Plan as we may, life is a series of unpredictable moments—and 2020 provided an interminable year’s worth of them. Photographers are accustomed to shifting landscapes; it’s their job to show us the world through ever-changing lenses. We asked 14 of them across the West—news and food photographers, portraitists and fine artists—to help us see last year as they saw it. Each photographer chose the images that most resonated with them from their 2020 portfolio. The work shows that miracles, even in an annus horribilis, can still abound: from once-in-a-lifetime comets over Mount Shasta to spectacular bioluminescence in Monterey Bay, from baby sheep in Idaho to desolate freeways in downtown L.A. Photography forces the world to sit still, just long enough for a shutter to click. So take a breath and enjoy these remarkable images.
APOCALYPSE NOW
Photo by CRAIG LEE
Like a few million other people across the Bay Area on September 9 last year, Lee woke up to smoky skies bathed in an eerie orange hue. “I have never seen San Francisco look like this in all the years I have lived here,” he says. “I had to go out and get photos.” He drove to Chinatown before making his way to the North Beach neighborhood. At Broadway and Columbus, the site of the legendary striptease bar
