National_Geographic_USA_-_December_2022

PULPÍ,
S PA I N

GROWING
A CRYSTAL
TEMPLE

•

PHOTOGRAPH BY

ROBBIE SHONE

Sparkling hollow rocks
known as geodes
are often thought of
as desktop curios.
But some of them can
be gigantic monu-
ments to geology. The
390-cubic-foot Pulpí
Geode was found in
1999 within an aban-
doned mine, and it
is filled with gypsum
crystals up to seven
feet long. Here, Uni-
versity of Almería
researcher Fernando
Gázquez measures the
geode’s atmospheric
conditions to see
whether tourist visits
are affecting the for-
mations. He reported
in 2022 that the shining
spires grew between
164,000 and 60,000
years ago, when rain-
water seeped into an
aquifer and dissolved
deposits of gypsum
and anhydrite. Over
millennia, the gypsum
came out of solution
and crystallized on the
sides of the chamber.

GYUMRI, ARMENIA

HUNTING Istanbul-based spotted the butterfly
SPECIMENS AND photographer Rena in the wild, she did
Effendi traveled photograph a preserved
MEMORIES to Armenia and Azer- one in the specimen-
baijan in search of packed cabin of her
Satyrus effendi, a rare father’s protégé Parkev
and endemic butterfly Kazarian, a taxidermist
named after her father, in the mountainous
the late Soviet Azer- town of Gyumri, Arme-
baijani entomologist nia. “I loved that it was
Rustam Effendi. While still beautiful, even
Effendi hasn’t yet dead,” she says.

•P H O T O G R A P H S B Y R E N A E F F E N D I

Kazarian, an ethnic "We had this war, and we have generations of people
Armenian born in
Azerbaijan, has lived who grew up in this war, lived through this war, and there
in Armenia since 1989 I am welcomed to Armenia because of a single butterfly.
due to the ongoing
conflict between —RENA EFFENDI
the two countries.
“I wanted to capture
his loneliness and
isolation,” says Effendi.
“It’s like he’s trapped
in a time capsule.”

•P I C T U R E S O F T H E Y E A R 107

EMAS Under a full moon on some 50 million years the landscape. But
N AT I O N A L a hazy morning in Bra- and are among the few tapirs are declining
zil’s Emas National large-bodied mammals because of defor-
PA R K , Park, a lowland tapir to have survived the estation, agricultural
BRAZIL known to park staff last ice age’s megafau- development, hunt-
as Preciosa ambles nal extinctions. As they ing, and vehicle strikes.
GARDENER down a road. Photog- voraciously eat fruit, According to the
OF THE rapher Katie Orlinsky tapirs also efficiently International Union
FOREST recalls the surprising spread the seeds of for Conservation of
encounter, noting that many plant species. Nature, all tapir species
animals can behave In fact, Brazil’s low- are either vulnerable
unpredictably under land tapirs like Preciosa or endangered.
full moons. “It was defi- tend to travel and def-
nitely not this tapir’s ecate more often in •
usual route,” she says. degraded forests than
The stubby-trunked in undisturbed ones, PHOTOGRAPH BY
creatures go back which helps reseed
KATIE ORLINSKY

•1 0 8 PICTURES OF THE YEAR



• 110

LYNN
JOHNSON

A STORY ON HUMAN
TOUCH PUTS THIS VETERAN

PHOTOGRAPHER IN
A FAMILIAR ROLE: TRYING

TO MAKE THE
INVISIBLE VISIBLE.

•T H R O U G H the L E N S

University of Virginia
neuroscientists record
the brain activity
of nine-month-old
Ian Boardman, while
brushing his skin
to activate nerve
fiber responses.

• 112

S O I ’ M I N A PA R K in Cleveland, quiet in her dreamy eyes.
where I happen to be visiting a I have to get up the courage,
friend, and I’m just … looking for
human touch. Pure. Simple. always, doesn’t matter how long
I’ve been doing this: Hi. My
And here is this young couple name’s Lynn, I’m about to start a
lying in a hammock, facing each project about touch for National
other, legs intertwined. You can Geographic; I saw you here, I
see them touching, but also you thought maybe you’d have some-
can feel it, her response to it, the thing to share about that.

