photo essay during pandemic

• HISTORY & CULTURE
• CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

Photos show the first 2 years of a world transformed by COVID-19

Our photographers bore witness to the ways the world has coped—and changed—since the pandemic began.

Two years ago this month, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally declared a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus . And as COVID-19 spread across the globe, humanity had little time to adapt to lockdowns and staggering losses.

Nearly six million people have died from the disease so far, a death toll that experts say barely scratches the surface of the pandemic’s true harm. Hospitals and health care workers have been pushed to the brink, debates over masking have tested our bonds, and millions of grieving families will never truly return to life as normal—if it’s even possible to go back to a time when “social distancing” was an alien concept.  

Over past two years, National Geographic has documented how the world has coped with COVID-19 through the lenses of more than 80 photographers in dozens of countries. In the frightening early days, Cédric Gerbehave’s haunting image of Belgian nurses revealed the trauma of hospitals overrun by a disease that scientists didn’t yet understand. Tamara Merino confronted the overwhelming isolation of confinement during lockdown in Chile. And Muhammad Fadli took us to the gravesite of one of the many COVID-19 victims whose bodies filled up an Indonesian cemetery.

Our photographers have also shown us how the world adapted to these challenges. Families found new ways to connect when social distancing kept us from our loved ones, and new ways to grieve when we couldn’t hold funerals. Schools from Haiti to South Korea were able to safely reopen with mask mandates, smaller classes, and exams taken outdoors. And the 2021 graduating class of Howard University found a joyous way to celebrate commencement outdoors: by dancing down the streets of Washington, D.C.

Now, as we enter the pandemic’s third year, scientists warn that it isn’t over yet. More than 10 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally—but that isn’t enough to quell the danger of future surges and even more deadly variants . Still, there’s reason to hope that we’ll finally find our way toward a new normal.

Many of these images were made with the support of the National Geographic Society's   COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists , which launched in March 2020 and funded more than 324 projects in over 70 countries. These projects revealed the social, emotional, economic, educational, and equity issues threatening livelihoods all over the world.

Physician Gerald Foret dons a full-face respirator mask before seeing COVID-19 patients at Our Lady of the Angels Hospital in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The mask was donated to the hospital when it was running low on disposable N95 masks. In the early months of the pandemic, health-care systems faced severe shortages of personal protective equipment such as face masks and disposable gloves—putting front-line workers like Foret in further jeopardy.

A baby is born at the only maternity hospital in Dagestan, Russia. Located on the southernmost tip of Russia along the Caspian Sea, the Muslim-majority republic suffered a catastrophic surge of coronavirus deaths in the spring of 2020. The losses in Dagestan raised questions about whether the Russian government was obscuring the pandemic’s true death toll.

Alfonso Sellano, age 64, battles COVID-19 while his wife and a nurse tend to him in Espinar, Peru. As of March 2022, the country has the highest COVID-19 death rate in the world , which experts say can be attributed to the country’s weak health-care system and pervasive social inequalities that make it difficult for marginalized people to protect themselves from the virus. For instance, many had to continue commuting to work even during lockdown in order to provide for their families.

Hours of work in a protective mask leave a transient scar down the face of Yves Bouckaert, the chief intensive care unit physician at Tivoli Hospital in La Louvière, Belgium.  

Ghislaine, a nurse in the geriatric ward at the same hospital, poses for a portrait with a tear running down her cheek. These photos were taken during the third wave of COVID-19, which triggered a new round of lockdowns in March 2021.

In Mons, Belgium, nursing colleagues take brief refuge in a shift break and each other’s company. Like medical facilities around the world, Belgian hospitals were initially overwhelmed by the rush of patients with a virulent new disease. These nurses, pulled from their standard duties, were thrown into full-time COVID-19 work—reinforcement troops for a long, exhausting battle.

COVID-19 has posed a particularly grave threat to Africa’s informal urban settlements —communities with high poverty rates where millions of people live in close quarters and often do not have access to clean water or toilets. In Nairobi, Kenya, residents of the Kibera informal settlement have their temperature checked by community health workers at a station set up by Shining Hope for Communities on March 26, 2020.

Home health-care worker Delores Jetton bathes her client Jean Robbins in a sunlit bedroom. “She is slow and prayerful as she bathes each person, washing with warm water and a touch that is so appreciated by these elders, who often face pain and fear at the end of life,” writes photographer Lynn Johnson. “As the bath progresses, one can see Robbins literally surrender to the touch.”  

Even with the availability of effective vaccines, people over 65 remain at high risk of dying from COVID-19 . Many have been told to stay home rather than visit health clinics in person—causing a significant rise in demand for home health workers, who have often found themselves stretched to exhaustion in these past two years.

The mummified body of a COVID-19 victim lies on the patient’s deathbed awaiting a bodybag in Jakarta, Indonesia. It took two nurses about an hour to wrap the patient in plastic—a measure intended to keep the coronavirus from spreading. Indonesians were shocked when they saw this image, which humanizes the losses of COVID-19 and horror of death from the disease.

“It’s clear that the power of this image has galvanized discussion about coronavirus,” photographer Joshua Irwandi told National Geographic in July 2020 . “We have to recognize the sacrifice, and the risk, that the doctors and nurses are making.”

At the Rayer Bazar graveyard in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Farid conducts the janazah , an Islamic funeral prayer, for a COVID-19 victim and his relatives attending the burial. Bangladesh designated the cemetery as its official burial place for COVID-19 victims in April 2020.

Defying Peruvian government protocols, the Shipibo-Konibo have organized illegal mourning and funerals during the pandemic to honor their dead as their tradition dictates. At the funeral of Milena Canayo, who died in July 2020 with symptoms of COVID-19, her 9-year-old daughter lights a candle before taking refuge at home. Shipibo-Konibo people live in the Amazon rainforest of Peru, including in cities like Pucallpa where Milena's funeral was held. But she was not treated at the local hospital—Ronald Suarez, head of the organization Coshikox, says the health and welfare of Indigenous people is always the last to be considered.  

Workers from a funeral home in Huancavelica wait until the end of a service to move a coffin into a grave at a city cemetery in April 2021. Much like the rest of the country, this city in central Peru has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After keeping their social distance during the New York City funeral of Annie Lewis, family members draw together around the casket to say a final goodbye. In the United States, COVID-19 has been particularly devastating for low-income communities of color. As photographer Ruddy Roye told National Geographic , “The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the divisions in our city.”

Relatives visit a loved one’s fresh grave at Rorotan Public Cemetery in Cilincing, North Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 21, 2021. The cemetery, which is dedicated to COVID-19 victims, opened in March. Even though it can hold up to 7,200 people, the cemetery filled up fast during the surge in cases caused by the Delta variant—which made Indonesia an epicenter of the pandemic. In response, Jakarta's government planned to add more land to the 25-hectare cemetery.

Elaine Fields, with her daughter Etana Fields-Purdy, stand close to her husband's gravesite at the Elmwood Cemetary in Detroit, on June 14, 2020. Eddie Fields, a retired General Motors plant worker, had died from COVID-19 complications in April. "It's hard because we haven't been able to mourn,” Elaine told photographer Wayne Lawrence . “We weren't able to be with him or have a funeral, so our mourning has been stunted."

Detroit journalist Biba Adams stands for a portrait at her home with daughter Maria Williams and granddaughter Gia Williams in Detroit on June 10, 2020. Adams lost her mother, grandmother, and aunt to the coronavirus. “To lose one’s mother is one thing,” Adams said in late July 2020 , when U.S. pandemic death totals were pushing past 150,000. “To lose her as one of 150,000 people is even more painful. I don’t want her to just be a number. She had dreams, things she still wanted to do. She was a person. And I am going to lift her name up.”

Family members place flowers atop the coffin of Eric Hallett, 76, just before a hearse carries his body to the crematorium in Crewkerne, England, on May 4, 2020. Pandemic safety protocols forced the crematorium to limit the number of mourners at each funeral. Instead, Hallett’s loved ones lined the streets to wave goodbye.

Sisters Dana Cobbs and Darcey Cobbs-Lomax lost both their father and paternal grandmother to COVID-19 in April 2020. Evelyn Cobbs was rushed to the hospital in ambulances just one day after her son Morgan—and the two died within a week of one another. Photographer Celeste Sloman took this virtual portrait of the sisters, who had to say goodbye to their loved ones from a distance due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

White flags planted on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. represent each of the American lives lost to COVID-19. When the art installation opened in September 2021, the country had surpassed 670,000 deaths. For more than 30 hours, photographer and National Geographic Explorer Stephen Wilkes watched people move through the sea of white flags , capturing individuals as they grappled with the enormity of loss. Wilkes took 4,882 photographs of the exhibit, then blended them into a single composite image as part of his Day to Night series.

Kristiana Nicole Bell attends a candlelight vigil at St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Foley, Alabama, where she was baptized later that evening. The service, held the night before Easter Sunday, was led in both English and Spanish by Father Paul Zohgby. He decided about eight years ago that it was important to learn Spanish so he could welcome and minister to the community’s growing Latino immigrant population. Zohgby told photographer Natalie Keyssar that he was elated to rejoin his congregation in person after spending eight days in the hospital with severe COVID-19.

Quarantined for two weeks after traveling from Belgium to Shanghai, Justin Jin reads out his temperature to a medic on the other side of his closed hotel door. The picture was taken through the door’s peephole. Jin made the arduous journey to see his father, who just had surgery.

Photographer Ian Teh spends much of his working life on the road—so the pandemic allowed him to stay home with his wife, Chloe Lim, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “My partner and I are lucky that both our families are safe,” he says. “The pandemic has been an opportunity for us to connect with our loved ones, virtually.” He took this self-portrait of the couple in a favorite spot in their apartment, looking out on nearby houses and greenery. “It’s peaceful,” he says.

Heavy rain falls on Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 27, 2020. Argentina entered a full lockdown on March 20 that endured more than four months. Feeling trapped, and still recovering from a miscarriage, photographer Sarah Pabst picked up her camera to document her pandemic experiences. The result: Morning Song , a project that uses photography to explore motherhood, love, and loss, and our connection with nature.

Greta Tanini and Cristoforo Lippi decided to take advantage of Italy's quarantine lockdown—to regard their enforced time together as a new exploration of their relationship. They divided up domestic tasks—including shopping, cleaning, and tidying up—and limited their social interaction to chatting with neighbors at a safe distance so as not to spread the virus.

The Apollo Theater has been a Harlem landmark since the 1930s, when it helped propel music genres such as jazz, R & B, and the blues into the American mainstream. The Apollo was one of New York City’s many historic entertainment venues that closed in early 2020 to stem the spread of COVID-19. It remained shuttered for a year and a half—and finally returned, to much excitement, in August 2021.

In spring 2020, sculptor Antonio Canova's The Three Graces (1812-1817) stand alone in the rotunda of Milan’s Galleria d’Italia. COVID-19 lockdowns forced museums across Europe to close their door for months— sparking fears that the loss of revenue might keep them permanently closed. By June, however, some museums began to reopen with limited numbers of visitors, temperature checks, and socially distant experiences.

Photographer Mariceu Erthal took this self-portrait in July 2020 during her first visit to the sea after being confined at home by COVID-19 lockdowns. She says the experience “brought me peace of mind and allowed me to observe the sadness and anxieties I had inside.”

Photographer Bethany Mollenkof found out she was pregnant three months before COVID-19 shut down swaths of the United States. She began to document her own experiences during quarantine in Los Angeles—from her first ultrasound, which her husband had to watch from the parking lot over FaceTime, to childbirth. Although Mollenkof had hoped for a natural birth, she decided to deliver in a hospital in case of complications—which proved the right choice. After her water broke, her contractions did not start, and ultimately labor was induced to keep the baby safe.

  “I thought about my friends, my community, and what it would feel like to become new parents in isolation—to not have people around us to help, people who years later could tell our daughter that they’d held her when she was a few days old,” Mollenkof wrote in a photo essay for National Geographic . “But I also thought about women throughout history, women who have survived wars, pandemics, miscarriages. Their resilience guided me.”

Exhausted after giving birth to her daughter, Suzette, Kim Bonsignore lies in the birthing pool in her living room on April 20, 2020, in New York City. Instead of having her baby in the hospital as planned, the Bonsignores decided to have their second child at home when they learned that family members would not be allowed in the delivery room because of COVID-19 restrictions.

In Moscow, a nurse wearing a hazmat suit holds a bouquet of flowers for at Hospital No. 52 on March 9, 2020—or Victory Day. Russia’s most important national holiday commemorates the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945. Although celebrations were more subdued because of the pandemic, the hospital arranged a small tribute for veterans and their families under treatment.

Photographer Tamara Merino took this self-portrait with her son Ikal on the first day of total isolation in Santiago, Chile. “The confinement feels stronger and more overwhelming when someone imposes it on you,” she wrote. “When we have freedom over our actions, and we decide to stay home, we still feel free. Not anymore.”

Image of customers seen through a thermal scanner at the entrance of a supermarket in Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The vast majority of food on the island is imported, and shopping is centralized in big supermarket chains—creating a challenge for social distancing. During lockdown, thermal scanners were placed in the supermarkets to take the temperature of incoming customers. Customers with elevated temperatures were sent home.

Girls form a socially distant queue to take a shower at a facility in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Most residents in the community do not have access to indoor plumbing, so a local organization provided free water to help prevent the spread of coronavirus by helping people maintain their personal hygiene.

An Istanbul city employee disinfects the streets of Beyoglu on April 14, 2020. Typically bustling with tourists intent on sampling its historic winehouses, museums, nightclubs and shops, the neighborhood fell quiet at the start of the pandemic. Many cities initially tried   to curb the spread of the coronavirus by spraying their walkways with disinfectant—a practice that the World Health Organization ultimately recommended against , as the chemicals were likely to harm people’s health.

Migrants climb onto a truck which will take them toward their village on the outskirts of Lucknow, India, on May 6, 2020. When the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24, it requested that people stay put, wherever they were. But that created a shortage of food for the huge migrant population in cities—so, after much deliberation and implementation of new public safety measures, state governments coordinated efforts to transport the migrants to their homes on special trains.

Students resume in-person classes at Elementary School No. 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia. More than 600 schools across the city reopened on a limited basis in fall 2021, offering face-to-face classes three days a week with strict health protocols in place. Schools also restricted the number of students who could attend in person, with half of each class still learning from home via video conference. Nadiem Makarim, the Indonesian minister of education, pushed for a return to classrooms, telling parliament that COVID-19 lockdowns caused “learning losses that have permanent impacts.”

In a Pétion-Ville high school, a student distributes handmade masks to his classmates before classes begin. The pandemic disrupted education for children everywhere—but the crisis was particularly dire in Haiti, where students have also suffered gaps in their education as a result of social unrest and natural disasters. The Caribbean nation reopened many of its schools in August 2020 with public health measures like masking in place.

Aspiring insurance agents sit for their qualification exams at desks spread apart on a soccer field in South Korea on April 25, 2020. The Korea Life Insurance Association and the General Insurance Association of Korea were among the many public and private institutions that introduced socially distanced exams during the pandemic. It was a very windy day, but more than 18,000 people across Korea took the insurance agent exam—happy that they had resumed after a hiatus of more than two months.

Eighteen-year-old Stephen Onyango (center) teaches his brothers Collins and Gavan while their sister Genevieve Akinyi watches at their home in Kibera. They hadn't been to class since the Kenyan government closed all schools in the country in mid-March to curb the spread of COVID-19. Stephen told photographer Brian Otieno that his teacher suggested an app he could use to teach his siblings. “It's my responsibility to ensure that my brothers are at home studying now that coronavirus is here with us and we don't know when this will end,” he said. Kenya reopened schools in January 2021, even as the pandemic continued to spread.

Members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity gather for an impromptu step dance after Howard University's commencement ceremony in Washington, D.C., on May 8, 2021. Only undergraduate students were allowed to attend the outdoor, in-person ceremony held at the university’s stadium. Friends and family scattered around outside of the stadium instead.  

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“As I was bouncing around campus, I started to think about how much the students had been through the past year and how this particular moment must feel for them,” said photographer Jared Soares. “To be able to witness the students' jubilation was a huge privilege, and even more meaningful based on the circumstances that we as a community had to endure the past year and a half.”

Seoulites lounge on picnic mats in the grass at Ttukseom Hangang Park on a late summer weekend in 2021. Located under ring-shaped entry and exit ramps leading to a bridge and an expressway, the park is a popular gathering spot for young and old alike.

Nadia, one of the hosts of the talent quest TV show Afghan Star , interviews masked young women at a taping on February 18, 2021. As the Taliban moved to retake national control, Afghan Star ’s cast and crew came under serious threat—judges and participants had to stay at a safe house with armed security guards and blast walls until the end of the season. Kabul fell to the Taliban six months after this photograph was taken, leaving an uncertain future for Afghan women .

Berlin partygoers share a moment In a hallway of the Ritter Butzke, a venerable electronic music clubs, on August 28, 2021. Recently government-designated a German cultural institution, the Ritter Butzke—like other clubs with open air spaces— was approved last summer for public reopening . Some pandemic rules still apply: signs at the club urge patrons to wear masks and refrain from drinking on the dance floor.

Members of the Orquesta Sinfónica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho play music from their new album, Sinfonía Desordenada (Disorderly Symphony), during an open-air performance on November 12, 2021 in Caracas, Venezuela. The album was recorded during the pandemic lockdown by 75 musicians who blended elements of classical music with Afro-Caribbean rhythms.

A boy flies his kite during lockdown in Amman, Jordan, in April 2020. For a few days in March, the government had imposed even tighter restrictions—shutting down nearly everything and instituting a 24-hour curfew backed up by tanks and army trucks, with no exceptions even to get food and medicine.  

