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2017 Pictures of the Year

A year of Magnum Photos in review, edited by President Thomas Dworzak

Magnum Photographers

Abbas Former French President François Hollande welcomes the newly elected Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace. Macron, who ran as a "neither left nor right" independent, won a decisive victory over the (...)
Peter van Agtmael The Presidential Inaugural Salute to our Armed Services Ball at the National Building Museum after the inauguration of Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States of America. Washington, DC (...)
Christopher Anderson To celebrate Magnum Photos’ 70th anniversary, Christopher Anderson worked alongside Alex Majoli in the second instalment of the Live Lab program, which took place in Shenzhen. Shenzhen, China. 2017. © Christopher Anderson | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey Bruno Barbey was one of the few photojournalists allowed into China during the cultural revolution in 1973. For the last few years he has been working in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong on a new bo (...)
Ian Berry Choir boys and girls waiting to rehearse for a concert beside the tomb of Sir Richard Mompesson (d.1627) and his wife, Katherine Pagington. It is made of painted stone. Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshi (...)
Jonas Bendiksen The seats where astronauts suit up before space missions at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Very much a man’s world during the first thirty years of its existence, NASA began regularly recruiting fema (...)
Matt Black A farmer checks his sprinklers. Matt Black's project 'The Geography of Poverty' documents communities whose poverty rate exceeds 20 percent. Sylvester, Georgia, USA. 2017. © Matt Black | Magnum Photos
Enri Canaj A day before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the city of Gaziantep during the Turkish referendum campaign. In April 2017, Turkey voted to approve amendments to the constitution that (...)
Chien-Chi Chang A Rohingya refugee gets a haircut from his father at a makeshift refugee camp. An estimated 650,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar to settle in makeshift camps around the small border city of (...)
Carolyn Drake Odessa high school cheerleaders before a basketball game. After the election of Donald Trump, Magnum photographer Carolyn Drake took a road trip from San Diego eastward along the US border with Mex (...)
Thomas Dworzak Emmanuel Macron supporters celebrate on election day at the Carrousel du Louvre in the Tuileries Gardens. Macron, a former economy minister, earned 66 percent of the vote, defeating far right candi (...)
Carl De Keyzer A father and son take a rest break in front of the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang. April 25 is the founding date of the resistance army against the Japanese. The enormous structure is used (...)
Bieke Depoorter To celebrate Magnum Photos’ 70th anniversary, Magnum Photographers Bieke Depoorter, Antoine D'Agata & Jerome Sessini worked alongside each other in Magnum's third instalment of the Live Lab program (...)
Nikos Economopoulos Cape Coast, Ghana. 2017. © Nikos Economopoulos | Magnum Photos
Bruce Gilden Jessica is one of the women Bruce Gilden met traveling through America for his 'Point of No Return' project, which looks deeply into the faces of women afflicted with unfortunate personal circumsta (...)
David Alan Harvey Ballerinas in the Vedado neighborhood. This image is part of David Alan Harvey's "Beach Games" project, shot in Cuba, Brazi, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Havana, Cuba. 2017. © David Alan Harvey | Magnum Photos
Thomas Hoepker Homeless people with family visitors; on the wall, famous graffiti from a Chilean artist can be seen. On the occasion of Magnum’s 70th anniversary, Thomas Hoepker chose to revisit Sergio Larrain’s (...)
Sohrab Hura Self portrait as a happy man. India. 2017. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
David Hurn Armies of skeletons arranged in Darwinian order at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle. Paris, France. 2017. © David Hurn | Magnum Photos
Richard Kalvar Summer in the New York subway. This year’s Magnum Annual General Meeting took place in New York City, alongside a diverse program of anniversary activity. New York, USA. 2017 © Richard Kalvar | Magnum Photos
Hiroji Kubota A military parade on "The Day of the Sun," to commemorate the birthday of Kim Il Sung, founder and former president of North Korea. Pyongyang, North Korea. April 15, 2017. © Hiroji Kubota | Magnum Photos
Diana Markosian Briza, now 14, in her home. She was just 7 when her mother was arrested in their home in Arizona. Separated by the border, Briza chose to move to Nogales to be with her mother, Gloria. She is the o (...)
Steve McCurry Steve McCurry visited Guatemala during Semana Santa (Easter Week) — one of the largest and most elaborate celebrations in the world. Guatemala. April, 2017. © Steve McCurry | Magnum Photos
Susan Meiselas The Women's March was a worldwide protest against the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The first planned protest was the Women's March on Washington, which wanted to (...)
Lorenzo Meloni Iraqi military forces, supported by US-led coalition air strikes, began an offensive in February 2017 to reclaim Mosul from ISIS militants, who had seized Iraqi's second city in June 2014. Lorenzo (...)
Cristina de Middel Experts believe humanity ushered in a new geological age, the anthropocene, with the rise of industry. In Mozambique, Cristina de Middel and Bruno Morais worked together to explore the excesses of (...)
Emin Özmen A man sleeps with a Turkish flag on his face, lying in a field during break time at the Justice March. The march was led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, chair of the opposition Republicans People’s party. T (...)
Martin Parr Surfers at the beach during the summer at St Ives, a seaside town known for its surf beaches. Cornwall, England. 2017. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos
Paolo Pellegrin Displaced people in Banki, a once prosperous trading town that was all but destroyed by Boko Haram in 2014. Banki, Nigeria, 2017. © Paolo Pellegrin | Magnum Photos
Mark Power A brochure from the Samaritans, a UK charity aimed at providing support to anyone in emotional distress or at risk of suicide. Guernsey, Channel Islands. 2017. © Mark Power | Magnum Photos
Raghu Rai Me and my filmmaker daughter, Avani Rai. Srinagar, India. April 2017. © Raghu Rai | Magnum Photos
Alessandra Sanguinetti My father's closet. Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2017. © Alessandra Sanguinetti | Magnum Photos
Moises Saman Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River from Myanmar into Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled violence and persecution in Myanmar after an uptick in violence this year. Anjuman Pa (...)
Jérôme Sessini Far-right activists and their supporters take part in the so-called March of Dignity, marking the third anniversary of the 2014 pro-European Union mass protests in Kiev. The rally was organized by (...)
Jacob Aue Sobol Teenage girls in the town of Verkhoyansk, one of the points of absolute cold in the Northern Hemisphere. In 2012, Jacob Aue Sobol rode the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia, Mongolia, and China (...)
Chris Steele-Perkins The family of Annabella Dudziec (blond hair) who is British-born Polish, her children (from a previous marriage to a Rwandan father), Izabella Dudziec-Mabasi and Lorenzo Dudziec-Mabasi. Annabella's (...)
Matt Stuart A massive fire consumes the Grenfell Tower Apartment Building in North Kensington, London. Neighboring residents watch as firefighters work to combat the blaze. The fire took the lives of 71 people (...)
Mikhael Subotzky 'Water Out of Sunlight'. Artwork by Mikhael Subotzky, who picks apart what the practice of photography means in a body of artistic work that showed at the Maitland Institute in Cape Town, South Afr (...)
Newsha Tavakolian Andrea, 23, joined the FARC guerrilla eight years ago. Her father, also a FARC guerrilla, was killed when she was 11. After 50 years of conflict, the FARC guerrillas officially disarmed in June 201 (...)
Larry Towell The ritual burning of structures. After months of protests, the US government announced on December 4, 2016, that it would halt construction of the infamous oil pipeline because of environmental co (...)
Alex Webb The child in the foreground lost his foot in a train accident. Houston is the country's most diverse city and is America's fourth most-populous city. Guadalupe Plaza, Houston, Texas, USA. 2017. © Alex Webb | Magnum Photos
Patrick Zachmann Nixxo Arce, 40, born in the middle of a drug trafficking area, has lived in the street for 35 years, consuming "bazuco", a kind of drug even more dangerous than crack. She survives by selling candi (...)