ERIKA LARSEN

•T H R O U G H the L E N S

At a Pittsburgh "I want that moment. say, “Pretend I'm not here,” but
playground, I share a I want that one day I heard myself and how
moment with Morgan beautiful light. absurd that was, so what I’ve
Barns, 10. He’s fasci- I want the person come to say is, “Is it OK that I’m
nated by the mulch here?” I keep checking in. I want
and dirt; I’m fascinated on the other them to articulate the response.
by him. For 10 years side of the camera to
I’ve been photograph- And now I was driving to Ari-
ing Morgan and his be respected, zona with my own broken heart.
brother, Max, 12, and understood. My mother had just passed away.
who are both on the I got to the farm, saw a few ani-
autism spectrum. —LJ — LY N N J O H N S O N mals, dust, harsh sunlight. I was
going to need a way to sink in.
Do you mind if I take a photo- everybody—I mean everybody, To comprehend. The wonderful
graph? strangers in the grocery store. woman who runs the farm is a
I wanted to know what people trauma survivor—incest and
Because I’m going to have to cared about. addiction—and it was listening
move into their personal space, if to her story that showed me
they say no, I understand. But so And as I read the scientific arti- where to be. Where to wait. What
often in my work I’m looking for cles, I realized I was most inter- to gather.
emotional truth, trying to make ested in the intimacy of touch, the
something invisible visible. deep need for human connection. A child with sensory issues
stood at the entrance to one of
I want to move in closer— When the photo editor learned the paddocks, warily regarding
they say yes, so now I know it’s of an unusual refuge in Arizona, a standing cow. She was there to
all right—and then I just stop for example, a farm where people feel the cow’s warmth but to be
thinking. with emotional or sensory chal- safe had to wait until it lay down.
lenges find comfort in gentle
I move around, I’m body and contact with rescued animals, I O CCASIONALLY a storytell-
an eye, an appetite, a sensory thought: Touch. Healing. Yes. ing moment comes at you
gathering device. I want that all at once: The wired-up
moment. I want that beautiful Photojournalism is all about baby on page 110 was
light. I want the person on the looking outward, explaining part of a study on touch recep-
other side of the camera to be to others. But we can’t sustain tors in human skin, and when
respected, and understood. this life if it’s not at some level he beamed at the researcher,
about us. I think that’s where the that was a moment; it just hap-
A lot of it is patience. You know powerful work happens, acknowl- pened. But more of the time you’re
that old sound in the movies, edging that you’re also doing it finding your way in, practicing
where they’re trying to tune a for yourself. patience. Neither that cow nor
shortwave radio, and you hear the girl cared about our timetable.
the buzzing warble of the dial as it At some point in my career, I We stood around.
searches? In my psyche I’m doing saw how much my work pulls me
that, trying to get all my fibers on close to people with complicated Finally the cow lay down, the
the one right wavelength. and difficult lives. I’m five feet little girl spread out the blanket
tall and use a small, quiet camera, she was carrying, and she sat.
A P ROJ E C T L I K E T H I S — writ- a Leica with no motor drive, so to She’d done this before, I could
ing about the science of some extent I’m able to minimize see. The cow laid its head on her
human touch, for the my physical presence. When I was lap. The girl put one palm against
magazine’s June 2022 a young photographer, I used to its snout and rested her cheek
issue—it’s a partnership. Me the against its skin, just behind its
photographer, Cynthia Gorney the left ear. She closed her eyes. The
writer, parallel paths. look of stress drained out of her.