Amman is built on hills, and from his kitchen, photographer Moises Saman could hear the echoes of citywide sirens, the kind used for air raid warnings. He stayed inside with his family until the curfews began to ease. Then he went to find the places where refugees live, including the neighborhood where this photograph was taken. Despite fears that their crowded settlements and neighborhoods would lead to uncontainable spread of COVID-19, Jordan's strict lockdown kept the pandemic at bay during its early months. But as lockdown measures eased, cases began to surge by the fall —a warning to all countries to remain vigilant.

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Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays

Jennifer d. turner.

1 University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Associated Data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-3-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-4-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-5-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-6-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Guided by intersectional multimodal literacy frameworks and analytic methods, this qualitative study explored how seven high-achieving Black undergraduate women's photo essays visually and textually represented their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo essays, in this context, are intersectional multimodal compositions that use images and words to articulate the challenges that the women faced during COVID-19 and the resources that promoted their persistence. Data sources included a demographic questionnaire, the women's digital photo essays, and lengthy photo-elicitation interviews with the women on Zoom. Findings reveal that the women's photo essays evoked an endarkened persistence, rooted in the legacy of Black people's collective struggle and survival, and represented by two interrelated themes: Affirming Black Beauty (i.e., Embracing natural Black hair and Caring for Black female bodies) and Honoring the Spirit (i.e., (Re)connecting with sistafriends, (Re)claiming rest, and Nurturing creativity). Research and practical implications are discussed.

My photos show how I’ve been able to find motivation at this institution where I’m not the same as everyone else. I have persisted during COVID-19 by continuing to find things that bring me joy despite the fact that there's a lot of fear … I’ve struggled, but I’m still here and there is hope.

Imani's (all names are pseudonyms) words and images in her photo essay break the silence surrounding high-achieving, Black undergraduate women at predominantly white universities (PWUs) and their COVID-19 experiences. The traumas that Black college women, and Black women more generally, have experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020 are oftentimes ignored by U.S. society ( Pennant, 2022 ). It is well-known that COVID-19 disproportionately affects Black and Latinx communities ( Jones et al., 2022 ), yet many are unaware that Black women are three times more likely than white and Asian men to die from the disease ( Njoku & Evans, 2022 ). Black women are also more likely to experience consequential impacts of COVID-19, including deteriorating physical and mental healthand economic instability ( Chandler et al., 2021 ). At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the traumas that Black women have endured from structural racism in the United States. As Black women grieved for George Floyd, William Howard Green, and other unarmed Black men murdered by police in 2020, they were equally devastated by the state-sanctioned murders of Breonna Taylor and countless other unarmed Black women whose names were erased by the media ( Pennant, 2022 )—heartbreaking reminders that Black women's bodies, literacies, and lives are disposable. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Black undergraduate women like Imani navigate physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges, and many suffer—and persist—in silence.

As a Black college woman, Imani recognizes that her persistence in the global pandemic reflects that she is “not the same as everyone else.” Her words underscore how high-achieving Black undergraduate women are socially located at the intersections of race, gender, and academic status, and due to their membership in two marginalized groups (i.e., women and Black people), they experience raced-gendered oppressions on higher education campuses and in society ( Davis, 2018 ; Patton & Croom, 2017 ). At PWUs, these oppressive forces work to diminish Black college women's high-grade point averages (GPAs), graduation rates, honors program participation, and other scholastic achievements ( Davis, 2018 ; Patton & Croom, 2017 ). High-achieving Black undergraduate women are particularly marginalized by broader diversity discourses that aggregate student experiences with a singular focus on race (e.g., African American) or gender (e.g., women of color), erasing their distinctive voices from policies, programs, and pedagogies at PWUs ( Davis, 2018 ). This erasure has been exacerbated in the COVID-19 era, as pandemic impact research frequently aggregates Black college women's and men's experiences ( Jones et al., 2022 ). To my knowledge, there are no studies focused specifically on Black women who have been academically successful despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and this lack of intersectional research marginalizes the voices and experiences of women like Imani.

Imani's assertion that she is “not the same as everyone else” also implores literacy scholars to push beyond the boundaries of print-centric research toward critical multimodal paradigms that center the rich compositional practices and products of young people of color. When asked about her experiences creating the photo essay, Imani noted, “This was a super fun project for me. I’m a photographer, and I love photos and making collages where I can express myself and document my experiences.” Here, Imani foregrounds how she composes with images and words to express herself—who she is as a Black, high-achieving college woman—and her intersectional experiences during COVID-19. Historically and contemporarily, Black women have engaged literacies across multiple modalities to define their raced-gendered identities and assert their humanity ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ). Despite their rich multiliterate legacies, high-achieving Black college women like Imani are frequently (mis)perceived as unintelligent, incapable, and illiterate compared to their white peers at PWUs ( Kynard, 2010 ). In college English classrooms, Black undergraduate women may not demonstrate their full multimodal compositional repertoires because conventional pedagogies overemphasize standardization and skills, which “shifts writing from being a source of possibility to one of ridicule and limitation” ( Smith et al., 2022 , p. 1674). In addition, high-achieving Black college women and their multimodal literacies have been marginalized in the research literature “due to the reductive nature of how literacies in college settings are imagined, [and] the lack of attention paid to out-of-school literacies” ( Kynard, 2010 , p. 35).

Imani's words suggest that scholarship that centers on high-achieving Black college women and elevates their multimodal compositions is essential for promoting their educational, socioemotional, and mental well-being beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Toward that end, this article highlights how seven high-achieving Black college women's photo essays represented persistence and illuminated, in Imani's words, “the things that brought joy” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, “photo essay” represents a type of intersectional multimodal composition that Black college women author to “affirm the self and critique dominant narratives of whiteness” ( Smith et al., 2022 , p. 1676). Guided by intersectional multimodal literacy frameworks and analytic methods, I explore the following question:

How do Black undergraduate women's photo essays visually and textually represent their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Critical Framings: The Intersectionality of Black College Women's Multimodal Literacies

This study brings together intersectional literacy theories ( Green et al., 2021 ), New Literacy perspectives ( New London Group, 1996 ), and endarkened feminist epistemology frameworks ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ) to articulate the intersectionality of Black college women's multimodal literacies. Intersectional literacy theories are rooted in the concept of intersectionality , defined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (2017) as a “lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.” Frequently misrepresented as a theory of multiple identities, intersectionality is a critical framework for articulating and examining how simultaneous group memberships significantly shape people's experiences of power and privilege ( Collins, 2009 ; Crenshaw, 2017 ). More specifically, intersectionality illuminates the complex, cumulative effects of multiple oppressions that women of color experience at the intersections of race and gender within a white supremacist patriarchal society ( Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010 ). For example, Black women face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in mainstream institutions (e.g., racism and sexism); therefore, their lived experiences are different from those of white women and men of color ( Crenshaw, 2017 ; Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010 ).

Informed by these perspectives, I offer an intersectional multimodal literacy framework to articulate how Black college women's multimodal communicative practices are situated in and expressive of their raced-gendered ways of knowing, doing, and being. Adapting Green et al.'s ( 2021 ) framework for intersectionalizing racial literacies, I understand Black college women's intersectional multimodal literacies as endarkened , engendered , and embodied . The terms “endarkened” and “engendered” move away from white feminisms and their “enlightened” ideologies and instead articulate Black women's realities located in Black feminist thought ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). This shift illuminates the unique cultural standpoints that Black women occupy based on their shared legacy of struggle within interlocking and intermeshing systems of oppression in U.S. society ( Collins, 2009 ; Crenshaw, 2017 ). Drawing on the specialized knowledge acquired from their endarkened and engendered standpoints, Black women move beyond victim status, using their agency and empowerment to (re)define Black womanhood; love themselves, their families, and their communities; promote wellness for themselves and others; and persist in fighting against societal oppressions ( Collins, 2009 ; Dillard, 2000 ; hooks, 1993 ). As such, Black women engage intersectional multimodal literacies as alternate sites of knowledge production and textual practice that materialize “the self-expression, self-definition, and validation of Black female understanding” ( Dillard, 2000 , p. 664).

Black college women's intersectional multimodal literacies are also embodied and therefore represent and reflect their “full Black womanness” ( Green et al., 2021 ). In contrast to Westernized dichotomies between the material (i.e., the body) and the nonmaterial (i.e., the spiritual), Black women hold African worldviews that are holistic, in which body and spirit coalesce and are (re)affirmed in divine relationship to self, community, and Creator ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). By leveraging their intersectional multimodal literacies, Black women compose intellectual and creative multimodal works (e.g., music, literature, art, and photography) that facilitate the (re)membering of their mental, emotional, and spiritual selves, allowing them to repair the fragmentation caused by a white supremacist patriarchal society ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). Moreover, intersectional multimodal literacies serve as restorative practices that allow Black women to represent and reaffirm the people, places, and spaces that promote their humanity and healing, including psychological counseling or therapy and self-care practices, friendships with Black women and women of color, places of rest (e.g., gardens), religious communities (e.g., churches), and political advocacy groups ( Adkins-Jackson et al., 2022 ; Collins, 2009 ; Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). Consequently, Black women's intersectional multimodal literacies, and the creative textual works that they inspire and animate, perform the historical and contemporary functions of literacies that protect and serve ( Richardson, 2002 ) the intellectuality, psychosocial wellness, and persistence of Black women.

Though small, the extant literature demonstrates that Black college women practice a variety of modes of literate meaning-making situated at the intersections of race and gender. The Black college women in Ohito's (2020) study created multimodal compositions that illustrated the heterogeneity, resilience, and humanity of Black people across time and place. Moreover, Kynard (2010) revealed the power of digital multimodal writing in a Sista-cypher with 13 Black undergraduate women at an urban PWU. In the safety of their virtual hush harbor, the Sistas’ multimodal choices (e.g., font size) and rhetorical moves animated their counterstorytelling and interrogation of structural racism at their PWU and in society. Collectively, this research illuminates how Black college women at PWUs create multimodal compositions “to cope with and, in many cases, transcend the confines of intersecting oppressions” ( Collins, 2009 , p. 98).

Young Black Women's Photo Essays as Intersectional Multimodal Composition

As photographic writers, young Black women compose intersectional multimodal compositions that “affirm themselves, the(ir) world, and the multidimensionality of young Black womanhood” ( Price-Dennis et al., 2017 , p. 5). Historically, Black women have engaged in writing to achieve four central purposes: (a) expressing self-defined intersectional identities, (b) promoting persistence in the face of societal oppression, (c) building capacity for liberatory work, and (d) advancing collective transformation and social justice ( Muhammad & Behizadeh, 2015 ). Contemporary young Black women in their adolescent and early adult years, rooted in the rich authorial legacies of their Black foremothers, compose photo essays and other rich multimodal compositions that nurture their liberation, healing, and persistence in an anti-Black, patriarchal society (e.g., Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ; Ohito, 2020 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ; Turner & Griffin, 2020 ; Wissman, 2008 ). In this study, photo essays are intersectional multimodal compositions where young Black women represent their full Black womanness, entangled and imbued with endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings, through a combination of visual modes (i.e., photographic imagery) and linguistic modes (e.g., written captions), and may include other communicative modes like aurality, gesture, and spatiality ( New London Group, 1996 ). Moreover, photo essays highlight and reflect how Black women engage their creative energies, which are ancestral life forces for Black girls and women ( Brown, 2013 ; Dillard, 2000 ), in “ongoing acts of self-preservation and resistance” ( Green et al., 2021 , p. 143).

An emerging body of research has theorized how young Black women mobilize visual (e.g., photographic images), textual (e.g., written captions), and their epistemological resources (e.g., intersectional knowledges) “to negotiate public perceptions and author their own lives rather than being defined by others” ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 , p. 8). Some young Black women compose photographic writing about thier religious affiliations to refuse the fragmented views of Black womanhood propagated in society and to (re)member their full Black womanness and the interconnectedness of their minds, bodies, and spirits. Candace, a 16-year-old African American girl, illustrated salient intellectual, emotional, and spiritual aspects of herself through photographs of her praise dancing with a group of Black women at church and a self-portrait in a classic thinker's pose ( Manning et al., 2015 ). Reflecting on her photographs and writings, Candace validated her self-worth as a young Christian Black woman by “justify[ing] who I am through myself and God and not by what others believe” ( Manning et al., 2015 , p. 148). In Griffin and Turner's (2023) research, Arielle Mack, a Black woman student-athlete at a PWU, foregrounded her full Black womanness in her photo essay, highlighting how her multiple intersectional identities (e.g., daughter, sister, activist, Christian, and future physical therapist) animated her academic and athletic life. In so doing, Arielle rejected her university's vision of her body as a “tool” that labors to enrich white postsecondary institutions.

Other studies demonstrate how photographic writing opens space for young Black women to understand their full Black womanness as a reflection of the divine in their relationship with themselves, their families, their friends, their communities, and their ancestors ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). For example, representations of beauty and wellness are particularly relevant to young Black women because the popular media often depicts Black female bodies as physically unattractive, unhealthy, and nonfeminine compared to White women ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ). In Hampton and Desjourdy's (2013) study, Kanisha, a Black Canadian adolescent girl, challenged media depictions of white women as the ideal beauty through a photographic series titled Road to Salvation . Through reflective writings and images of her natural face and Black hair-care practices, Kanisha represented the sacredness and authenticity of beauty in her culture. Kanisha's photographs, taken on her bed, also depicted the ways that resting nourished her body, mind, and spirit and provided space for healing the broken parts of herself ( hooks, 1993 ). Along similar lines, Jordan, a Black adolescent girl in Muhammad and Womack's (2015) study contested Eurocentric standards of beauty and documented her own journey toward self-love. By pinning photographs and brief commentaries on her Pinterest board, Jordan illuminated the false binaries of “good” (white) hair (e.g., long, straight, and silky) and “bad” (Black) hair (e.g., short and curly), processed her own feelings about her hair, and began reimagining “what beauty could and should look like” ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 , p. 24).

Relatedly, young Black women compose photo essays to celebrate the fullness of their Black womanness and the wholeness of their relationships, rejecting public stereotypes that they are too loud, violent, and aggressive to sustain close friendships ( Brown, 2013 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ). In Wissman's ( 2008 ) research, African American adolescent girls created photographic self-portraits to highlight the literacies (e.g., writing), cultural practices (e.g., braided hairstyles), and loving relationships (e.g., daughter, sister, and friend) that were significant in their lives, but that their school overlooked, misjudged, or dismissed. Similarly, young Black girls in Brown’s (2013) study took photographs of themselves talking, playing, laughing, and dancing with other Black girls and Black women to illuminate the close friendships, love, caring, and hope cultivated in their intergenerational group of “homegirls.” Taken together, these studies suggest that young Black girls engage in truth-telling through photographic writing that exposes “the inaccurate ways in which they … were being characterized and consistently asserts their own power to name, represent, and define their own identities and realities” ( Wissman, 2008 , p. 35). My study takes inspiration from this work and focuses on Black college women's photo essays about their persistence throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Study Design and Researcher Positionality

The photo essays featured in this article originated from a 5-month qualitative study on the pandemic experiences of high-achieving Black undergraduate men ( n   =  1) and women ( n   =  7). Indicators of “high achievement” included participants’ self-reported college grade point averages (i.e., 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale) and their participation in at least one campus program for academically talented minoritized students (e.g., Black Honor Society) at the time of the study. All participants received a US$50 electronic gift card funded by a university research grant.

As an African American woman scholar, I purposefully conducted this qualitative study from an intersectional multimodal literacy perspective, shifting “from the traditional metaphor of research as recipe to fix some problem to a metaphor that centers reciprocity and relationship between the researcher … and those who, in that moment, are engaged in the research with us” ( Dillard, 2016 , p. 407). Thus, I intentionally engaged in critical listening ( Kinloch & San Pedro, 2014 ) to be present with the participants rather than enacting the role of a detached researcher. During interviews, I shared some of my own vulnerabilities during the pandemic, as well as affirmed those that participants shared with me. At times, the participants positioned me as a Black faculty “expert” and our conversations centered on their questions about pursuing educational (e.g., graduate school) and career goals in uncertain times. Most often, participants invited me to witness their truth-telling ( Dillard, 2016 ) and learn about their cultural lifeworlds through their personal photographs, playlists, and social media artifacts. Thus, my approach to humanizing research ( Kinloch & San Pedro, 2014 ) in a pandemic world included critically listening to and authentically caring for my participants’ concerns, honoring their lived experiences, and being vulnerable enough to share my own pandemic experiences.

Participants and Research Context

This article focuses on the seven Black women who participated in the larger qualitative study (see Table 1 ). All seven self-identified as Black women, demonstrated high academic achievement, and were full-time undergraduate students at the time of the study.

Participants’ Demographic Information.

Abbreviation: GPA = grade point average.

The study was conducted at a large, predominantly white public university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. During the 2020–2021 academic year, the university enrolled approximately 30,000 undergraduate students, with Black students composing about 12% of the undergraduate population. Due to COVID-19 restrictions for conducting research instituted by the university, all activities related to this project, including participant recruitment and data collection procedures, were conducted virtually. I emailed directors of campus programs for high-achieving Black students and/or students of color, received permission to virtually recruit participants, and advertised the study with a digital flyer. I also asked participants to recommend other Black high achievers as a snowball sampling technique ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ).

Data Collection

After receiving institutional research board approval, data were collected from January 2021 to May 2021. Participants completed a 16-item questionnaire about their demographic background (e.g., age and GPA). Then, participants composed a photo essay based on the following prompt:

Write a photo essay describing your experiences as a Black undergraduate student at a predominantly white university during the pandemic (March 2020 to the present). Select 5–8 personal photographs from your smartphones and/or online images representing the challenges you faced and 5–8 images representing the resources/assets that helped you persist and succeed. Write a caption explaining how each image represented a barrier or resource for you during COVID-19.

Participants composed their photo essays at home/dorm by creating collages (i.e., groupings of images) or booklets (i.e., one image per slide) with digital slides (e.g., PowerPoint). Sample photo essays were not provided so that participants could be as creative as they wished.

