In Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, oil bunkering — the practice of siphoning oil from pipelines — has transformed parts of the once-thriving delta ecosystem into an ecological dead zone, according to the U.N. Environment Programme. Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto hide caption
Azzam, 12, hugs a sheep, the only source of his family's livelihood in rural Damascus on Feb 21, 2022. Azzam and his family have experienced firsthand the harrowing impact of the conflict. In 2015, when Azzam was five years old, a shell fell on the building where he was sitting with his family. Hasan Belal for NPR hide caption
David Johnson in 2023 with one of his photographs, "Clarence," at an award luncheon at UC Berkeley honoring the photographer. Peg Skorpinski hide caption
Kate, Princess of Wales, says she edited a photo that seemed to promise to ease concerns about her health — but only raised new questions. She's seen here greeting the public on Christmas Day, last December. Stephen Pond/Getty Images hide caption
Evan Russel's photo of Yosemite's firefall in late February. Evan Russel hide caption
Dorothea Lange, Human Erosion in California (Migrant Mother), March 1936, gelatin silver print The J. Paul Getty Museum hide caption
This 1970 photograph, Untitled (Model Who Embraced Natural Hairstyles at AJASS Photoshoot) is just one of the works in the Dean Collection on display at the Brooklyn Museum Joshua White / JWPictures.com/The Dean Collection, courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys. © Kwame Brathwaite. hide caption
The PIGEON algorithm was able to geolocate this 2012 photo of the author on a backcountry trail in Yellowstone National Park to within roughly 35 miles of where it was taken. Courtesy of Geoff Brumfiel hide caption
Palestinians search the destroyed annex of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, damaged in a strike on Gaza City on Oct. 20. Dawood Nemer/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Artist Kelly McKernan in their studio in Nashville, Tenn. 2023. Nick Pettit hide caption
Portfolio Award Winner: The ancient mariner. Pangatalan Island, Palawan, the Philippines. The tri-spine horseshoe crab has survived for more than 100 million years but now faces habitat destruction and overfishing for food and for its blood, used in the development of vaccines. Laurent Ballesta/Wildlife Photographer of the Year hide caption
A researcher typed sentences like "Black African doctors providing care for white suffering children" into an artificial intelligence program designed to generate photo-like images. The goal was to flip the stereotype of the "white savior" aiding African children. Despite the specifications, the AI program always depicted the children as Black. And in 22 of over 350 images, the doctors were white. Midjourney Bot Version 5.1. Annotation by NPR. hide caption
Charloth Chirino poses for a portrait in her apartment in Medellín. Originally from Maracaibo, Venezuela, Charloth has been living in Colombia for seven years, three of those in Medellín. She has lived her life as a proud trans woman since she was 15 years old, when she also began working as a sex worker. Lexi Parra for NPR hide caption
Philip Bermingham, who is 6'4", shot this portrait of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after crawling down to the ground below her, to make it easier for the diminutive Ginsburg to look directly into the lens. Courtesy Philip Bermingham hide caption