As I began my own research, I stopped thinking then, and
I was talking about the story to
got to work. •

—As told to Cynthia Gorney



MANILA, For a peso (less than platforms, leading elected leader of
PHILIPPINES two cents), internet media analysts to dub the nation’s more than
vending machines the Philippines patient 110 million people.
NAVIGATING bring the boundless zero in what has turned “Lies travel faster than
THE digital world to Filipi- into a global disin- the truth,” says Celine
nos for a few minutes formation pandemic. Samson of Vera Files,
TANGLED in a Manila neighbor- Dis- and misinformation one of Facebook’s
WEB hood. Filipinos spend became particularly fact-checking partners.
an average of four acute in the run-up to
hours a day on social this year’s presidential •
media, making them election, which saw
some of the world’s Ferdinand “Bongbong” PHOTOGRAPH BY
most active users. But Marcos, Jr., the son
false content flourishes of deposed dictator HANNAH REYES
on the country’s online Ferdinand Marcos, MORALES

•P I C T U R E S O F T H E Y E A R 115

N A I N G VA L L E Y, PA K I S TA N

PILGRIMS CROSS Shadman Ali, 26, 124-mile Sufi route
A CHANGING shades his head from across deserts and
LANDSCAPE the brutal heat as he mountain passes to
holds aloft his pigeon Balochistan Province.
near the holy spring of Those who complete
Naing Sharif in Sindh this journey are blessed
Province, Pakistan. with the honorific
The pilgrim and his “Lahooti”; a cave
winged companion, complex called Lahoot
brightly colored for Lamakan lies close
easy identification, are to the final stop on
traveling an ancient the journey.

•P H O T O G R A P H S B Y M AT T H I E U PA L E Y

Also a pilgrim, Safar Ali, "Meeting the pilgrims was an immersion into a world
53, stands in the waters
near Naing Sharif. “We of kind men who express their loving and sensitive
have all come from the side with great beauty. The pigeon is a pilgrim too,
same stream,” he says.
Heavy rains and glacier because the pigeon followed the entire walk.
melt, an increasing
occurrence due to cli- —MATTHIEU PALEY
mate change, flooded
the region in summer
2022, displacing nearly
eight million people.

•P I C T U R E S O F T H E Y E A R 117

M I NN E RI YA ,
SRI LANKA

FELLOW
FORAGERS

•

PHOTOGRAPH BY

BRENT STIRTON

Wild Asian elephants
mingle with cattle at
a garbage dump near
Minneriya, in central
Sri Lanka. The island
nation is home to some
6,000 pachyderms
living in close contact
with people. Having
lost their lowland
forest home, elephants
now seek out human-
affected habitats,
including croplands,
and are master gen-
eralists, capable of
eating at least a hun-
dred different plants.
That doesn’t mean
that Sri Lankan ele-
phants are thriving;
they instead may be
coping. Researchers
are tracking levels
of cortisol—a stress
hormone—that could
be detrimental to the
elephants’ health.



WA R DA K
PROVINCE,
A F G H A N I S TA N

ROAD
TO THE
FUTURE?

•

PHOTOGRAPH BY

BALAZS GARDI

Rafiullah, 10, packs
dirt into a bomb
crater on Afghanistan’s
National Highway 1
near Maidan Shahr,
Wardak Province, in
March. The 1,400-mile-
long ring road was
first built in the 1950s
and ’60s but has been
ruined by decades
of war and neglect.
When the restored
Kabul-Kandahar stretch
was reopened in 2003,
it was proclaimed
the “road to Afghan-
istan’s future.” But
now boys like Rafiul-
lah and his 15-year-old
brother serve as ad hoc
repair crews, relying
on tips from passing
motorists—the equiv-
alent of two dollars on
a good day—to help
support their fami-
lies. Save the Children
estimates that nearly
one-fifth of Afghan
families have sent chil-
dren out to work, as
incomes have plunged
since the Taliban take-
over in August 2021.