Finally, participants engaged in individual interviews with the researcher over Zoom. Guided by photo-elicitation methods ( Harper, 2002 ), the interview elicited the meanings that participants ascribed to their images through a series of questions about compositional details (e.g., Who/What is in the photo? Where was it taken?) and their personal interpretations (e.g., How does this photo represent persistence?). Interviews lasted from 80 to 130 min and were video recorded and transcribed. Participants reviewed their interview transcripts for accuracy as a member-checking strategy ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ).

Data Analysis

The analysis in this article focuses on the Black undergraduate women participants’ data set consisting of 110 images, 125 written captions, and over 400 pages of interview transcripts. I first analyzed the women's photo essays using an intersectional multimodal content analysis tool. Informed by the intersectional multimodal literacy framework previously discussed and photographic writing scholarship, this analytic tool helped me attend to the endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings of persistence by indexing the photograph's (a) intersectional representations (e.g., Black women's portrayals); (b) intersectional positionings (e.g., Black women's positionalities); (c) intersectional agency (e.g., Black women's agency and emotionality amidst sociopolitical oppressions); (d) interactional viewpoints (e.g., viewer-image perspective); (e) textual commentary (e.g., written captions); and (f) intermodal meanings (e.g., image–text interplay). Supplemental Figure A presents the intersectional multimodal content analysis of one participant's page from her photo essay (see Figure A in the online Supplemental Archive ).

Next, I conducted inductive thematic analyses through six interrelated phases ( Braun & Clarke, 2006 ). In Phase 1, I familiarized myself with the data set by annotating the intersectional multimodal content analysis sheets and the interview transcripts. In Phase 2, I generated an initial coding scheme with an Afro-Caribbean woman doctoral student who served as a collaborative (analytical) partner ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ). We began by independently reading four women's interview transcripts and creating open codes ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ) as descriptive labels for varying aspects of persistence. Then, we collapsed and merged codes across our respective schemes to create broader categories related to persistence. For example, we generated eight codes (e.g., work friends and dorm friends) through our individual coding processes that described the types of friendships that enabled the women to persist during COVID-19. Collaboratively, we discussed the coded data, determined the most salient codes, and generated two broad categories related to friendship: friendships with Black women and friendships with women of color. This process yielded 16 analytic categories of persistence: (a) physical exercise, (b) hair care, (c) physical health, (d) intentional lifestyle choices, (e) friendships with Black women, (f) advocacy, (g) creative pursuits, (h) trying new activities, (i) social outings, (j) family connections, (k) friendships with women of color, (l) financial resources, (m) rest, (n) academic study skills, (o) academic support (e.g., tutoring), and (p) future goals/aspirations.

Phase 3 involved searching for patterns of meaning within individual photo essays. I reanalyzed each woman's interview using the 16 analytic categories and reviewed the completed intersectional multimodal content analysis sheets related to her photo essay. Drawing on these data, I created individual summaries to help me understand the endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings of each women's persistence. For example, I wrote detailed summaries of how each woman's friendships with Black women and women of color promoted their full Black womanness (e.g., freedom and authenticity) and supported their persistence during the pandemic. In Phase 4, I looked for patterns of meaning across the seven women's data sets. Utilizing a matrix defined by the 16 analytic categories, I searched for repeated patterns across the collated interview data. Annotating the data matrix, the individual summaries and the completed intersectional multimodal content analysis sheets helped me construct a theme related to Black women's physicality by grouping four categories (i.e., physical exercise, hair care, physical health, and intentional lifestyle choices) and a second theme related to Black women's spirituality by clustering six additional categories (i.e., creative pursuits, trying new activities, friendships with Black women, friendships with women of color, resting, and social outings) . In Phase 5, I verified the two themes through key linkages ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ) between the women's illustrative interview quotes and their photo essay images. I then searched for patterns within the data for each major theme and identified subthemes. Phase 6 yielded the final analysis presented in the findings section: Theme 1 with two subthemes (Affirming Black Beauty: Embracing (Natural) Black Hair and Caring for Black Female Bodies) and Theme 2 with three subthemes (Honoring the Spirit: (Re)connecting with SistaFriends, (Re)claiming Rest, and Nurturing Creativity). To enhance the trustworthiness of the study, participant member-checking, collaborative analytic methods, and data triangulation strategies were implemented ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ).

Through their imagery and words, the women's photo essays evoked an endarkened persistence in the COVID-19 pandemic that (re)centered their full Black womanness and restored their bodies, minds, and spirits. Imani's eloquent explanation of endarkened meanings of persistence resonated with the other women: “COVID-19 most affects Black and Brown populations. So, a lot of white people aren’t wearing masks because they don’t understand the struggles of other races. We wear masks because we care about our communities, and we want to survive.” Here, the term “endarkened” reflects how Imani and her peers rooted their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic within Black people's legacy of collective struggle and survival. In what follows, two interrelated themes illuminating the women's endarkened persistence are discussed: Affirming Black Beauty and Honoring the Spirit.

Theme 1: Affirming Black Beauty

In their photo essays, the women included images representing the ways that they moved from conventional beauty standards toward more Black women–centric ideals during the pandemic. Imani said it best: “I’ve always struggled with my body image. I’m like, ‘Oh, I need to look a certain way and conform’ … Black women feel so much pressure about fitting into Eurocentric standards of beauty … And I didn’t want to conform to those standards during COVID-19.” To resist Westernized beauty norms, the women affirmed their own Black beauty by loving and caring for their hair and bodies.

Embracing Natural Black Hair

Validating bell hooks's ( 1993 ) assertion that “the first body issue that affects black female identity, even more so than color is hair texture” (p. 85), the women's photo essays centered on their hair-care journeys and how they learned to embrace their natural Black hair. As a woman in the earlier phases of this journey, Chloe's photograph captioned “Quarantine haircut” represented the ups and downs in the process of accepting her hair:

I’ve always been … in contention with my own hair. I had it relaxed, and it was falling out. Then I would always get braids, but the tension was so tight, my edges were missing. Just before COVID-19, my hair was a weird length, and I wanted to do something really different. So, I cut it. Right now, all I can do really is lay it down and put a wig on it … [and] I’m at a point where I am OK with it.

Chloe's photograph illustrates the mixed emotions and uncertainties of moving beyond a “bad hair ideology” ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 , p. 24) that frames Black hair as a problem to be “fixed” toward loving and appreciating her own hair. Rather than continuing to damage her hair by using a relaxer, or toxic chemicals, to attain the long, straight texture of white hair or wearing extremely tight braids, Chloe protected her hair by cutting it short and wearing it naturally. The photograph of Chloe's thin smile and right hand atop her head suggested that she was in the process of learning to accept her hair and love herself more fully.

In her photo essay, Rylee explained how a professional photograph on social media (see Figure 1 ) reflected her self-worth and self-love from her hair-care journey:

I think “the twist out” (style) represents a natural hair journey for me … I’ve never felt like my natural hair was celebrated. I really wanted to take the time this year [2021] to engage in that celebration of natural hair, not letting what other people want for me dictate what I look like. Doing my own hair is a way to take that control.

Rylee's professional photograph from social media.

Consequently, this photograph of Rylee smiling broadly in her taupe power suit, white blouse, black glasses, and shoulder-length tresses captures the confidence, attractiveness, and authority of a young Black woman who is defining herself on her own terms, beyond the societal beauty standards that others expect her to uphold.

Representing varying stages in their journeys, many women in the study shared photographs of the hair-care routines and natural styles (e.g., braids and curly/wavy hairdos) that they learned from social media. Most were inspired by popular Black natural hair-care TikTokers and YouTubers, and they constantly used these platforms as resources for hair-care products and instructional videos for hairstyling. Gianna shared a photo of her curly hair and asserted:

So, this is a picture of me when I had just done singles (braids) for the first time. I didn’t know how to do them, so I looked up a YouTube video and I sat there in my room for like 10 hours just braiding my hair … I guess [the photo] shows my struggles, navigating how to style and do my hair by myself, and how I achieved the look I really wanted.

As Gianna's words suggest, embracing natural hair was not always easy. In their photo essays, several women described their frustrations and anxieties during the shutdown when professional stylists, family, or friends could not do their hair. However, all these women ultimately viewed the pandemic as an opportunity to learn how to care for, appreciate, and love their hair, enabling them to feel beautiful and “achieve the look” they desired. As such, the women's photographs of their various natural hairstyles illuminated how their endarkened beauty, untethered from Eurocentric standards of “good” hair ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ), fostered persistence during the pandemic.

Caring for Black Female Bodies

In their photo essays, all seven women discussed how the pandemic gave them time to intentionally care for and (re)affirm their physical health in ways that strengthened their mental wellness. Jemele was the most enthused about “reinventing” her body image, asserting that she was “inspired by a lot of fitness transformations on YouTube and TikTok to get healthy on my terms.” In her photo essay, Jemele depicted new fitness activities that she had taken up during the pandemic, including jogging with her mother on local trails, jumping rope, and eating healthier foods. In Figure 2 , Jemele's photo illustrates her passion for weight lifting.

Jemele's photograph at the gym.

For Jemele, weight lifting was a “source of stress relief and empowerment” even though she was oftentimes the only Black woman in the weight room at the campus recreation center. She further explained in the interview,

It was intimidating at first, but then I got empowerment, like, “Hey, I’m lifting more than these guys. Check me out.” It was actually really cool, and I feel like that was one of the few times that I was actually somewhat comfortable in my own skin.

In her photographic image, Jemele's low-angle shot, clothing (i.e., lime green top and red sneakers), and stance as she lifts the barbell depicts not only her physical strength but her mental fortitude to be the only Black woman in the campus weight room and to be “comfortable” in her skin.

Unlike Jemele, who was beginning new health and fitness routines, Shona cared for her body by recommitting to physical activities that she loved in the past. Reflecting on a close-up shot at the pool's edge, Shona offered,

I wouldn’t say I’m the most active person. I hate going to the gym, and I hate running, but I really love swimming … [so] when I moved on campus (fall 2020), I made sure to use the natatorium to get fit. That really helped me to cope with everything going on.

Through her photograph, Shona (re)affirmed her Black girl body as active, playful, and healthy. Rather than engaging in forms of exercise that did not suit her, Shona chose to care for her body by swimming, a physical activity that helped her “get fit” and mentally “cope” during the pandemic. Like Shona, the other women foregrounded connections between physical health and mental wellness during the pandemic through multiple photographs of exercise routines and healthy dishes in their photo essays. Gianna's photograph of a dish that she created during the pandemic illustrated how cooking helped her to reestablish healthier eating behaviors:

This spring [2021], I tried to make sure that I was eating healthier and eating balanced meals, because throughout the pandemic, there were times when I would eat all day, and at other times, I would be so busy that I would forget to eat and then I’d eat all night. My favorite meal is what I call “ratchet hors d’oeuvres” made with olives, cheese, and other random things. People think it's weird, but I enjoy it and it really gave me more control of my body.

Notably, the women were adamant that they were not caring for their bodies to adhere to white standards of beauty and wellness (e.g., thin bodies). Rather, they were asserting their own endarkened ideals and values about healthy and beautiful bodies derived from African worldviews ( Dillard, 2016 ). As Imani reflected in the interview,

I moved to the U.S. when I was seven years old. Here, I felt a lot of pressure to be skinnier, whereas in Cameroon, a wider variety of body sizes are accepted. We aren’t necessarily super skinny and flat; we have more curves than what the ideal Eurocentric standard might be … With the pandemic, I’m recognizing that my body is my body. It's what God gave me, and I don’t need to be small to be beautiful.

Similarly, Karema asserted, “The pandemic was really bad, but having that time away from everything helped me to take care of myself and determine what I think is important for my body. I learned to love me .” Together, these women's words and imagery portrayed their endarkened persistence as respecting, caring for, and loving their bodies, which helped them become “more comfortable in [their] own skin” and cope with the challenges of the pandemic.

Theme 2: Honoring the Spirit

While sharing a screenshot of Annie Lee's classic painting Blue Monday , Gianna poignantly stated,

This picture is a Black woman who's exhausted. And I just really related to that during the pandemic, because you wake up, sit in front of a computer for nine hours, make dinner, go to sleep … and it's just the exhaustion of knowing that you have to do it again. Also, with all the racial injustice that's been going on, that's just like an added layer of tiredness because it's on your mind all the time.

By foregrounding the Blue Monday painting in her photo essay, Gianna evoked the severe mental exhaustion and significant stress that the women in this study experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in their photo essays, the women also articulated how they intentionally honored their spirits—creating balance, breath, and joy amidst an unprecedented global pandemic—by (re)connecting with their sistafriends, (re)claiming rest, and nurturing creativity.

(Re)Connecting With Sistafriends

All the women shared photographs of sistafriends who were meaningful to them and with whom they intentionally reconnected during the pandemic. Importantly, the women described how these close friendships functioned as sistahoods ( Adkins-Jackson et al., 2022 ) that offered intimate and affirming spaces where they could be free in their full Black womanness. Figure 3 depicts Shona's relationship with one of her best friends.

Shona's photograph with a friend.

Shona's photograph foregrounds the importance of this friendship through multimodal design elements, including color (e.g., both are wearing black clothing), salience (e.g., both women are centered in the image), gaze (e.g., Shona and her friend are looking at each other), affect (e.g., smiling faces), and her written caption. Together, these visual and textual elements portrayed their sistahood as a space where Shona and her best friend could authentically “be themselves” as Black women without judgment. Similarly, Jemele shared photographs of her girlfriends wearing masks at a local restaurant, explaining that although she had many white friends her first semester of freshman year, she realized that their “cultural differences were too extreme and I kind of broke myself away from that group.” Thus, Jemele's photo represented how “blessed” she felt to have this “little girl group” of young Black women in her life who “understands me and loves me for who I am.” Relatedly, Gianna's photographs of her Black girlfriends represented their shared understanding of what it is like to navigate life on a white campus in a Black body:

A lot of my Black friends on campus are involved, and some organize the Black Lives Matter student club … And it kind of sucks, always feeling the need that you have to be the one to speak out on campus. But we also understand that we have to do that, and so we really relate to each other because of those experiences.

Lastly, Black sistafriends also nurtured the women's academic productivity. Some women, like Jemele, discussed their schedules with their friends to manage their time more effectively during the pandemic because “it was really tiring and overwhelming to be on a screen all day, but we still needed to prioritize and get things done.” Chloe explained that developing collaborative Spotify playlists with Karema and playing them while they studied together was helpful because “during COVID-19, I’ve had Zoom fatigue and I haven’t wanted to do my work. So, studying with her has motivated me to get my work done, and I get to hear new music, which is dope.” Like Chloe, Rylee was inspired to achieve by her Black sistafriends, and she believed that this support was particularly important at a PWU:

I know so many Black students that excel, and I think it's a product of being in this environment and supporting each other. Like, my friend shouted me out on their Instagram the other day, and I shouted them out right back. We’re all just doing such amazing things. I think that level of support is really important for Black students at PWUs because you need that support around you. I feel like that level of, “Hey, you did something, go you!” is very much something I see in the Black community within a PWU because we have to have us .

In addition, several women in the study included photographs of women of color who were their sistafriends. Imani dedicated two full pages in her photo essay to friendships with several young women of color on her campus: “Getting to find opportunities to see friends when[ever] I could really made COVID easier for me [and] lifted my spirit.” The importance of community was echoed by Shona, Karema, and Rylee, whose images (e.g., screenshots of church names) and words depicted how virtual fellowship with what they called “like-minded” Christian young people of diverse backgrounds renewed their faith and their hope in challenging times. Relatedly, Gianna described how close communal bonds developed when women of color stand in solidarity and advocate for social justice: “I’m lucky that my friends from other backgrounds understand what race and inequality is. They’re very knowledgeable, and they will go to protests and be supportive…they know how to be allies.” Collectively, the women's photo essays demonstrated how they countered the severe isolation and loneliness of the COVID-19 pandemic by purposefully spending time with their sistafriends—the young Black women and women of color who supported them, cared for them, and frequently fought for justice alongside them.

(Re)Claiming Rest

In their photo essays, the women discussed how intentionally breaking from the toxicity of certain social media platforms (e.g., Instagram), as well as resisting the obligation to serve as digital mammies who constantly “educate” folks about anti-Black racism, enabled them to reclaim their emotional energy and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shona's bright-pink, Black Lives Matter photograph best exemplified this point:

I feel that, as a Black person, you always have to explain why someone should care about racial injustice. I think that during this time, it was really good for me to stop explaining. I just let people take that into their own hands and inform themselves. I mean, Google's a thing.

Echoing Shona, the other women articulated in their photo essays how purposefully removing themselves from toxic social media platforms ultimately gave them more time to cultivate sanctuaries, or places of spiritual healing and rest where Black women “hear our inner voices, [and] comprehend reality with both our hearts and our minds, put[ting] us in touch with divine essence” ( hooks, 1993 , p. 185). Many women found sanctuary in the beauty and tranquility of the outdoors. Imani included a photograph of a lake ( Figure 4 ) in her essay because “one interesting aspect of COVID-19 was getting to explore nature and connect with that side of myself. I’m also a Christian, so connecting with God in the natural environment brought me joy, too.”

Imani's photograph of a lake.

Likewise, Gianna underscored how natural spaces were restful for her: “This semester, I made sure I had more free time to just relax … now I have time where I can just walk around outside. That's been cool, taking a walk around campus and just being able to breathe.” Relatedly, both Jemele and Shona prioritized outdoor sanctuarial spaces, including picnics and the drive-in movie theater, where they could “relax and have fun and chill with friends but still be socially distanced and safe.”

Some women found sanctuary in other restorative practices. During the interview, Karema explained how her photo essay illustrated her Christian faith as sanctuary:

In my project, I included this Bible verse [screenshot]: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” It represents my beliefs that things will get better, even with this pandemic. It might take months, years, or decades, but things will get better.

