opening ceremony, and became one of the most memorable images of the Sochi Olympic Games”.
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A selfie released by Ellen DeGeneres shows actors, front row from left, Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Ellen DeGeneres, Bradley Cooper, Peter Nyong’o Jr., and, second row, from left, Channing Tatum, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong’o and Angelina Jolie as they pose for portrait on a cell phone during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2014, in Los Angeles. The image, distributed on Twitter, quickly broke the record for ‘most-re-tweeted’, and currently has been re-tweeted more than 3.3 million times.
Buzzfeed’s “74 Of The Most Amazing News Photos Of 2014”:
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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth looks at the Iron Throne as she meets members of the cast on the set of the television series “Game of Thrones” in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 24, 2014. — Phil Noble
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The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket with the Cygnus spacecraft on board suffers a catastrophic anomaly moments after launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Oct. 28 on Wallops Island, Virginia.
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Smoldering debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in a Ukraine field on July 17. — Pierre Crom
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In this picture taken on August 3, 2014 by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is pictured from a distance of 285 km. A mission to orbit and land the first space probe on a comet reached a major milestone when the unmanned Rosetta spacecraft finally caught up with its quarry on August 6, 2014. Rosetta later successfully landed a probe on the comet’s surface.
Time’s Top 10 Photos of 2014 and Top 100 Photos of 2014:
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A man backs away as law enforcement officials close in on him and eventually detain him during protests over the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by a police officer, in Ferguson, Mo., Aug. 11, 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday that it had opened an inquiry into the weekend shooting of Brown. — Whitney Curtis
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“It took 20 minutes for health workers in protective suits to arrive, spraying the area around the boy. As they deliberated over how best to move James, his father and onlookers frantically yelled at the workers to carry the boy into the ETU. After he was taken to be treated, I waited to speak to Edward to offer my condolences. Days later I learnt that James died soon after being carried inside the ETU. I think about that day a lot. I think about James convulsing and nobody being able to do anything, and then seeing a father experience his son’s death, albeit prematurely. What if they had brought James in sooner? Those memories haunt me to this day.” — Daniel Berehulak
Wired’s The Year’s Most Awesome Photos of Space and NASA’s Best Images of Earth From Space in 2014:
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used the camera at the end of its arm in April and May 2014 to take dozens of component images combined into this self-portrait where the rover drilled into a sandstone target called “Windjana.”
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Four-image NAVCAM mosaic of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, using images taken on 24 September 2014 when Rosetta was 28.5 km from the comet.
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The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 7:28 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, 2014. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
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An updated blue marble image
For me some of the most iconic (and depressing) images came from the Mike Brown / Police brutality protests in Ferguson. Of those images, one stands out as particularly memorable:
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A demonstrator throws a tear gas container back at police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 13. — Robert Cohen
Perhaps the icon of their fledgling movement is a dreadlocked man identified on Twitter only as @eyeFLOODpanties, who was photographed throwing a tear gas canister while wearing an American flag T-shirt and holding a bag of potato chips. The picture, taken last week by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Robert Cohen, has inspired countless T-shirts and posters. “I didn’t realize how big this was!” he tweeted after his identity was revealed and he gained thousands of Twitter followers.
— Buzzfeed: Ferguson’s Angry Young Men
But the man with the chips, who was photographed during protests in Ferguson on Wednesday night, wants you to know he wasn’t throwing it at police. He was throwing it away.
“I don’t think ‘da man wit the chips’ was throwing it back at police. I think he was throwing it away from him and kids he was standing near,” said the man, who goes by the Twitter name @eyeFLOODpanties.
— Mashable: ‘Da Man Wit the Chips’ in Iconic Ferguson Photo Identified
(PS: Check out the other posts on this blog tagged ‘photography’)
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My picks of the best pics of 2014