•1 2 2 PICTURES OF THE YEAR

N E VA D O Fringed in clouds ripple effects across effort to document the
A U Z A N G AT E , against the south- the huge watershed watershed from the
eastern night sky, of the Amazon River. Andes to the Atlantic.
PERU the snowy peak of In August, the National Photographer Thomas
Nevado Auzangate, Geographic and Rolex Peschak made this
THE ICE the highest mountain Perpetual Planet image in June and will
NOURISHING in the Andes of south- Amazon Expedition explore Amazonia’s
AMAZONIA ern Peru, looms large worked with Peruvian diverse aquatic eco-
above a waterfall. partners to install systems for 396 days
Glacial melt from a weather station on through 2024.
Nevado Auzangate is the mountain at 20,830
a primary freshwater feet—the highest in •
source for ecosys- the tropical Andes.
tems and communities The station is just PHOTOGRAPH BY
downstream, with one part of a broader
THOMAS PESCHAK



L I B E RT Y,
NEW YORK

THE COST
OF COYOTES

•

PHOTOGRAPH BY

KARINE AIGNER

Hunters bring dead
coyotes to be weighed
in the parking lot
of the White Sulphur
Springs Fire Depart-
ment in New York. Each
year, Sullivan County’s
sportsmen’s clubs
sponsor a three-day
coyote-killing contest,
offering $2,000 to
the hunter who bags
the heaviest animal.
Despite being one
of the most perse-
cuted animals in the
U.S., coyotes have
expanded their range
to 49 of the 50 states.
At least half a million
coyotes are killed each
year for the fur trade,
for predator control,
and for sport, but hunt-
ing them with the goal
of reducing their num-
bers usually doesn’t
work. Eliminating coy-
otes only creates a
vacuum that is filled by
transient coyotes. In
addition, females that
lose family members
have larger litters at
younger ages.

MOUNT EVEREST

MAKING HISTORY History was made on climbers rest and sip
ON EVEREST May 12, 2022, when from oxygen tanks
seven members of the before ascending or
first all-Black Everest descending. After
expedition—along with training alongside the
eight Nepali guides— team for nearly a year,
summited the world’s photographer Evan
highest peak (at 29,032 Green says he felt
feet). James “KG” Kag- ready “to capture little
ambi reclines on the pieces of personality,
Balcony, a flat expanse times when people
at 27,600 feet where relaxed a little bit.”

•P H O T O G R A P H S B Y E VA N G R E E N

At sunset on April 27, "It was difficult to keep my camera protected from the
Green caught climber
Thomas Moore walk- elements yet quickly accessible to capture fast-moving
ing amid the tents situations. My batteries died due to cold; I was able to revive
pitched at Camp I and them by putting them inside my mittens during the climb.
framed by Everest (at
left), Lhotse (center), —EVAN GREEN
and Nuptse (at right).
“I was so cold, but I was
just trying to get a final
shot before the sun
went down,” he says.

•P I C T U R E S O F T H E Y E A R 127

LANCASTER Hammered by wind and Pacific. Instead,
SOUND, and waves, the crew Franklin and his crew
CANADA of the 47-foot Polar of 128 found nothing
Sun crosses the mouth but horror: Erebus and
SAILING of northern Canada’s Terror, their two ships,
TOWARD Lancaster Sound—with were trapped in ice
ANSWERS nearly 3,000 miles of and had to be deserted.
sailing already behind The entire party perished.
them. This National Led by adventurer Mark
Geographic expedition Synnott, the new expe-
charts a path through dition aims to uncover
the Arctic from Maine the mystery of what
to Alaska, retracing the happened to the sailors,
steps of Sir John Frank- based on the testimony
lin. In 1845 Franklin of local Inuit.
led an ill-fated British
Royal Navy attempt •
to navigate the North-
west Passage, the PHOTOGRAPH BY
fabled Arctic seaway
bridging the Atlantic RENAN OZTURK