Reflecting on a screenshot of Spotify, Rylee noted that music was her sanctuary during the pandemic because “I was super depressed, and music helped me get through. Coconut Oil by Lizzo is really healing for me. Every time I listen to it, I’m recentering my own experience and my own inner beauty by hearing her journey.” Lastly, Chloe found healing in working with a Black female therapist who taught her the power of personal affirmations and mindfulness, and she represented this vital sanctuarial space with a screenshot of the campus counseling center in her photo essay. Taken together, the women's photo essays highlighted how their pursuit of rest within multiple forms of the sanctuary (e.g., social media breaks, music, religious faith, and nature) restored their socioemotional wellness and fostered their persistence during the pandemic.

Nurturing Creativity

Finally, the women's photo essays portrayed how they nourished their spirits during the pandemic through creative expression. Several women mentioned cooking as a fulfilling activity in their photo essays. Imani shared photographs of different dishes she prepared and this written caption: “One thing I did this year during COVID-19 was get into cooking and trying new recipes. I loved experimenting with so many different ingredients. This was something that really helped me feel happy despite the hard time.” Similarly, Rylee featured images of meals she made while listening to one of her favorite songs, “Le Festin,” because “it just represents unbridled joy through cooking, and I love that energy.”

Writing was another popular form of creative expression. Shona's photo essay featured an image of her newspaper article to underscore her love of opinion writing: “I’m a really opinionated person, to be honest. Just to argue and show my perspective on an issue is fun. I found that opinion pieces just helped me express myself the most as a writer.” Relatedly, in her photo essay, Jemele discussed how her creativity enabled her to complete her journalism assignments during the pandemic: “Coming up with story ideas was hard in a virtual environment. During COVID-19, I was limited to my dorm room or isolated locations to shoot video [which] definitely restricted me, but [also] allowed me to be more resourceful and creative.”

Notably, two women's creative expressions foregrounded their familial creative practices. Reflecting on an image of the garment she was working on (see Figure 5 ), Chloe explained why she started crocheting:

I started in September [2020] when I saw this viral image of Harry Styles wearing this cool patchwork cardigan, and it was $1,600! Some TikTokers started making their own versions and teaching others how to make them, and I learned from them. Crocheting helps me decompress and relax, and I’ll do a square while I’m watching Netflix or something. My sister also crochets, and it's cool that we can talk about it.

Chloe's photograph of her crochet cardigan.

During the interview, Karema spoke at length about an image of four Yoruba words (“Ife,” “Ayo,” “Alafia,” and “Ireti”) in her photo essay:

I’ve wanted to learn more Yoruba for a while. It's my family's native language, but my parents didn’t teach it to me. So, I took an introductory online class for Yoruba [in fall 2020] and it made me happy. Yoruba is a beautiful language [and] I was excited to be able to speak more to my grandmother and connect with her.

In sum, images of ancestral languages, crocheting, writing, and cooking in the photo essays demonstrated how the women manifested possibility, passion, and joy throughout the difficult days of the pandemic through their creativities.

Discussion and Implications

Building on and contributing to a growing body of research on the multimodality(ies) of Black college women ( Griffin & Turner, 2023 ; Kynard, 2010 ; Ohito, 2020 ), this article illuminated the visual and textual representations of persistence that seven high-achieving Black undergraduate women rendered in their COVID-19 photo essays. Animated by the legacy of collective struggle and survival of Black people, the women's photographic writings evoked an endarkened persistence that affirmed Black beauty through the love and care of their Black female bodies (e.g., natural hair and physical health) and honored their spirits as reconnecting with sistafriends, reclaiming rest, and nurturing creativity. Together, the women's images and words portray their endarkened persistence as the joy, celebration, and healing of (re)membering and (re)claiming their full Black womanness despite the pandemic crisis. Imani's assertion at the opening of this article—that she is “still here … and there is hope”—underscores the possibilities of persistence that Black undergraduate women manifest in photo essays that resist dehumanizing imagery of Black womanhood (e.g., unbeautiful and unwell) and honor their intersectional ways of knowing, seeing, and being literate in the (COVID-19) world.

Moreover, the findings complement and expand the scholarship on Black girls’ and women's intersectionality(ies) and photographic writings (e.g., Manning et al., 2015 ; Wissman, 2008 ). Examining the women's photo essays through an intersectional multimodal literacy framework made visible the endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings of their persistence in the pandemic. Although we all experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, the intersectional multimodal literacy framework, coupled with photo essay methods, enables us to “see” the pandemic from seven Black women's unique angles of vision ( Collins, 2009 ; Dillard, 2000 ) derived from their intersecting social locations (i.e., race, gender, and academic status) at a PWU. The women's photographic images, taken from their distinctive intersectional vantage points, illuminate the complex and humanizing ways that they see themselves as Black women, in the fullness of their minds-bodies-spirits and the sacredness of their Black womanness ( Green et al., 2021 ). As such, the women's images of natural Black hairstyles, Bible verses, crocheted cardigans, weight lifting, and close friendships manifested an endarkened persistence that allowed them to “find things that bring joy,” in Imani's words. This work is particularly important in the pandemic era because Black college women deserve intersectional research that enables them to “see the wholeness of our legacy, see who we are and what we’ve produced as Black women” ( Dillard, 2016 , p. 409).

The women's COVID-19 photo essays were composed in out-of-school contexts, yet they offer important insights for reimagining college English in pandemic times. As a “creative literacy practice that refuses whiteness and anti-Blackness” ( Ohito, 2020 , p. 188), photo essays serve as transformative compositional spaces that invite high-achieving Black women to bring their rich multimodal repertoires and full humanity into college English classrooms. When situated within antiracist, trauma-informed compositional pedagogies that validate writing as self-expression, freedom, and healing ( Smith et al., 2022 ), COVID-19 photo essays powerfully (re)position Black undergraduate women as experts on their own lives; (re)authorize their multimodal communicative practices in college learning; and (re)affirm their brilliance, strength, and resilience. Considering that high-achieving Black women are often marginalized in college classrooms ( Davis, 2018 ) and traumatized by conventional writing pedagogies ( Smith et al., 2022 ), photo essays serve as multimodal spaces where they can write openly about their COVID-19 experiences in ways that privilege their intersectional epistemologies, experiences, and creativities. In this way, COVID-19 photo essays can work to displace “Whiteness from the center of the curriculum … ensuring that teaching both extends from and responds to the embodied and emplaced lived experiences of Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) … students” ( Green et al., 2021 , p. 145). More specifically, by opening new pathways for college English educators to critically listen to high-achieving Black women and other BIPOC students, respectfully witness their truth-telling about pandemic pain and persistence, and teach writing through vulnerability and authenticity, photo essays have the potential to serve as “a catalyst for transformative healing” ( Smith et al., 2022 , p. 1673) for all undergraduate students learning, working, and living beyond the global pandemic.

Finally, this study offers insights for future photo essay research with high-achieving Black undergraduate women in the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings demonstrate how high-achieving Black undergraduate women used their photographic writing to come to voice ( Collins, 2009 ) and articulate how race, gender, and academic status at a PWU shaped their persistence in a pandemic world. However, we must remember that academically successful Black college women are not a monolithic group ( Davis, 2018 ; Patton & Croom, 2017 ). Future photo essay research that attends to other salient identity dimensions (e.g., socioeconomic class, sexual orientation) that intersect with race, gender, and academic status would provide more nuanced understandings of Black undergraduate women's COVID-19 persistence at PWUs. Additionally, photo essay research that documents the persistence of Black high-achieving college women over time would be beneficial, given that the pandemic era will continue to profoundly impact their literacy learning and college experiences at PWUs ( Njoku & Evans, 2022 ).

As of May 3, 2023, more than 104 million people in the United States have contracted COVID-19 ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023 ). As we consider the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the undergraduate students at our higher education institutions, we, the literacy community, must not forget about high-achieving Black women at PWUs. We owe it to Imani and the other six women in this study to continue conducting research, including photo essay scholarship, that “breaks the silence” surrounding high-achieving Black college women as they navigate intersecting traumas from a global pandemic, racial injustice, social unrest, and personal struggle. It is through their photographic imagery that we learn to “see” high-achieving Black undergraduate women and their persistence in the fullness and sacredness of Black womanhood, endarkening spirit, intellect, hope, and healing within and beyond a pandemic world.

Supplemental Material

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the University of Maryland College Park (Independent Scholar Research and Creative Work Award).

ORCID iD: Jennifer D. Turner https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4880-5567

Supplemental Material: The Supplemental figures referenced in this article and abstracts in languages other than English are available at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/1086296X231178524

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John Moore/Getty Images

The defining photos of the pandemic — and the stories behind them

Updated September 20, 2021

It was a harrowing scene.

A 92-year-old man was barely breathing and had extremely low oxygen levels, and emergency medical technicians wanted to intubate him right there at his home in Yonkers, New York.

It was April 2020, near the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the man was showing all the symptoms of the disease.

“The man's family, who was there, agreed to the procedure, and they also said that I could stay and photograph as EMTs worked to save his life,” remembers John Moore , a Getty Images photographer.

Moore, who like the EMTs was decked out in personal protective equipment, kept out of their way as he tried to respectfully take photos of the life-threatening situation. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a happy ending. The family told Moore the man died in the ICU a couple of weeks later.

Moore also spent time with emergency medical workers in Stamford, Connecticut, documenting their lives as they worked extremely long hours in the early days of the pandemic.

“After 9/11, firefighters were America’s heroes as first responders. This time, it’s EMS and hospital workers,” Moore said. “I think it’s important to give credit where it’s due and, for me as a photojournalist, to show the importance of their work.”

As the pandemic stretches into a second year, we look back at some of the most memorable photos that have been taken around the world. In these images, we see sorrow, pain and desperation. But we also see love, sacrifice and resilience.

Children wear plastic bottles as makeshift masks while waiting to check in to a flight at the Beijing Capital Airport in January 2020.

“I took this photograph during the early days when we knew so little about what the virus really was,” photographer Kevin Frayer said. “Many people were leaving China and I went to the airport, which at the time was filled with anxiety and fear. Masks and (personal protective equipment) were hard to get a hold of, and people were wearing ski goggles and plastic garbage bags, among other things. I remember feeling confused and disturbed by the ambiance.

“I spotted this family waiting to enter the security area and noticed that they were wearing water bottles on their heads. I took a few frames but felt uneasy about the scene, which seemed so strange. The parents were doing anything possible to protect their kids.”

Living quarters are lit up at the Copan Building, a residential building in São Paulo, Brazil, in March 2020.

Many of the residents were about to take part in a protest against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his handling of the pandemic. Many people across the city expressed their displeasure by banging pots and pans from their windows.

“The Copan Building is one of the cultural and tourist symbols of the city of São Paulo where more than 2,000 people live,” photographer Victor Moriyama said. “I went to the house of a friend whose view was facing the back of Copan and got ready to photograph the windows at the time of the protests, around 8 p.m. The sound of banging pots was insurmountable.”

Lori Spencer visits her mother, 81-year-old Judie Shape, at the Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, in March 2020. The facility became an early epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, and Shape was among those who tested positive. She has since recovered.

"Covering the Covid-19 outbreak for Reuters at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the first known nursing home outbreak in the nation, I realized the heartbreaking danger of patients dying alone, separated from family and loved ones,” photographer Jason Redmond said. “I was truly moved by the courage of Judie Shape, daughter Lori Spencer and her husband Michael Spencer. Witnessing their dedication and support truly moved me. I am forever grateful for Shape and all those affected by the pandemic for allowing us to document and share their journey in these difficult times.”

A customer pushes her shopping cart next to empty shelves at a Sainsbury's store in Harpenden, England, in March 2020.

The photo was taken two days after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Britons to stop all nonessential travel.

“There were rumors that a national lockdown would occur, which did in fact take place a few days later, with orders for everyone to stay at home,” remembers photographer Peter Cziborra. “There was a sense of panic amongst many people, and I was hearing stories of supermarkets and grocery stores being stripped of all their produce and empty shelves becoming widespread.

“I arrived at the supermarket and the whole store was almost empty of products, with only the odd item remaining on shelves. The shoppers were walking around almost in a daze. There was a sense of disbelief, and it felt eerily quiet as people walked around with empty trolleys and baskets.”

Dana Baer and her son Jacob wish Avery Slutsky a happy sixth birthday from their car in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, in March 2020. The drive-by birthday celebration was held to maintain social distancing.

“It was the last week of March when the statewide stay-at-home-order in Michigan was set in place, and we had just begun adapting to socially distanced interactions,” photographer Emily Elconin said. “This was the first time I had ever seen anything like this — a concept that at first was hard to wrap my head around.

“I asked myself, how long would this go on for? It was my second week back in Michigan after living in Virginia for a year, and what once felt like a familiar place all of a sudden felt very different. I soon realized that this moment was a small indication of what our world would face and learn to adapt.”

Paolo Miranda took this heartbreaking image of a nurse in Cremona, Italy, as the country’s health care system was being severely tested in March 2020. Miranda also works as a nurse in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

“When I understood the gravity of the situation, I began to document through photography what we were experiencing inside the hospitals, to warn other countries of what was about to happen,” Miranda said. “I believe my photos were the first photos to come out of intensive care.”

He said it hurts to think about those moments, and he still feels angry and frustrated “because after a year, we are still in bad shape.”

Opera singer Stephane Senechal sings for his neighbors from his apartment window in Paris in March 2020. It was the 10th day of a strict lockdown in France.

Senechal also sang from his apartment during a second lockdown later in the year.

"Here, at my window, it's stronger than the opera because I'm not playing a role, I'm myself," he told the Reuters news agency.

The body of a suspected coronavirus victim is wrapped in plastic in an Indonesian hospital in April 2020. Indonesia government protocols required the bodies of Covid-19 victims to be wrapped in plastic and buried quickly.

"After the image was published by National Geographic, the image went viral, sparked denial and uproar across social media,” photographer Joshua Irwandi said. “Many who saw the image declared it to be a setup intended to spread fear.

“Based on the reaction towards the photograph on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, what stood out was how polarized people’s opinions were regarding the pandemic. At the beginning, people were supportive, people were posting #stayathome all over social media and trying to be supportive. However, attitudes slowly changed when social restrictions came in place and the economy suffered.”

Ballet dancer Ashlee Montague wears a gas mask while she dances in New York’s Times Square in March 2020.

“Tourists had gone back to where they came from, and most New Yorkers were staying at home, which left typically crowded places, like Times Square, almost empty,” photographer Andrew Kelly remembers. “It felt like the only people who were down there were people to see such a site. It felt like we were the last people left on Earth.

“It did attract some people trying to get their once-in-a-lifetime shots. People would stand in the middle of the street and take photos as the road remained mostly empty.

“Then I saw Ashlee enter the street. She started dancing and was doing an art project with her friend Laura Kimmel, a photographer in New York. They had been hitting a lot of iconic spots for the project and just so happened to be in Times Square when I was. A lot of people stood around taking photos as Ashlee danced away.”

Alessio Paduano has been documenting the pandemic in Italy, which was one of the earliest and most deadliest hot spots for Covid-19. During the country’s lockdown last year, he spent time with many essential workers, including doctors and nurses.

One of his most vivid memories is from an April 2020 funeral in Locate Bergamasco, a small village in the province of Bergamo.

In one of the photos above, a man and a woman watch a funeral worker move the coffin of their 47-year-old son.

“Obviously before I could take pictures, I had to ask permission from family members. It was a very intimate moment that not everyone wants to share with an outsider,” Paduano recalled. “The relatives were in pain. As soon as the opportunity arose, I approached the dead person's father, explaining the reason for my presence and that I wanted to tell that event with my photos.

“His response, despite the immense pain he was feeling, was immediately positive and of a disarming kindness. He understood the importance of showing others what was happening in Italy. … I don't know if that man will ever read this testimony of mine, but I hope someday he will know that I have great admiration for him.”

On Thanksgiving in 2020, Dr. Joseph Varon comforts a patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. Texas was the first state to pass 1 million coronavirus cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

"As I'm going inside my Covid unit I see that this elderly patient is out of his bed and trying to get out of the room and he's crying,” Varon said. “So, I get close to him and I tell him 'why are you crying' and the man says, 'I want to be with my wife.’ ”

Varon said the man would not be able to see his wife until he tested negative on his swabs and could be discharged. He tested negative about two weeks later, said photographer Go Nakamura .

Nakamura remembers Varon holding the patient for three or four minutes before he calmed down.

“I am glad that I was able to capture the doctor's compassion, and how hard it is mentally for patients to spend a long time stuck in a room without seeing their loved ones,” Nakamura said.

“Patients spend months in the Covid-19 ward only seeing nurses, doctors and other medical professionals who are covered in full (personal protective equipment). It was a very difficult scene to capture.”

A beach in Bournemouth, England, is packed with people during a heat wave in June 2020. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson began easing coronavirus restrictions in May 2020, but people were still supposed to be distancing themselves from one another. After thousands flocked to beaches, officials in southern England declared a "major incident.”

“It was like a lid had come off a pressure cooker with so many people from London coming down,” photographer Finnbarr Webster remembers. “Normally the beach has a real family-friendly feel to it. But on that day it felt the opposite with thousands of mostly young city people, which gave it an almost aggressive party atmosphere.”

Giuseppe Corbari holds Sunday Mass in front of photographs that were sent in by his congregation members in Giussano, Italy, in March 2020.

“He received more than 100 photos from his parishioners, which he then printed and stuck to the empty pews of the church to feel less alone while broadcasting Mass over the parish radio,” photographer Piero Cruciatti said.

About a year later, Cruciatti went back to the church.

“This time the church was full of people, all socially distanced and wearing masks,” he said. “I recognized some of them from the pictures I had seen taped to the benches. It was very emotional to see the same church full of people, and I have been told by many of them how happy and grateful they were for being allowed to be physically part of the communal life again.”