Seventy years after the agency’s creation, Magnum photographers remain as committed to capturing the range of human experience, often transcending boundaries of language and culture in their attempts to visually transcribe their “curiosity about what is going on in the world” — in the words of co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Magnum President Thomas Dworzak made the final edit for the 2017 photographers’ choice Pictures of the Year, which serves as a reminder of the diverse sensibilities that make up the cooperative today. Magnum’s chronicling of the world has always been defined by its distinctive blend of reporting and artistry. In 2017, some photographers have selected images that capture world events — from Donald Trump’s inauguration as president to the Grenfell Tower fire in London — while others have chosen more intimate moments, like self-portraits or photographs of family members. Others still have opted for the lyrical or timeless. In an image-saturated world, Magnum’s focus on photographer authorship means that the Pictures of the Year selection offers an alternative reflection on the past twelve months, one that brings together photojournalism and photographic art.

Speaking about Magnum’s coverage of the past year, Dworzak commented: “When reviewing the Picture of the Year finals sent in by my Magnum colleagues I was thrilled to see at what width, in the year of our 70th anniversary, they have continued to document this messy and confusing world of ours. From a gloomy Trump inauguration party to North Korea, the fall of Mosul to the fleeing of the Rohingya, alienated family members, social issues, migration, the environment….and not least the money tucked away for what one could imagine to be an uncertain future.”

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