D I S KO BAY, Five weeks into the breath. “Launching the
GREENLAND 112-day journey of the drone from a moving
National Geographic boat is always a danger-
SEARCHING expedition ship Polar ous and exciting affair,”
THE SEAS Sun, photographer he recalls. “It was truly
Renan Ozturk found a once-in-a-lifetime
himself exploring a experience to shoot
bay off the coast of such a feature.”
Greenland. The boat
played peekaboo with •
pale blue icebergs as
Ozturk readied his cam- PHOTOGRAPH BY
era drone and held his
RENAN OZTURK



•1 3 2 PICTURES OF THE YEAR

CANARY ISLANDS,
S PA I N

BRAVING
THE

INFERNO

•

PHOTOGRAPH BY

ARTURO RODRÍGUEZ

Wearing a protective
suit, Armando Salazar
steps carefully across
sizzling rock, carrying
a chunk of glowing
lava on a pitchfork.
It’s just another day
on the job for Salazar,
an emergency special-
ist in the Spanish
military, as he collects
samples during a 2021
eruption at La Palma’s
Cumbre Vieja volcanic
ridge. Scientists and
others also ventured
across fresh flows
to monitor gases,
record earthquakes,
and more, hoping to
better understand
the event, which lasted
for almost 86 days.
Their findings can help
them determine Cum-
bre Vieja’s potential
for future blasts.

I N S TAG R A M

FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS S I N C E L A U N C H I N G in 2011, National
Geographic’s main Instagram
FOLLOWER account—@natgeo—has been a cre-
FAVORITES ative collaboration of more than a
hundred photographers. Posting only
when they capture a remarkable sight,
these storytellers have been delighting
audiences with authentic scenes of the
world and all that’s in it. The feed, now
with over 230 million followers and
counting, offers not only compelling
images but often behind-the-scenes
details on the subjects, why they matter,
and what went into documenting them.
Here are five photos that resonated
strongly with viewers this past year.

•@ N ATG E O

MATTAWA , WASHINGTON KALAHARI DESERT, DEN HELDER,
SOUTH AFRICA NETHERLANDS
Erika Larsen
Keith Ladzinski Muhammed Muheisen
@erikalarsen888
@ladzinski @mmuheisen
While working on a story
about Native American Here, heat and drought From the cockpit of a
cultures’ connection to “threaten a delicate balance Cessna Skyhawk, Muheisen
horses, Larsen met Des- of life,” says Ladzinski—life captured a colorful carpet
tiny Buck, a member of the that includes populations of of blooms in the tulip
Wanapum tribe, in Oregon. inquisitive meerkats. capital of the world.
Months later, Larsen pho-
tographed Buck at home DUJIANGYAN PANDA HUMBOLDT COUNTY,
in Washington, where she BASE, CHINA CALIFORNIA
stood “poised and proud,”
Larsen recalls. Each fabric, Ami Vitale Dan Winters
color, and artifact on Buck
and her horse has meaning. @amivitale @danwintersphoto
Her cultural identity, Buck
explained, is rooted in the Vitale showcased these six- For International Day of
ways she honors her ances- month-old cubs snacking Forests, Winters honored
tors and their customs. and playing as part of her Julia Butterfly Hill, who once
long-term focus on giant spent 738 days in a redwood
panda conservation. to protest logging.

•P I C T U R E S O F T H E Y E A R 135

MONUMENT Quannah Rose Chas- stands in front of and traditions aren’t
VALLEY, ARIZONA inghorse, a model and West Mitten Butte, in recognized the way
activist who advocates Tse’Bii’Ndzisgaii (Mon- they should be.
RAISING for concerns of Indige- ument Valley), a park We carry so much
VOICES nous peoples, raises her that the Diné (Navajo) knowledge, strength,
fist to honor “the resis- administer. A Hän and power, not just
tance and fight of my Gwich’in and Sičangu/ trauma and pain.”
ancestors who survived Oglala Lakota born on
genocide and have Diné land in Arizona, •
persevered.” Thanks to she feels strongly that
them, she says, “we are “our voices, experi- PHOTOGRAPH BY
still here.” Chasinghorse ences, stories, cultures,
KILIII YÜYAN

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