Elementary school students sit at desks spaced apart in Løgumkloster, Denmark, in April 2020. Denmark was the first country in the Western world to reopen its elementary schools since the start of the pandemic.

Photographer Emile Ducke visited the school on its second day back.

“Before children entered the school building, they were being playfully introduced to social distancing by two teachers with 2-meter-long ropes,” Ducke recalled. “During lessons, as pictured, the children sat at desks spaced about 2 yards apart. Even recess was not the same, as children checked their distancing in a line to go back inside and then washed their hands before returning to class.”

According to UNESCO, nearly 1.3 billion students around the world had their school year suddenly interrupted because of the pandemic. Many of those students, stuck at home, began trying to navigate distance learning as teachers switched to virtual classrooms.

Some schools have reopened, but many have not. And those attending school in person have new safety protocols to follow.

People in Toronto participate in an outdoor yoga class in June 2020.

“As Covid-19 measures gradually loosened and the weather warmed last spring, people in Toronto began to emerge from their homes looking for some semblance of ‘normal,’ ” photographer Carlos Osorio said. “Summer in the city was characterized by being outside. Patio get-togethers, drive-in concerts and bubble yoga, which emerged in Toronto in June, were among the ways people escaped the four walls of their homes.”

Osorio remembers it being hot inside the domes.

“Truly hot yoga,” he said. “The participants, who seemed to be mostly die-hard yoga fans, were ecstatic for a chance to practice among others in the community.”

Jessica Holguin, left, comforts her younger sister Natalie at the viewing service for their father, Jose, in New York City. Jose Holguin, 50, died in May 2020 of complications related to Covid-19.

“I had a lot of images of people gathered by Jose’s body that day, but something about this frame, that features no coffin or body, really hits you in the gut. It’s pure grief,” photographer Andrew Kelly said.

Jessica and Natalie welcomed him to the funeral, explaining that it was important to them to not only highlight what Covid-19 was doing to families such as their own, but to the Hispanic community as well.

“It was incredibly brave for Jessica and Natalie to let me in and document the worst moment of their lives in order for a greater good,” Kelly said. “I’m not sure I could do it myself. I like to think that there are people to this day who saw this image and, thinking of their own family, remembered to wear a mask as they left the house. Maybe without even knowing it, they avoided contracting coronavirus and denied their family the same fate that the Holguins had to suffer.”

Mountain goats roam the quiet streets of Llandudno, Wales, in March 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic left empty spaces everywhere as people stayed at home and avoided crowds to slow the spread of the virus. With less human traffic, emboldened animals started exploring areas where we are not always used to seeing them.

“At a time of the world seeing images of death and the fallout of coronavirus, this was like a weird good-news story: animals reinheriting the Earth in the chaos of that early lockdown period,” photographer Christopher Furlong said. “At the time, I was mainly just documenting the emptiness, taking photos of empty streets, empty beaches, empty parks. Getting to photograph those ebullient goats definitely made for a few smiles and a nice break from the monotony of those bleak days.”

In May 2020, Themba Hadebe photographed people as they lined up to receive food donations at the Iterileng settlement near Laudium, South Africa.

Many African countries introduced lockdowns in the early days of the pandemic, but those lockdowns also aggravated existing inequalities.

For example, after a lockdown that started in late March 2020, South Africa announced a $26 billion Covid-19 stimulus package. But undocumented migrant workers were not eligible for unemployment insurance or government grants.

When he took this photo, Hadebe remembers the desperation of the community. “I was overwhelmed and surprised by the number of people that were already queuing on a dusty soccer field,” he said. “That, for me, was the effect or the face of ruthless Covid-19.”

A woman’s reflection is seen as she looks at a coffin in a Milan, Italy, mortuary in March 2020. Italy was put under a dramatic total lockdown as Covid-19 spread in the country.

“The streets were empty and the hospitals were full, and within days even the cemeteries began to run out of places,” remembers photographer Gabriele Galimberti. “That day I went to the municipal cemetery in Milan, I wanted to see with my own eyes what the situation was.

“As soon as I entered I came across this scene. A woman was looking at a coffin through a protective glass. In the coffin was the body of a foreign man who was waiting to be transported to the airport to be repatriated to his country. On that day, Italy already had 890 dead. It already seemed like a lot and everyone found it hard to believe. Today, one year later, the number of dead has exceeded 100,000.”

Timothy Fadek had been documenting New York City since its lockdown — the longest in the country — started in April 2020 and ended in June 2020.

He remembers how eerie it was to see his bustling city transformed into a ghost town. Coney Island was deserted. Fleets of taxis went unused.

“All you heard were ambulance sirens constantly, especially at the peak, and that was in the midst of a desolate street landscape where there were no cars,” Fadek said.

There was also the nightly acknowledgement of health care workers, when people would go to their windows or open their doors to cheer or make noise to show their appreciation.

One of Fadek’s photos above shows bodies at a Queens funeral home waiting to be transported for cremation.

“The funeral directors and embalmers at the Gerard J. Neufeld Funeral Home were working 18-hour days trying to keep up with the onslaught of Covid-19 fatalities coming through their doors,” he said. “At the height of the pandemic, they managed more than 30 burials or cremations a day. Before the pandemic, they would manage that number of deceased in a typical month.”

Pope Francis delivers his blessing to an empty St. Peter's Square at the Vatican in March 2020. To try to slow the spread of the virus, people were being asked to avoid crowds and limit their travel. Many governments issued stay-at-home orders. It left behind an eerie emptiness.

"In this situation of pandemic, in which we find ourselves living more or less isolated, we are invited to rediscover and deepen the value of the communion that unites all the members of the Church," the Pope said in his remarks after the Angelus prayer, which was livestreamed by Vatican News.

Because of the pandemic, Business Breakthrough University in Tokyo held a virtual graduation ceremony using robots in March 2020.

The graduates watched their ceremony through their robot's point of view.

Schools around the world have had to get creative with their graduation ceremonies. Many have been held in empty auditoriums or in parking lots with students in their vehicles.

A nurse adjusts a face shield on a newborn baby at a hospital in Thailand's Samut Prakan province in April 2020.

The Paolo Hospital said on Facebook that it was giving out face shields for the babies’ trip home with their parents. It was not supposed to be worn all the time.

It was one of several Thai hospitals crafting face shields for babies as an extra precaution against Covid-19.

A man waits for the body of his aunt Lucia Rodrigues dos Santos to be collected in Manaus, Brazil, in May 2020.

The 60-year-old matriarch died from Covid-19, according to photographer André Coelho, who was following a team that was gathering bodies in Manaus and helping low-income families hold burials.

“At a certain moment, the team guys went to the van to bring the casket and I was left alone in the room with a nephew who was mourning,” Coelho said.

Coelho remembers Raimundo, Lucia’s husband, asking to give his wife a farewell kiss as her body was carried away.

“Outside, the crowd was bigger and I heard some neighbors screaming,” Coelho recalled.

People wait in their cars for the San Antonio Food Bank to begin distributing food in April 2020. The coronavirus pandemic put millions of Americans out of work, and more and more families had to turn to food banks to get by.

William Luther, a staff photographer with the San Antonio Express-News, used a drone to get this shot.

“Even after covering my share of natural disasters, I had never seen so many people lined up for food,” he explained in a Q&A the newspaper published. “I try not to get too emotionally involved while on assignment, but seeing all those cars made me realize how important it was for me to do my absolute best documenting the scene so people would understand how dire the situation was.”

Members of the National Guard disinfect surfaces at a Jewish Community Center in Scarsdale, New York, in March 2020.

Officials in Westchester County had set up a “containment area” to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus in the area.

Photographer Andrew Seng recalled this as “really the beginning of the pandemic” in the state of New York.

“There was a lot of fear, and everyone was just figuring it out as we went along,” he said. “I had covered natural disasters before — wildfires and floods — but to photograph an enemy you couldn’t see just felt more sinister.”

Unclaimed bodies are buried on Hart Island, a New York City public cemetery, in April 2020. For a short while, New York was the epicenter of the US coronavirus outbreak.

Photographer Lucas Jackson took this photo just weeks after he contracted Covid-19 himself.

“In the time between contracting the disease and being back at work to take this photograph, the ramifications of the pandemic's spread in New York had very viscerally changed from theoretical to frighteningly real,” he recalled. “For several weeks after discovering I was positive, I was quarantined at home, glued to the constant stream of images taken by peers and co-workers who every day walked into the unknown risk of the city to document what was happening. This was not a small risk either; photographers cannot work from home.”

Jackson used a drone to take aerial photos of the Hart Island burials.

“The scene seemed so surreal, with implications so sobering, that I was optimistic it would be impossible for anyone to doubt the pandemic's effects after the images published,” he said.

Dr. Erroll Byer Jr., the head of obstetrics and gynecology at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, shows Precious Anderson her newborn son on a live video feed in April 2020. The hospital delivered her baby two months early because she was struggling with the coronavirus.

“She was delighted to finally meet her son, and exhausted by what they had both been through,” photographer Victor J. Blue said. “We published the story just as the first wave of the pandemic was crashing over New York City, and I was happy to inject a rare ray of hope into the relentless darkness of the news of the virus.

“It is strange to remember how little we knew about the Covid-19 at that point, and we were able to relieve at least one source of anxiety for readers about the disease — that it would not be a death sentence for pregnant women.”

A man eats by himself in a Beijing bar, in a neighborhood usually bustling with people, in February 2020. This was a month before the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic.

“Beijing was a few weeks into a lockdown that strictly restricted the movements in and out of the city,” photographer Gilles Sabrié said. “The lake was silent, the bars were shut down — a throwback to my first visit to Beijing, 20 years before, when the area was undeveloped and romantic.

“But a sadness in the air prevented me from enjoying this bout of nostalgia. The economic loss and the solitude induced by the pandemic were overwhelming.”

Photographer Michael Dantas lives in Manaus, one of the Brazilian cities hardest-hit by Covid-19.

The first two photos were taken by Dantas in 2020, when Manaus was dealing with one of the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks. The first shows Ulisses Xavier, a worker at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, making wooden crosses for the graves.

The bottom two photos were taken in 2021 as Manaus dealt with a second wave of cases.

“The year started with many deaths, a lot of people getting sick,” Dantas said. “We lost friends, people we knew, and unfortunately my wife’s mother was infected with the coronavirus. She is this lady in the picture lying in our home after spending 15 days in the hospital. I had to stop all my work to support my family.”

The last photo, he said, shows the despair of two health workers who were talking outside after a hospital’s oxygen supply ran out in January 2021.

People sit in New York's Domino Park in May 2020. The painted circles, spaced 6 feet apart, were meant to encourage social distancing. It was a novel approach then; it’s much more common now.

Photographer Johannes Eisele said it was the first New York City park he saw that had those circles.

“After covering the pandemic for quite a while already, it became quite difficult to come up with ways to illustrate the story,” he remembers. “For example, Central Park was packed with people, and the only thing to see were some people wearing masks and those big signs saying keep 2 meters distance. When I heard that Domino Park put up circles for people to sit, I thought it would be very visual.”

Protesters stand outside the Statehouse Atrium in Columbus, Ohio, to voice their opposition to stay-at-home orders in April 2020.

About 100 protesters assembled outside the building during Gov. Mike DeWine’s weekday update on the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Other states also saw protests as people grew more concerned about the pandemic’s economic fallout.

“At the time I made this image, I remember a feeling of fear and uncertainty,” photographer Joshua A. Bickel said. “I was definitely afraid of contracting coronavirus and spreading it because my job required me to be outside of my home, and that’s the main reason I decided to stay inside the Statehouse that day and why this image is composed the way it is.

“I remember the protesters were very angry, and some were verbally aggressive to members of the media both inside and outside the Statehouse on this day and during a smaller protest a few days prior. It’s hard for me to look at this image almost a year later and not draw comparisons between this event and the events at the US Capitol on January 6. I look back at this image and see the effects of disinformation and the beginnings of radicalization, and I think there’s evidence that both events were rooted in those things.”

Francisco España, who was recovering from the coronavirus, looks at the Mediterranean Sea from a promenade in Barcelona, Spain, in September 2020.

Hospital del Mar was taking patients to the seaside as part of their recovery process.

“It’s important to keep in mind the emotional well-being of patients and to try to work on it in the early stages of the recovery,” Dr. Judith Marín told the Associated Press.

Go-go dancers perform in the Lucky Devil Lounge parking lot in Portland, Oregon, while customers sit in their cars in April 2020. During the pandemic, more and more people have turned to drive-thrus and drive-ins to keep their distance from one another and prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“It's not visible in this specific frame, but each of the dancers was wearing a mask and gloves,” photographer Beth Nakamura said. “Between the pandemic accoutrement, the go-go dancing and the pulsating lights and music, it was all very cinematic, like a post-apocalyptic fever dream.”

She thought the hybrid vehicle really gave the scene a “local feel” with many people in Portland being environmentally conscious.

“Only in Portland would you find not just a drive-thru strip club in a pandemic, but a drive-thru strip club in a pandemic with Prius-driving customers,” she said.

Tyler and Caryn Suiters embrace after being married in Arlington, Virginia, in April 2020. The moment was photographed by Getty Images photographer Win McNamee. The Rev. Andrew Merrow and his wife, Cameron, were the only other attendees at the ceremony due to social-distancing guidelines.

Because of the pandemic, many couples have had to rethink their wedding plans — whether it be postponing the ceremonies or scaling them down for safety reasons.

Romelia Navarro, right, is comforted by nurse Michele Younkin while sitting at the bedside of her dying husband, Antonio, at a hospital in Fullerton, California, in July 2020.

Navarro and her son, Juan, were saying their final goodbyes. Her sobbing grew louder as her husband’s heart rate started dropping, remembers photographer Jae C. Hong. Hong could also see tears through the nurse’s face shield.

“It was very emotional, more than I could handle,” Hong said. “Navarro was Younkin’s first Covid-19 patient to pass on her watch. It was my first time seeing someone die in my career and in my life.

“When the patient’s heart rate dropped to zero, I left the room quietly. The nurse came out a few minutes after. She removed her protective equipment and washed her hands. Wiping her tears, the nurse walked away for fresh air. I decided not to follow her.”

Shoppers load up on supplies at a New York City Costco in March 2020. In the early days of the pandemic, many people began stocking up on food, toilet paper, and other necessities. As a response to panic buying, retailers in the United States and Canada started limiting the number of toilet paper that customers could buy in one trip.

“When this image was taken, most people were preparing to quarantine not knowing when and for how long,” photographer Gabriela Bhaskar said. “It was my second day covering the panic buying, and the reporter on this story and I were trying to figure out how people were feeling, if there really was a shortage of supplies as toilet paper, soap, sanitizer and masks were already impossible to find in some neighborhoods. There were a few moments that week where I asked myself, ‘Are you panicking based on facts or because panic is contagious?’ ”

Dana Clark and her 18-month-old son, Mason, wait in line at City Hall as early voting began in New Orleans in October 2020. Clark, a teacher, said she donned this protective “safety pod” because Mason didn’t have a mask and she didn't know how many people would be wearing masks in line.

“She bought the pod for when she was to return to the classroom with her fifth-grade social studies students,” photographer Kathleen Flynn said. “She wanted to protect them as much as she hoped she could protect her own kids and her husband, who has underlying health issues.

“I feel like this image illustrates a convergence of so many pressing issues from this year — fear of contagion, hope for her child’s future, pressures facing educators and a wish for racial justice. And a determination to vote during one of the most contested and important elections of our lifetime.”

Photographer Atul Loke has been covering the pandemic from India. His photos provide a glimpse into the country.

A boat owner waits in vain for passengers at the Dal Lake in Srinagar; without tourists, many boat owners were facing financial crisis. A woman passes through a sanitation tunnel at a containment zone in south Mumbai, the city Loke calls home. A worker fumigates a Mumbai vegetable market while a vendor rests on the ground.

“There was an unlikely eeriness to (Mumbai), a city that never sleeps,” Loke said. “And being a photojournalist for more than two decades, I hadn’t seen my city brought to such a standstill.”

Loke said one of his editors, after witnessing his photos, told him that he didn’t need to put himself at such risk. Loke said he felt compelled to tell the story.

“If this isn’t documented and left for generations to see, then words will only fail to suffice what my heart and eyes felt,” Loke said. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully knowing I let it pass, not doing what as a photographer was my calling.”

The UceLi Quartet p erfor ms for an audience of plants during a June 2020 concert that was live-streamed from the newly reopened Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house in Barcelona, Spain.

A total of 2,292 plants were packed into the theater while the string quartet performed Puccini's "Crisantemi.” The event was the work of conceptual artist Eugenio Ampudia.

“Arriving at my position, I was caught by the extreme silence, not the usual talking, the usual late arrivals — just an extreme silence and a sense of desolation,” photographer Jordi Vidal said. “Then the quartet began to perform ‘Crisantemi’ and it felt like quite a surreal moment. … I wondered how the musicians felt when they finished performing. No claps or ovations, just that silence again.”

Each of the plants was brought in from nearby nurseries and would be donated to a health care worker from the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona.

A health care worker stands in a Denver street, counterprotesting an April 2020 rally where people were demanding that stay-at-home orders be lifted.

“The health care workers wanted to get their message across that people need to stay home to protect themselves and protect the people in the medical field,” photographer Alyson McClaran said. “This image captures the conflict and division surrounding Covid-19 precautions in the USA.”

McClaran said she was only at this scene for a few minutes.

“In that time, a man exited his car to get in the health care workers’ face and a lady hung her body out screaming profanity and telling them to get out of the road,” McClaran said. “The Denver Police Department came and asked them to step out of the road and to stop blocking traffic on green lights.”

A medical team cares for Imani, a 22-year-old from Texas, after she had an abortion in Los Angeles. In the early days of the pandemic, many states put a temporary ban on elective surgeries and medical procedures deemed nonessential. For several states, that included abortion.

It didn’t take long for abortion providers to challenge the new restrictions. In some states, several judges blocked the bans. Others were eventually lifted by the states themselves. But for weeks, many women like Imani were left in limbo. (CNN agreed to use a pseudonym to protect her identity.)

Photographer Glenna Gordon had been trying for a while to do a story about the nation’s “abortion deserts” — areas of the United States where women have to travel long distances to obtain an abortion. She never expected a pandemic to make things even harder.

“At the terrifying beginning of the pandemic, Imani was one of countless women who suddenly found herself without access to abortion,” Gordon said. “She did what she needed to do and came to California.”

Cardboard cutouts replace fans in the stands as the New York Mets hosted the Atlanta Braves in their season opener in July 2020. Major League Baseball started a 60-game abbreviated season four months after Opening Day was postponed because of the pandemic. For much of the year, games were played without fans.

“What I remember most about this day are the recorded sounds of fans piped into the stadium,” New York Times photographer Todd Heisler said. “On television, the sounds and the cutouts gave the illusion of a sense of normalcy. But being there in person only seemed to make the lack of fans more pronounced.

“I wondered what the players were feeling as they took the field for the first time since the pandemic began. I wasn't really interested in photographing game action. I needed to step back and make an image that captured a specific moment in history. Without context, it was just another baseball game.”

El Paso County inmates load the bodies of coronavirus victims into a refrigerated trailer in El Paso, Texas, in November 2020. They were temporarily relieving overworked personnel at the El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office, authorities said. The county was one of Texas' Covid-19 hot spots.

“These low-level inmates represent just a few of the thousands of ‘last responders’ who courageously handled the remains of the deceased across the US,” photographer Mario Tama said.

Tama took the photo from an adjacent cemetery, the only place he could capture images on the ground.

“As photojournalists, our job is to document reality, no matter how beautiful or tragic,” he said. “We did our best to sensitively and accurately document the reality of the pandemic in hospitals, funeral homes, morgues and cemeteries across the country.”

First-grader Sophia Frazier does her schoolwork behind a plastic divider at Two Rivers Elementary School in Sacramento, California, in March 2021. Only the students near the teacher’s desk appeared to have the dividers.

“I have never seen a sight like this while covering schools,” photographer Daniel Kim said. “When I captured the moment, I could clearly see that this girl was uncomfortable with the new ways she had to learn; it shows in her face. I thought that this picture captured the moment in time that a lot of students are facing in the world with the new Covid-19 protocols.”

Olivia Grant, right, hugs her grandmother, Mary Grace Sileo, through a plastic cloth hung on a clothesline in Wantagh, New York, in May 2020. The two were seeing each other for the first time since the pandemic started.

“I remember thinking how emotional everything got for Mary Grace once her kids and grandchildren showed up,” photographer Al Bello said. “At the time, she had not seen them in several months and she wanted to have some sort of contact. She held each child and grandchild through the plastic sheet very tightly and did not let go for a long time.”

Bello is a renowned sports photographer for Getty Images, but he chipped in to help cover the pandemic and he said it was a great learning experience for him.

“My goal of this pandemic was to show pictures of hope, humanity, love and kindness,” he said. “I would like to think this is all of those things in one picture.”

US President Donald Trump takes off his face mask for a photo op after he returned to the White House in October 2020. Trump had just spent three nights at the hospital receiving treatment for Covid-19.

“I feel like for all those who covered the White House that weekend, the whole period of time was intense with trying to figure out the timeline when President Trump tested positive and dig for the truth about how severe his illness was,” photographer Anna Moneymaker said. “On top of that we're also trying to be mindful of our own exposure, because several journalists had tested positive or gone into quarantine the week prior after traveling with President Trump in the days leading up to him testing positive.

“A little bit after President Trump returned from the hospital and the press pool had gone back to file, this custodial worker wearing a hazmat suit walked through our work area spraying disinfectant around the press briefing room, which I’d seen happen in pictures from New York City or cities in China or Italy, but never in my own work space.”

Ann Webb Camp, left, and Clemintine Banks hand a ballot to a voter in St. Louis in November 2020. People with Covid-19 were able to do curbside voting there.

“We had been photographing early voting for weeks and it was beginning to all look the same,” said photographer Robert Cohen of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “What I discovered was this tiny voter niche I hadn't considered: those people who had just found out that they tested positive, realized they couldn't go to the polls the following day yet badly wanted to cast their vote.”

People came by appointment only, Cohen said, pressing their IDs against the glass and cracking the window only to take their ballot.

“The four poll workers of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners — Diane Carroll, Traviance Stidham, Ann Webb Camp and Clemintine Banks — were so welcoming,” he said. “They waved to the voters, some of whom wanted to take selfies of their moon-suited helpers. In one case, one of the voters' cars wouldn't restart to leave. A poll worker phoned her husband to come and help.”

Margaret Keenan, 90, is applauded in December 2020 after she became the first person in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine.

The United Kingdom was the first nation to begin vaccinating its citizens with a fully vetted and authorized Covid-19 shot, a landmark moment in the coronavirus pandemic.

Keenan, who received the vaccine a week before turning 91, said she felt "privileged" to be the first to get the shot. "It's the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the New Year after being on my own for most of the year," she said.

Jacob King, who took this photo, said he remembers the day clearly.

“It felt an important moment then and still does so now,” he said. “In the UK, April means the gradual easing of the lockdown due to decreasing infection levels coupled with the vaccination program.”

Life, emptiness and resolve: A photo essay on the pandemic’s toll along Pico Boulevard

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Los Angeles imposed coronavirus restrictions on restaurants, bars, gyms and other businesses on March 15, 2020. It was the beginning of a year of loss, upheaval and constant adaptation. Public health rules kept evolving. Relief programs brought help for some but only red tape for others. Supply chains were a mess. There were shoppers who feared even entering stores and customers who crowded newly built patios. Some businesses cut hours, services and staff, or shut down. Many have survived beyond their expectations. Staff photographer Genaro Molina shows us how much Pico Boulevard has changed one year later.

“We are deeply grateful for the support we have received during these unprecedented times & throughout the 10 plus years we have been in business. It is with great sadness that due to the continuing challenges of the pandemic for our industry we have made the difficult decision to close.”

— Statement on website for Westside Tavern

“(The) pandemic has greatly effected our business.”

— Robert Oliver, sign spinner at Liberty Tax Service

“Now it’s worse than last year.”

— Laura Peres at Dana Accesorios in the Garment District

“We are collectively feeling the loss. So I think just collectively mourning and acknowledging it provides a level of healing that is hard to translate into words.”

— Karla Funderburk, whose gallery has received 60,000 from 45 states and nine countries from as far away as Tibet.

“2020 felt like our year. We blew up on social media. The abrupt halt was the hardest part for me,”

— Angela Guison, manager of Rave Wonderland

When the doors of Botanica Luz del Día were closed early on in the pandemic, customers couldn’t browse for their preferred veladoras or stop into the Pico-Union store for tarot readings. The shop went online and sales rebounded. “The website is booming right now,” said Anthony Ponce, grandson of the owner.

“Concerts went to zero. Lessons dropped to 5% of what it was. We’re seeing a lot of repair business from people who are stuck at home and want to play. Consignments are up a lot.”

— Walt McGraw, who has been running the 63-year-old shop with his wife, Nora, since her parents’ retirement.

More visual journalism from the Los Angeles Times

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Feb. 11, 2023

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Genaro Molina is an award-winning staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times. He has worked in journalism for more than 35 years starting at the San Francisco Chronicle. Molina has photographed the life and death of Pope John Paul II, the tragedy of AIDS in Africa, the impact of Hurricane Katrina, and Cuba after Castro. His work has appeared in nine books and his photographs have been exhibited extensively including at the Smithsonian Institute and the Annenberg Space for Photography.

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COVID-19 photo essay: We’re all in this together

About the author, department of global communications.

The United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC) promotes global awareness and understanding of the work of the United Nations.

23 June 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has  demonstrated the interconnected nature of our world – and that no one is safe until everyone is safe.  Only by acting in solidarity can communities save lives and overcome the devastating socio-economic impacts of the virus.  In partnership with the United Nations, people around the world are showing acts of humanity, inspiring hope for a better future. 

Everyone can do something    

Rauf Salem, a volunteer, instructs children on the right way to wash their hands, in Sana'a, Yemen.  Simple measures, such as maintaining physical distance, washing hands frequently and wearing a mask are imperative if the fight against COVID-19 is to be won.  Photo: UNICEF/UNI341697

Creating hope

Venezuelan refugee Juan Batista Ramos, 69, plays guitar in front of a mural he painted at the Tancredo Neves temporary shelter in Boa Vista, Brazil to help lift COVID-19 quarantine blues.  “Now, everywhere you look you will see a landscape to remind us that there is beauty in the world,” he says.  Ramos is among the many artists around the world using the power of culture to inspire hope and solidarity during the pandemic.  Photo: UNHCR/Allana Ferreira

Inclusive solutions

Wendy Schellemans, an education assistant at the Royal Woluwe Institute in Brussels, models a transparent face mask designed to help the hard of hearing.  The United Nations and partners are working to ensure that responses to COVID-19 leave no one behind.  Photo courtesy of Royal Woluwe Institute

Humanity at its best

Maryna, a community worker at the Arts Centre for Children and Youth in Chasiv Yar village, Ukraine, makes face masks on a sewing machine donated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and civil society partner, Proliska.  She is among the many people around the world who are voluntarily addressing the shortage of masks on the market. Photo: UNHCR/Artem Hetman

Keep future leaders learning

A mother helps her daughter Ange, 8, take classes on television at home in Man, Côte d'Ivoire.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, caregivers and educators have responded in stride and have been instrumental in finding ways to keep children learning.  In Côte d'Ivoire, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) partnered with the Ministry of Education on a ‘school at home’ initiative, which includes taping lessons to be aired on national TV and radio.  Ange says: “I like to study at home.  My mum is a teacher and helps me a lot.  Of course, I miss my friends, but I can sleep a bit longer in the morning.  Later I want to become a lawyer or judge."  Photo: UNICEF/UNI320749

Global solidarity

People in Nigeria’s Lagos State simulate sneezing into their elbows during a coronavirus prevention campaign.  Many African countries do not have strong health care systems.  “Global solidarity with Africa is an imperative – now and for recovering better,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.  “Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.” Photo: UNICEF Nigeria/2020/Ojo

A new way of working

Henri Abued Manzano, a tour guide at the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna, speaks from his apartment.  COVID-19 upended the way people work, but they can be creative while in quarantine.  “We quickly decided that if visitors can’t come to us, we will have to come to them,” says Johanna Kleinert, Chief of the UNIS Visitors Service in Vienna.  Photo courtesy of Kevin Kühn

Life goes on

Hundreds of millions of babies are expected to be born during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Fionn, son of Chloe O'Doherty and her husband Patrick, is among them.  The couple says: “It's all over.  We did it.  Brought life into the world at a time when everything is so uncertain.  The relief and love are palpable.  Nothing else matters.”  Photo: UNICEF/UNI321984/Bopape

Putting meals on the table

Sudanese refugee Halima, in Tripoli, Libya, says food assistance is making her life better.  COVID-19 is exacerbating the existing hunger crisis.  Globally, 6 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty unless the international community acts now.  United Nations aid agencies are appealing for more funding to reach vulnerable populations.  Photo: UNHCR

Supporting the frontlines

The United Nations Air Service, run by the World Food Programme (WFP), distributes protective gear donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Group, in Somalia. The United Nations is using its supply chain capacity to rapidly move badly needed personal protective equipment, such as medical masks, gloves, gowns and face-shields to the frontline of the battle against COVID-19. Photo: WFP/Jama Hassan  

S7-Episode 2: Bringing Health to the World

“You see, we're not doing this work to make ourselves feel better. That sort of conventional notion of what a do-gooder is. We're doing this work because we are totally convinced that it's not necessary in today's wealthy world for so many people to be experiencing discomfort, for so many people to be experiencing hardship, for so many people to have their lives and their livelihoods imperiled.”

Dr. David Nabarro has dedicated his life to global health. After a long career that’s taken him from the horrors of war torn Iraq, to the devastating aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he is still spurred to action by the tremendous inequalities in global access to medical care.

“The thing that keeps me awake most at night is the rampant inequities in our world…We see an awful lot of needless suffering.”

:: David Nabarro interviewed by Melissa Fleming

Brazilian ballet pirouettes during pandemic

Ballet Manguinhos, named for its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the stage after a long absence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It counts 250 children and teenagers from the favela as its performers. The ballet group provides social support in a community where poverty, hunger and teen pregnancy are constant issues.

Radio journalist gives the facts on COVID-19 in Uzbekistan

The pandemic has put many people to the test, and journalists are no exception. Coronavirus has waged war not only against people's lives and well-being but has also spawned countless hoaxes and scientific falsehoods.

Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced many Penn students to return to their permanent residences as they have transitioned to online learning for the remainder of the spring semester. For some of these students, the semester would have to be completed in New York City — the epicenter of the crisis in the United States. 

The City That Never Sleeps has been in a deep slumber for nearly two months. The streets have become eerily quiet. Businesses have closed their doors. Public places that were usually packed are now virtually empty. Here is what New York City looks like in the time of COVID-19, along with some perspectives from Penn students who are experiencing the isolation firsthand.

Note: Quotes have been edited for clarity. None of the students quoted appear in the photographs.

“I’ve been able to walk in the streets due to the lack of traffic, something that I wouldn’t have imagined doing a couple months ago. The weirdest part isn’t even the physical emptiness, it’s the way that New Yorkers are forced to walk as far away as possible from each other on the sidewalks.” – College senior Carly Deitelzweig

“I’ve lived in New York City my whole life and have never seen it so desolate. Almost all businesses are closed and many people have left the city. On bad weather days, the streets are virtually empty." – College first-year Alison Comite

"I went out for the first time yesterday since about March 15. Flowers started blooming, and I didn't realize that from my window. Going out made me realize this is gonna be a really long battle." – Engineering sophomore Kaiying Guo

"I always feel worse when I return home after going for a short walk. The spring is my favorite time of the year. Everything feels pretty anxious when I’m outside." – College first-year Justin Lipitz

"The city feels different, as I can only experience it from the inside now. I can sense that people are itching to return to normalcy. Personally, I am finding things to keep me sane – music, drawing, growing a plant, and cooking." – Nursing junior Sydney Steward

The World Trade Center Transportation Hub, also known as The Oculus, is nearly empty during the evening rush hour.

The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the most iconic landmarks in the city, is no longer filled with runners and bikers.

"I usually don’t mind being inside but after 28 days in a small apartment I finally decided I needed to breathe some fresh air. I live ten blocks away from the tent set up in Central Park. It absolutely sent chills down my body." – College senior Giovanna Sena

"The news reports have definitely been scary, and I’ve had a lot of friends texting me worried because they know I’m in New York City. There are some times — particularly at night or when the weather is bad — when the streets can be really empty.” – College senior Serena Miniter

"I definitely feel that I’ve had a very different experience during this time living in New York City. I am proud of those who have been working to respect social distancing — we all know how critical it is for us to do.” – College sophomore Gillian Broome

"The only times my family and I go outside are to walk our dog or make a bulk run to Trader Joe’s. I have found it a bit challenging to social distance while walking my dog due to how many families and individuals are outside as well, but people walk on the empty roads to keep separate. The highways are a ghost town." – College first-year Anika Kalra

The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange is closed for the first time in its 228-year history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been using a large billboard in Times Square to project public service announcements, but there aren’t many people there to read them.

"Being inside can be tough. Every day can seem never-ending and the things we once took for granted: sunlight, fresh air, walking space, now seem even more inviting. I know lots of people are hoping that this quarantine ends soon, but New Yorkers are tough and we can get through as many days as necessary so that we can beat this virus." – Nursing junior Kimberly De La Cruz

"Everywhere you go people are staring at you over their masks like you have three heads. The empty streets are equally ominous and calming depending on how recently you checked the news." – College junior Sydney Mueller

"Everyone seems happy, but at same time they are hoping for things to settle down and life to come back to normal. Initially, most people were afraid to go out, but with the weather getting better and the situation decreasing, more are now enjoying it." – Engineering sophomore Aida Akuyeva

"The one thing I love about being in New York City during this time is that at 7pm every night, which is the typical time for hospital shifts to change, my entire neighborhood explodes in loud cheering, honking, and pot banging to celebrate our selfless health care workers. I have never felt so proud of and part of the NYC community as during those moments." – College first-year Serena Zhang

The Empire State Building lights up red almost every night to honor healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients.

"At night, there is this looming eeriness as if the city has been sucker-punched. The soul of New York is missing. But we will be back." – College sophomore Kian Sadeghi

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Photo essay: Faces of the Pandemic

• Features Photo essay: Metamorphosis A place of pride for pathology labs Lessons from COVID-19 No shortcut to success Keeping air free of COVID Not an academic question A year-long homework assignment Accelerating Communication between Scientists Photo essay: Faces of the Pandemic Shedding new light on an underacknowledged epidemic Catching a dream
• News A reunion to remember A coup for comparative medicine Prisoners of broken systems
• People Generations of medical expertise A historian of medical futures looks back Yale’s Senior Advisor to the FDA Commissioner The next wave of physician-entrepreneurs
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A pandemic photo essay

Anusha sundararajan, cesar vazquez, sandra johnson, hiam naiditch, merceditas villanueva, felipe lopez, alice lu-culligan, leah tenenbaum.

Faces of the Pandemic is an ongoing portrait photography project documenting the experiences of essential health care workers throughout the pandemic—an unprecedented time for Yale’s medical community, the nation, and the world. It is meant to show appreciation for these individuals and provide a platform for them to share their stories.

Representing a variety of roles at Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital, each participant is photographed wearing their typical work attire, including PPE. Formal portraits display respect for the subjects while candids capture their range of emotions. The photos have been minimally edited to maintain a documentary feel.

Each participant answered five questions to catalogue their experience of the pandemic. For Yale Medicine Magazine we’ve chosen to highlight a common thread: The pandemic has…

Allaire Bartel Creative Direction; Anthony DeCarlo Photography.

Coronavirus’s slow upending of our everyday lives in photos

By David Rowell | Apr. 6, 2020

In the winter we watched the earliest footage out of Wuhan, China, as if it were a foreign-language sci-fi movie we’d stumbled across. Unsettling, certainly, but we let ourselves see the novel coronavirus as just one more development — like that protester standing in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square — that could happen only in China.

Karim El Maktafi

People entering the White House have their temperature taken before a coronavirus briefing March 18.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Eventually the macabre scenes shifted to Italy, but they were still so distant, too unreal for us to have the imagination that they could play out here.

People gather for conversation outside the Lake Anne Coffee House and Wine Bar at Lake Anne Plaza in Reston, Va., on March 18. The coffee house was open for walk-up window and patio service only.

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post

Besides, spring was coming, and particularly in the Washington area we had our comforting images of the season to get us through the last days of a snowless, nondescript winter.

Hailey Hill and prom partner Tony Cho, right, of Seneca Valley High School in Gaithersburg, Md., pose as Hill's mother, Kari Hill, left, and sister Kayla take their photographs at the Tidal Basin on March 19.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

There would be the cherry blossoms and the home opener at Nationals Park — the first pitch thrown out there since they’d won the World Series, no less.

Roads surrounding the Lincoln Memorial and the Mall are closed to all traffic on March 23.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

But then a new set of images began to work their way into our American tableau.

A Howard University student from Trinidad and Tobago moves out of his dorm in Washington on March 18.

Patrick Semansky/AP

Instead of families lining up to take pictures with the Easter Bunny in malls, we were lined up to buy carts full of toilet paper.

A shopper in the pasta aisle of a supermarket in Bethesda, Md., on March 16.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

( Why do we need so much toilet paper? the kids asked, but it was one more question we couldn’t really answer.)

Before the start of intake, Croswell Reid thoroughly disinfects surfaces that are regularly touched, including stairway rail handles, at Central Union Mission men's homeless shelter in Washington on March 9.

Spring cleaning boiled down to wiping surfaces and pouring more hand sanitizer into our hands if we were the lucky ones who hadn’t encountered empty shelves gleaming under fluorescent lighting.

Ridley Epstein, 9, says goodbye to her grandmother Donna Forsman, 78, after chatting on the phone during a through-the-door visit on March 20 at Brookdale Arlington, a senior living center in Arlington, Va.

Instead of Facebook friends sharing pictures of flowers, they were posting black-and-white notices they’d snapped of the most recent closing announcements — the museums, tours of the Capitol, university administrative buildings.

At Medium Rare restaurant in Bethesda, assistant manager Eli Hernandez, left, and cooks Lourdes Lopez, center, and Sandra Cruz prepare free meals to be delivered to seniors and those with compromised immune systems on March 22.

Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post

Restaurant tables were pushed to the side, the few takeout customers spread apart like the remaining chess pieces still standing in a marathon game.

A man jogs by a sign recommending social distancing and sanitary measures to avoid the spread of the coronavirus on March 21 in Washington.

ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images

Some of us continued to insist on taking to the increasingly vacant streets in the form of determined joggers making wide berths around our fellow slower joggers, because didn’t social distancing still apply when you were moving that fast? Pollen was no longer the big enemy ushered in by the springtime air.

A medical worker instructs a driver to keep the window up at a drive-through coronavirus testing site in Arlington on March 19.

Michael A. McCoy/For The Washington Post

Rather than driving to the open countryside for hiking, we motored toward the new drive-through testing stations and found one more way to get in line.

President Trump arrives to speak with his coronavirus task force during a briefing at the White House on March 19.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

Perhaps the most unexpected image of this new spring was our president, showing up almost daily now for news briefings. Taking questions from reporters, he was still glowering, clinging to his taunts about the “fake media.”

A lone traveler makes her way past the shops at Union Station in Washington on March 16.

Yet that impulse just felt like the last, stubborn remnants of a blasé winter that we would forever remember not because of what happened in those months, but because of everything that came after.

Photo Essay: Life of Immokalee Farmworkers During Pandemic

Immokalee is a community with a vulnerable population of migrant farmworkers who are on the front lines of Southwest Florida’s food supply chain. Photographer Lisette Morales has been documenting the farmworkers as they continue to navigate the ever-changing circumstances they face during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“Just like everyone else, they want to stay healthy and continue to go to work every day, because they don’t have the privilege of staying home,” said Morales.  "Other concerns were access to protective equipment or medical care."

"Most of the farmworkers and other individuals that I’ve met there expressed some interesting views and mixed feelings, just like everyone else, about the pandemic," said Morales. "On one side they are very optimistic, saying that God will protect them against the virus, but on the other hand they are fearful that when the pandemic hits Immokalee it will affect primarily their elderly population." 

"It was very difficult to see people without masks or gloves and standing so close to each other during a pandemic," said Morales. 

"I didn’t want to add any stress to anyone with the presence of my camera, but luckily, I was welcomed because this is a community that I’ve been documenting for a few years for a long-form photo project titled “The Road to Immokalee,” humanizing the life of farmworker women," said Morales. 

"Most people, even those who are bilingual, shared that they mostly watch the Spanish language networks to stay informed with national and international news," said Morales. 

"Locally, they [farmworkers] are tuning to the Spanish language Radio Conciencia of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers ."

"I’ve witnessed the Collier County Sheriff's Office giving out hand sanitizers and gloves to all farmworkers boarding buses going into the fields, and driving around town with a megaphone with information about the pandemic in Spanish, Creole and English," said Morales. 

"I’m aware that the women of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are sewing fabric face masks," said Morales. 

"One of the farmers [ Lipman Family Farms ] placed mobile hand washing stations around town, gave their employees full face fabric masks and gloves, and added buses to permit social distancing," said Morales. 

Morales will continues to photograph and document Immokalee farmworkers' lives during the pandemic. She is is also exploring how local officials are offering aid to the community. 

Pandemic in the Philippines: The Struggle Within

• Photographer George Calvelo
• Prize Honorable Mention

Michael Zajakowski There were many excellent photo stories of the pandemic and how nations, states medical professionals and individuals responded. Or didn’t. This photographer’s record of the response in the Philippines is overlaid on the country’s pre-existing conditions of autocratic rule, political corruption and violence and underlying climate and health care challenges. The photographs are not elegant or beautiful, like some of the photo essays we have come to revere, but the situations photographed are precise and moving, exposing the gamut of human emotions, and the editing is precise. Among the hundreds of photo essays about communities confronting the pandemic, this ongoing project stands as a model for bearing witness.

• Company/Studios Freelance
• Date of Photograph Various dates throughout 2020-2021
• Technical Info Various settings

These photos are from my ongoing documentary on the Philippine government's response to the COVID19 pandemic, and how the most affected people struggle to deal with what is left for them. Several corruption issues, human rights violations, abuse of power, politicking by power-hungry officials, and the deteriorating climate situation. These are what the Filipino people have to face. All of these as the presidential election is fast approaching.

Considered having one of the longest lockdowns in the world, the Philippines continue to implement quarantine protocols while struggling to address the damage the pandemic has brought to its people and economy. By mandating the general public to wear plastic face shields on top of wearing masks, people can't help but say that those in power are more concerned about business opportunities than about solving the problem. Children had to take part in online learning, which presented multiple problems for students, teachers, and parents. Politicians take advantage of the crisis by seemingly creating problems for them to solve, a ridiculously obvious campaign stint. Cash assistance drives initiated by the government have seen problems that only the most affected feel. Job losses, businesses closing down, the death of several loved ones, multiple severe typhoons, and climate emergencies. This is what the Filipino people continue to face. As the country starts to feel the blow of the more transmissible COVID19 delta variant, the Department of Health tallied 14,249 new cases in a single day, based on their latest bulletin as of August 14, 2021. This brings the total number of cases to 1,727,231. More than a year of lockdown, the government’s idea of battling the virus was to beef up the presence of uniformed personnel on the streets, with an order to arrest quarantine violators and those who didn’t want to get vaccinated. A statement of the president which his staff conveniently pass off as 'jokes' that aren't meant to be taken seriously. Despite multiple loans amounting to billions of dollars since last year, a recent report by national auditors revealed deficiencies in the Health Department’s spending for the COVID19 response fund amounting to a total of P67.32 billion. Here in the Philippines, it isn't surprising at all to hear people say that these experiences are clear signs that the election season is fast approaching.

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• Politics and peat: The One million hectare sawah project

Photo essay: A pandemic in pictures

• Photo Essay

More than one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus is still having unforeseen impacts

Indonesia has followed a common trajectory to many nations. From underplaying the presence or impact of the virus in the early days, implementing a 'lockdown' of sorts (in Indonesia known as Large-Scale Social Restrictions, Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar: PSBB) and then strategically emerging from it, to securing a vaccine deal with China. As a nation with some 70 per cent of workers in the informal economy, a harsh and long-term lockdown was always going to be hard to implement on a national scale. Many communities enforced their own 'lockdown mandiri'. Somewhat more problematically, in various cities the police called on preman (local thugs to help enforce the wearing of masks and the following of other health protocols. 

Banners, murals and signs have sprung up on city streets, creating a very public reminder of efforts to combat the spread of the virus. The pandemic has also left its mark on the urban landscape in other ways: the Wisma Atlet in Kemayoran, used for the Asian Games in 2018, has been turned into a make-shift hotel for COVID-19 patients in self-isolation. As Ahmad’s photos show, cemeteries too have been filled to overflowing with those who have died from the coronavirus. New cemeteries have had to be built; providing grim material evidence of the virus’s reach and in turn rendering statistics on infection numbers somewhat irrelevant. 

The eerie quietude of Jakarta during PSBB, provided a glimpse of what the city would look like if its pollution was brought under control. But the PSBB asymmetrically disadvantaged the urban poor: little wonder there were riots when the Jokowi-led government sought to implement the RUU Cipta Kerja or so-called Omnibus Law on Job Creation, which further compromised workers’ rights. 

I contacted Ahmad Tri Hawaari after following his photographs on Instagram. With visiting Indonesia almost impossible, I have found his imagery particularly useful in mediating the separation that those of us outside Indonesia may be experiencing. I think of the risks Ahmad takes to be 'out in the field' everyday, including risking exposure to COVID-19 (he has already had it once.) Ahmad’s photographs have an immediacy, vibrancy and clarity. They are neither sentimental or euphoric. But reveal his empathy with his subjects as he tracks the trajectory of Indonesia during this Pandemic Time. 

Andy Fuller, April 2021

Ahmad Tri Hawaari  studies journalism at Muhammadiyah University of Prof. Dr. Hamka, Jakarta. He recently completed a four month internship at Tempo magazine. His Instagram account is @ahmadtrihawaari.

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Have You Picked Up a New Hobby during the Pandemic? Tell Us about It

Has something new intrigued you or caught your interest since last spring, when life changed radically for all of us? BU Today would love to hear about it. Photo by golubovy/iStock

BU Today wants to hear from students, faculty, and staff for a special photo essay

Bu today staff.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, millions of Americans suddenly found themselves studying or working from home. And with movie theaters, clubs, concert halls, and sporting venues shuttered, many have taken up new hobbies, like baking (sourdough bread, anyone?), painting, gardening, rock climbing, birding, and lots of other pursuits.

How about you? During the past several months has something new intrigued you or caught your interest? If you’re local and living in the Boston area, we’d love to hear about it. BU Today is producing a special photo essay featuring students, faculty, and staff and their new pandemic-era hobbies. 

If you’d like to be considered for our photo essay, contact BU photographer Cydney Scott at [email protected] by October 30. Include your name, phone number, and a few sentences about your new hobby and why you enjoy it. If you’re a student, include the school you’re enrolled in and the year you’re graduating. If you’re a faculty or staff member, include your title. 

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I enjoyed very much in the pandemic. I found myself in the pandemic. It was a new experience of exploring myself. All I got in the pandemic was happiness

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AP PHOTOS: From the Caribbean to Texas, Hurricane Beryl leaves a trail of destruction

A fisherman looks at vessels damaged by Hurricane Beryl at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

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Jackie Jecmenek, right, talks with city worker Bobby Head as she stands in front of her neighbor’s home after Beryl passed, July 8, 2024, in Bay City, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A vehicle is stranded in high waters on a flooded highway in Houston, July 8, 2024, after Beryl came ashore. (AP Photo/Maria Lysaker)

People walk past a home where Maria Loredo, 74, died after a tree fell on her second story bedroom during Hurricane Beryl, July 8, 2024, in Houston. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via AP)

A hotel guest navigates the halls after power was lost due to Hurricane Beryl, July 8, 2024, in Bay City, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A motorcyclist manuevers a street flooded by heavy rains from Hurricane Beryl, in Tulum, Mexico, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

People line up to receive food at an army-provided soup kitchen for those impacted by Hurricane Beryl in Tulum, Mexico, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

People walk past a souvenir shop’s storefront boarded up preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Beryl, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

People stand on a rock during the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl in Tulum, Mexico, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Evacuees from Union Island arrive in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, July 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)

Boats damaged by Hurricane Beryl wade in the water at the Bridgetown Fisheries, Barbados, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

People sit on cots in the National Arena that has been transformed into a shelter in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, in Kingston, Jamaica, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Collin Reid)

A man looks out of the window of his home, which was destroyed by Hurricane Beryl in Clifton, Union Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)

A house sits roofless after being damaged by Hurricane Beryl in Portland Cottage, Clarendon, Jamaica, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Hudson)

Donna Charles, a hotel cook, watches as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Hurricane Beryl has been barreling through the Atlantic for over a week, fueled by exceptionally warm waters to become the earliest Category 5 hurricane.

It decimated Caribbean islands like Barbados and Jamaica , with a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines almost entirely destroyed . It slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula on Friday and struck Texas by Monday, each time regaining its strength over water.

In Texas, where Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane , the storm unleashed heavy wind and rain, toppling trees and power lines.

Boarded-up windows lined suburbs. Cars were stranded on flooded highways. Residents stayed put inside homes and hotels with no power.

After the worst of the storm passed, many residents worked to clear roads from tree branches and other debris.

Before it reached Texas, Beryl caused havoc in Tulum, Mexico, where tens of thousands were without power as it swept through the region as a Category 2 hurricane.

Wind and rain whipped the seaside city through Friday. Residents sheltered in schools and hotels, and officials patrolled beaches to evacuate residents and tourists alike.

Those displaced were able to find some respite — and food — at shelters, with the army organizing soup kitchens. Others risked traveling through heavily flooded streets.

But Beryl’s heaviest destruction was in the Caribbean, where entire towns — and even whole islands — were left decimated. The Category 5 storm ripped roofs off of homes and destroyed and tangled up boats on shorelines. Waves full of debris crashed onto the sand.

In Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, an arena was converted into a shelter with row upon row of thin beds and blankets.

The destruction Beryl left behind will need months, and in some cases years, of rebuilding and recovery.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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The Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump

What we know about the shooting at a rally in pennsylvania..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is The Daily. [MUSIC PLAYING]

The nation is waking up to a new reality after former President Donald Trump was injured in an apparent assassination attempt.

Gunshots ripping through a Pennsylvania campaign rally and carving their way into the history book.

I heard pop, pop.

I think a lot of people in the crowd just thought it was fireworks going off. I knew immediately it was gunshots.

And everybody screaming drop. And you can see the blood, like, splatter on his face. And the Secret Service just barricades him. And, you know, it was just, like, so scary.

Senior law enforcement officials say the gunman was a 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania.

A gunman was on the roof of a building several hundred feet from the lectern where Trump was speaking. Joining us —

— what we know about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

I just go back to this idea that something has been fundamentally changed. People are desperate for answers to figure out how this could have happened, how to prevent it.

My colleague, photographer Doug Mills, recounts what it was like to witness the shooting. And reporter Glenn Thrush on the state of the investigation into the man who did it.

It’s Monday, July 15.

Well, this is him. I have to reroute through this thing, though. Hold on.

Hey, Sabrina. How are you?

How are you?

Oh, still a little shaken up, actually. Never thought I’d ever be in a situation like this or be part of a story like this. It’s not something I ever dreamed of having happened in my career. And it shakes you up. I mean, it’s pretty damn frightening.

Doug Mills has been photographing presidents for “The Times” for the past 40 years. I spoke to him on Saturday night about four hours after the shooting.

What’s in your head right now?

My first thought is obviously I am thankful that the former President is not more seriously injured than he is. I’m saddened that other people lost their life.

I mean, as much as I cover president of the United States, whether it’s former President Trump, or President Biden, or President Obama, all the way back to Reagan, it seems, you know, more and more intense and more and more divided, and sadly, scarier as the days go on.

And just having this happen in front of you, and I’m sitting here in the car, and I’m in a dark parking lot. And I’m, you know, just hearing those gunshots.

Where were you? How far from the former President were you?

When the shots came from him, I was probably less than three feet from him, maybe four at the most, because I was right up against the stage, and he was directly above me.

Oh, my God. Doug, you yourself could have been hit.

Believe me, Sabrina. When he was whisked off, I turned around. And I saw people scattering. And I thought, oh, my God, I was right in the line.

My heart was pounding through my chest. And I was shaking. And I was just, like, I can’t believe this happened.

So tell me exactly what you saw through your camera lens, Doug? What were you looking at right before? And then what did you see exactly at the moment that it happened?

I was focused on the president as he was making his remarks. There was a huge flag, American flag above him flying. I was trying to do something that showed him on the podium and him with the flag up there.

And I was in the right moment, as far as concentrating and being right there so I could see him. [BACKGROUND REMARKS]

And then the former President was making remarks. He was gesturing towards his right. And when he put his hand out to gesture —

Take a look at what happened.

[GUNSHOTS FIRED] Oh.

[CROWD SCREAMING]

There were these three or four loud pops. And I just kept taking pictures. And it all became a blur. I just kept my finger on the shutter.

And then he grabbed his ear and then fell from behind the podium. I didn’t see him behind the Trump sign. And I ran to the left to try and see what was going on.

And by that time, he was being covered by the Secret Service. And there was a lot of yelling and pushing and, you know, just them trying to protect him and getting over top of him. I’m positive I heard them say, “Sir, sir, sir,” you know, and I think they were just trying to see how bad he was hit.

And after that, it was very chaotic. There was a lot of, like, move back, get out of the way, move back.

Did you know where the gunman was?

No. I only knew that the pops came definitely from my left ear. I could hear it very loud. So I assumed that’s where they came from.

And did that person continue to shoot?

I thought I heard maybe two or three more shots.

After the former President disappeared from your lens?

Correct yeah. And I don’t know if that was the Secret Service shooting back at that point, but I did hear more than the first three or four. I mean, they were very quick which, now that I look back, I was an idiot to be that close. But instincts just brought me closer to the stage to try and see what was going on.

[CROWD CONFUSION]

And then when they brought him up, I thought my god, he’s OK. He’s alive. And then he put his fist up.

And then as he got closer to the steps, he kind of stopped with the agents. And I could tell the agents were trying to put their arms over him to shield him. And he was defying and putting his fist up. And he didn’t say anything, but he just pumped his fist.

What did you think when you saw Trump do that? You captured that moment. What did you think when he did that?

Aw, he was just so just pissed off, like, defiant. That’s all that I could think of is God, he’s mad as hell. He is really mad.

You know, the image that you took of former President Trump pumping his fist in the air with the blood on his face, with the Secret Service all huddled around him, the one you referenced, this photo, is in many ways already becoming really the iconic photo of this moment, defining the episode in history, really. Did you know immediately that would be the case?

I didn’t, Sabrina. I didn’t. I didn’t know, you know, because it was happening so fast.

And at that point, my camera went from in my eye to lifting it up above me. And just because there were people in front of me. I just had no idea that it would be the image it is until I saw it on the camera afterwards, when I was shaking and looking at my pictures thinking, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

You know, it brings chills to me. It is definitely an image that I’ll think about when I close my eyes tonight to go to sleep at some wee hour in the morning.

Doug, there’s one photograph you took with a kind of blurred moving image, and it looks like it might actually be a bullet, a bullet streaking past the former President. Can you talk about that photo? Is that actually one of the bullets?

I never thought that I would have a picture of the bullet behind him. But after the event had happened and I’m looking through my camera at pictures that I’m going to send to the office, and I said to the editor, Jennifer, “Listen, Jen, I’m sending you the sequence of when he was speaking, when the shots rang out. And please look at them closely.”

Because at that point, there were speculation that he was not shot. And I called Maggie, one of our reporters, Maggie Haberman, and said, “Hey, Maggie, I definitely think he was shot. Because he looks to his right. He flinches. He grabs his ear. His hand has blood on it at that point. And then he went down.”

So when I asked Jen, can you look at him closely, and Jen said, I will. And she literally texted me back a minute later and said, you won’t believe this. We think there’s a picture of the bullet flying behind the former president’s head. And I said, what? And I’m getting chills now because now that I’ve seen the picture, and I am looking at the sequence because there’s nothing there, nothing there, nothing there, and then it’s right behind his head.

Well, of course, we haven’t at this hour, 9:54 PM exactly confirmed that this is the image of the bullet that hurt him. But it certainly seems like it could be that you captured the exact moment that he got shot.

I mean, from what I can tell, it’s definitely a bullet that was fired at him. Whether it hit him or not is TBD. I just don’t know at this time, like you said.

Doug, you said that when this shooting happened, that your instinct was to keep your finger on the shutter. And, you know, that’s a pretty unique instinct. It’s a photographer instinct, and I love that.

I’m assuming that’s all your accumulated experience over the decades, you referenced this earlier, but you’ve covered presidents for four decades. You’ve captured the most historic moments, probably present for more of the history in our country than any other journalist in Washington. How are you thinking about this event in the context of all of the others that you’ve been present for?

Yeah, this is by far the most remarkable and sad situation that I’ve ever witnessed, you know? Seeing a person running for president of the United States, someone’s trying to end their life. And, as a photographer, you hope that if you’re there for that day that you’re able to do your job and then you’re in the right place to do your job. And that’s all I kept thinking as I was trying to run around the stage, trying just to see how the president was doing. And I hope I didn’t blink.

I hopefully captured what happened. And that’s what my job is to record history. And this is definitely one of those historic moments that, sadly, I was a part of. But also I’m grateful that I didn’t flinch, and I didn’t blink, and I wasn’t shot. So I’m grateful for that.

Yes. You were our witness, Doug.

Well, thank you, Sabrina.

We’ll be right back.

Glenn, you’ve been reporting on the investigation into the shooting at President Trump’s rally on Saturday. We’re talking to you at 4:55 PM on Sunday. Before we get to the details of what’s been found so far, what do we know about how Trump is doing, how he’s been in the hours since the shooting?

Remarkably well. While it was sort of shocking on television, you could see the blood splatter across his cheek, it was an injury on his ear. But his injuries were relatively minimal. He was cleared at a local hospital, flew back to his golf resort at Bedminster in New Jersey, and has made it entirely clear that he doesn’t have any intention to skip the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.

And do we know for sure it was a bullet that hit him?

That’s a little bit ambiguous. There were some reports that he was injured by flying glass from his teleprompter. But in a Truth Social post, he said he was shot by a bullet. And in a conference call today with the FBI, they refused to address the issue at all.

Got it. And what about the people in the crowd who were also hit?

One man was killed. His name is Corey Comperatore, and he was apparently shielding his family from the gunfire. And in addition, two other bystanders, were seriously injured and they were taken to the hospital.

So Glenn, what is the picture that law enforcement has pieced together about what happened on Saturday?

Well, the FBI and Department of justice are investigating this as an assassination attempt and also a potential incident of domestic terrorism. And here’s the picture that they’ve compiled.

It started off as a regular Trump rally. Everything seemed to be in order. People were in a good mood. Trump started speaking at around 6:00 PM. And roughly 10 minutes into his speech, Trump was talking about immigration.

That’s when a gunshot is heard. Trump stops mid-sentence, then he flinches. Trump then clutched his ear, and you could see the splatter of blood across his cheeks.

Then another two shots are quickly fired, and he ducks behind the podium. And almost immediately, this whole clutch of Secret Service agents surrounds Trump. And then you hear a burst of about five more shots.

The crowd was completely disoriented. Some people were sort of cheering. Other people started screaming.

And you could see behind Trump that folks were responding to those people who had been injured. At some point, a Secret Service sniper shoots back and kills the shooter. We know from looking at footage that at this point he’s lying dead on a rooftop about 4 to 500 feet away from Trump. And some of the images show an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle laying near his body.

The Secret Service are still laying on top of Trump shielding him. Then you hear, a couple of seconds later, “Shooter down, shooter down.” And it’s at that point that they start to move. The agents that surround him, kind of in a shell, slowly move him off stage.

And the thing I found most extraordinary, having covered Trump on and off all these years, is how quickly, when he realized that he was physically OK, that he pivoted to a complete understanding of what the image was, what the moment meant politically.

And there’s just this extraordinary moment of defiance where he balls his fists, and the crowd starts to chant, “USA, USA, USA.” I just can’t emphasize how extraordinary that was.

And just, like, he had this instinct that this may have been a horrific event, but he was somehow seeing it as a political one. He was making use of it and really connecting with the people at the rally.

Somebody who worked with Trump for many years said this to me a long time ago. A lot of other politicians play the music. They can read the notes. Trump can hear the music. And that was one of those moments where he intuitively understood the moment, understood the image, understood the sound, and behaved in a way that maximized his position going forward. It was really, really something else.

OK. So on the shooter, it wasn’t that he somehow passed through a security check or evaded a security check. He was just completely outside the zone that the Secret Service considered the zone of danger, right?

The shooter was completely outside the event on a warehouse roof outside of where Trump was speaking. There’s some reporting that he may have attempted to get in earlier, but part of the complication here was that he wasn’t actually within the perimeter of the event itself.

Got it. And what is the Secret Service saying about why it was that that building, with an apparent clear shot of the podium, was outside the perimeter?

Well, the Secret Service is an independent security agency that’s responsible for the protection of the president and other senior American officials. Candidates get protection as well.

But they don’t operate in isolation. When they come to a town, they often coordinate with local law enforcement. Sometimes you’ll see, for instance, state police sealing off highways when the motorcade comes through.

Well, oftentimes Secret Service will have control over the event itself while local law enforcement is tasked with controlling things outside of the perimeter. That appears to have been what happened in Pennsylvania. There were four counter-sniper teams on Saturday, two Secret Service and two local. And the building outside the perimeter would typically have been under the purview of local law enforcement.

Got it. So basically, Secret Service was taking care of security inside the lines of that perimeter. And local law enforcement was taking care of the security outside those lines. And that’s where the shooter was shooting from, outside the lines. Do we know what happened with local law enforcement there, how this shooter getting to the top of a roof ended up kind of falling through the cracks for them?

Nobody’s quite sure. But the speed with which this happened seems to have been an important dynamic. It wasn’t like this guy was camped out for hours. It appears that he scrambled up onto the roof of the warehouse, moving rather quickly, and planted himself and then fired. So there wasn’t a lot of time for law enforcement to react, apparently.

And what do we know so far about the shooter? What have investigators learned?

His name is Thomas Matthew Crooks. He is 20 years old. He’s from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, which is about 40 miles from the scene of the shooting.

He was generally regarded in school as a quiet, intelligent guy. And he’d been working as a dietary aide at a local nursing home. And investigators told us that he was interested in chess and that he had recently taken up computer coding.

And what did the authorities say about his motive?

They don’t know. That is the big question. The public record is very scant.

He is a registered Republican. This would have been his first presidential election voting. And it appears that he gave $15, according to some reports, to a group that generally identifies as liberal.

But mostly, I would say, investigators are exasperated by the lack of any kind of directionality in terms of what his motivation or political beliefs have been. He has, for instance, not written any kind of a political manifesto, and there aren’t even a trail of social media posts to fall back on. They’re really hoping that once they are able to breach his cell phone, that that will unlock a trove of information that will point them in the right direction. But he really is an enigmatic character right now.

Do authorities think his attack was highly planned? And is there any indication that more attacks were planned?

Nobody really knows. The gun that he used was purchased by his father. Authorities are not clear whether or not his father gave it to him, lent it to him, or if he took it from his father. But they don’t believe his father bought it on his behalf.

What they did find were some explosive devices. There were apparently some canisters found in the car that he had been driving, which served the purpose of delaying the investigation for hours and hours yesterday as the bomb squad removed and deactivated these devices. And a law enforcement official told me that there was also a suspicious device found at his residence. So he clearly had some knowledge of both firearms and explosives, but they aren’t sure where he picked it up and what he intended to do.

So this, of course, as you know, is the first time in about 40 years that a current or former president has been wounded in an assassination attempt. Ronald Reagan, of course, was shot in 1981. What fundamentally went wrong here? Is there any way to see this other than as a colossal failure by the Secret Service?

I think this is going to be regarded as one of the darkest days in the history of the Secret Service. Now, all of us who have covered the White House have traveled with agents, tremendously high level of professionalism. And the job is difficult, bordering on impossible at times.

But allowing someone to have a clear firing line to a major presidential candidate in the middle of this kind of highly polarized environment is frankly inconceivable. And I think the other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and folks at the Department of Justice, were fairly unvarnished in private in their criticism of the way that the Secret Service planned this.

So there are a lot of unanswered questions. And some lawmakers have called for there to be a significant investigation of this. And the House Oversight Committee will call the head of the Secret Service to testify over the next couple of weeks.

What has Trump said since the shooting?

He’s been relatively muted. I think one of the really amazing moments and something which has been kind of overlooked, Joe Biden called up Donald Trump. And they seem to have had a civil exchange. I think it was this very, very rare and brief moment of comity in this campaign, which is just suffused with negativity and hostility.

And then Trump called for national unity. And he’s basically kind of kept up that vibe for the past 24 hours. But in his signature defiant way, he wrote, in a text message to supporters, I will never surrender. And on Truth Social, he called for his supporters to stand united and not to allow, quote, evil to win.

But he really seems to be toeing the line between his typical bombast and adopting a tone which is a little more conciliatory at a moment when Americans of all political stripes are extremely uneasy. And many are just, frankly, terrified.

And what have been the other reactions to this assassination attempt? What’s been happening in Washington? What have people been saying?

Democrats and administration officials have called for unity, essentially saying that this was not just an attack on Trump, but an attack on democracy.

Look, there’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s sick.

President Biden made it very clear in a couple of appearances over the weekend that he condemned the violence.

We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.

And said that this kind of reaction, regardless of your political stance, was completely unacceptable. Republicans had a wider range of reactions. There were some in the party who took a measured approach.

Everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down.

Like from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

You have political opposition and political opponents, but we’re all Americans. And we have to treat one another with dignity and respect.

But you also heard some Republicans taking a far different approach. You had people like Mike Collins, a kind of a firebrand Republican from Georgia, writing on social media that Joe Biden sent the orders to shoot Donald Trump.

Obviously, there’s no evidence for that.

I do believe that Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting today.

And you had Lauren Boebert from Colorado in a television interview saying Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting.

Everyone who has called him a fascist, everyone who has called him a threat to democracy, who said that he should be —

Essentially saying that it was Democratic rhetoric that caused this. Again, there’s been no evidence whatsoever yet that the shooter was motivated by that kind of rhetoric. But that was a common Republican talking point that you saw emerging, to say that using all of this description of Trump as an existential threat to democracy had somehow whipped up people to enact violent acts.

OK. So there are some crosscurrents of rhetoric here in the aftermath of the shooting. And we see some signs of unity. But it seems undeniable that this is a very fraught political moment. How much have you been hearing in your reporting about the possibility of further violence?

It’s a huge fear. And it’s building upon concerns that FBI and Justice Department officials have talked to us about for months and months and months, that they are worried about violence springing up in this election.

On a call on Sunday, they reiterated that the threat level is really high. For months, they’ve been telling us that they’re worried about shootings, spawning copycats. And also, outside of violence, it’s this wave of misinformation that tends to accompany these big events that can also create a bad cycle. People get whipped up and that, in turn, incites more violence.

So I think there is a level of tremendous uncertainty. And political conventions, as we have seen in years past, are a gathering point for all kinds of folks. Mostly people who are engaged in peaceful protests, but it’s also been catalytic for individuals who want to create all kinds of problems.

I think if there is a silver lining, it is that this near miss, this near national catastrophe has alerted law enforcement agencies, particularly the Secret Service, to up their vigilance to the highest possible level. So to a certain extent, like a near-miss of an airliner potentially crashing, it might have the positive impact of having people pay more attention at a time of what appears to be maximum danger.

Glenn, what happens now? I mean, you mentioned political conventions. The Republican National Convention is starting on Monday. Do we have any idea of how that event will play out, given what just happened, how this changes things?

Well, first and foremost, I think you’re going to see a level of security at both conventions that’s unprecedented. In terms of the political impact, that’s a little harder to predict. This presents Donald Trump with an enormous opportunity to reset his image, but it’s an entirely unpredictable political environment. And the situation could change.

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I think its greatest meaning, its most resonant meaning is that our politics is changing and moving into a darker and more dangerous place. And the question is, are we entering an age where political violence becomes commonplace? Or is this a moment where we realize collectively that this is not the future we can accept?

And what happens in the next few days is going to be quite important to help give an answer to that.

Glenn, thank you.

Here’s what else you should know today. On Saturday, Israel conducted a major airstrike in the Southern Gaza Strip that it said targeted Hamas’ top military commander, who was allegedly one of the architects of the October 7th attack on Israel. Gazan health authorities said that at least 90 people died in the assault. But by Sunday night, it was not clear whether the commander targeted in the strike, Mohammed Deif, was among them.

Today’s episode was produced by Rob Szypko, Shannon Lin, Lynsea Garrison, and Stella Tan with help from Carlos Prieto. It was edited by Patricia Willens with help from Paige Cowett, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Diane Wong, Pat McCusker, and Sophia Lanman and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Beth Flynn, Simon Levien, and Jessica Metzger.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

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Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Doug Mills and Glenn Thrush

Produced by Rob Szypko ,  Shannon M. Lin ,  Lynsea Garrison and Stella Tan

With Carlos Prieto

Edited by Patricia Willens and Paige Cowett

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Pat McCusker ,  Sophia Lanman and Diane Wong

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

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Today’s episode sets out what we know about the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.

Doug Mills, a photographer for The Times, recounts what it was like to witness the shooting, and Glenn Thrush, who covers gun violence for The Times, discusses the state of the investigation into the man who did it.

On today’s episode

Doug Mills , a photographer in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.

Glenn Thrush , who reports on the Justice Department for The New York Times.

Background reading

What we know about the assassination attempt against Donald J. Trump.

A Times photographer who was feet away from Mr. Trump describes the shooting.

The gunman appears to have acted alone, but his motives remain unclear .

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman.

An earlier version of this episode referred imprecisely to Doug Mills’s experience photographing presidents. He has been photographing U.S. presidents since 1983, but   joined The New York Times in 2002.

How we handle corrections

Doug Mills has been a photographer in the Washington bureau of The Times since 2002. He previously worked at The Associated Press, where he won two Pulitzer Prizes. His Instagram is @nytmills . More about Doug Mills

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons. More about Glenn Thrush

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