A portrait of America: the best Guardian US photos of 2023
This year, photographers traveled across the United States, meeting with individuals and communities to document diverse cultures and shed light on issues including environmental inequalities and reproductive rights. Through the lenses of photographers contributing to the Guardian US, the images below offer a view of 2023 America.
Akayla Jackson reads a book in her grandmother’s dining room after a day of online classes in Jackson, Mississippi. Residents experienced a major water outage earlier this year.
Housing construction on Geer Street in Durham, North Carolina, in what was previously considered a less “desirable” neighborhood that is now gentrifying.
Tama Matsuoka Wong, a finance lawyer turned forager, among late summer wildflowers in Flemington, New Jersey.
Ben Dickert walks through fields beneath the CPV Fairview Energy Center at his family farm in Jackson Township, Pennsylvania. More than 1.5 million people in the state live within half a mile of active oil and gas facilities.
Alex and Emmery DuVall on their property, where they’re living in a trailer until their family can build a permanent home in Berry Creek, California. Berry Creek has struggled to recover after devastating fires in 2020.
Rudy Diaz, the resident mycologist at the Los Angeles Mycological Society, smells a bioluminescent western jack-o’-lantern mushroom in the Cleveland national forest in southern California. This year, California experienced a “shroom boom” after heavy rains created ideal conditions for mushroom growth.
Workers farm baby marijuana at Ever-Bloom, one of many cannabis farms in Carpinteria, California, in Santa Barbara county. Some local residents have expressed frustration over the rise of cannabis farms in the area.
Luana Nelson-Brown in front of the Shattering Silence sculpture in Des Moines, Iowa. Nelson-Brown organizes to stop violence and highlight racial and gender disparities in homicides in Iowa.
Wildflowers in bloom at Molok Luyuk, a rocky ridge just north of San Francisco that is home to Indigenous village sites and more than 30 species of rare plants. The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and other environmentalists are petitioning the Biden administration to protect the habitat.
Costumes from the film Where the Wild Things Are in the Warner Bros film studio archive in Sun Valley, California. The studio celebrated its 100th anniversary this April.
Nery Lima Jr sits with his sister, Leyla, while listening to their father recount his experience of crossing the US-Mexico border from Guatemala to flee gang violence. With the aid of advocates, the family recently reunited after being separated for four years.
Visitors pose for a group portrait with Randy Williams, the “sultan” of Slowjamastan, during an event in the self-proclaimed “micronation” in the California desert.
Professor Becca Franks tends to fish at Oko Farms, the first outdoor aquaponics farm in New York City.
Amelia Huntsberger, an OB-GYN, is overcome with emotion as she speaks about having to leave her home in Sandpoint, Idaho, because politics have made it difficult for her to practice.
Ron Hunter sits in a hotel room near Times Square in Manhattan, New York, a few blocks from where he was forced into prostitution at the age of 12 by his Boy Scouts of America troop leader. Hunter recently published a memoir on being a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Jasmine and her baby outside their home in Washington state. After discovering she was pregnant, Jasmine wanted an abortion but found that accessing the procedure was confusing and involved difficult steps.
Mike Watters mows his lawn wearing a gas mask. Watters has polycythemia vera, a rare blood disease that doctors say is linked to PFAS contamination in his blood. He lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, near the Chemours plant. A study released this year highlighted how PFAS “forever chemicals” are polluting waters around the plant, which manufactures the toxic substances.
Vincent Turner is incarcerated at San Quentin prison in Marin county, California. This year, the governor, Gavin Newsom, introduced a $380m plan to transform the prison into a “rehabilitation center”. Turner hopes for “more opportunities, more space, more access to programs, and a culture where we’re treated like humans”.
Don Fields Jr holds a letter he wrote, which was read out loud by his attorney during a final court hearing for him to complete a years-long restorative justice process with his family.
Glenn Morrison is president of the Desert Radio Amateur Transmitting Society, a ham radio enthusiast club in California.
Sisters Joann Murray and Sandy Boykin-Hays at a church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Their brother, Ted Boykin Jr, died of heat stroke while living in a home without air-conditioning in July 2023. Boykin-Hays considers her brother a victim of the climate crisis and has criticized her congressman, the House speaker Mike Johnson, for his failure to acknowledge climate change.
Don Tadgerson, Joel Cameron and Aaron Lothrop fish on Lake Superior in Paradise, Michigan. Beneath the lake’s surface lies the controversial Line 5 oil pipeline.
Cisco Manthing performing at Bipoc Emo Night in Bushwick, New York. Organizers of the event are working to make emo culture more welcoming to people of color.
Eliza Greenman climbs an 18th-century silk mulberry tree in Purcellville, Virginia. Greenman, a fruit explorer, searches for and works to preserve the genetics of fruit trees.
Zachariah Ben with his wife, Mary, and son, Yabiitoh, on their family cornfield plot in Shiprock, New Mexico. Ben and Mary decided to grow produce to make their own baby food after finding it difficult to access fresh, local, traditional baby food near the Navajo Nation.
Patrick Braxton, the first Black mayor of the town of Newbern, Alabama, on the grounds of the town’s public library. Braxton filed a civil rights lawsuit after being barred from taking office by the former mayor and his council.
Micah Jameson studies the board during a chess game with Aleeza Ben-Asher at Queers’ Gambit, an inclusive chess night at Purgatory Bar in Bushwick, New York.
Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer, has represented high-profile political prisoners including Siamak Namazi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu and Félix Maradiaga.
Daniel Watson, who is unhoused in New Orleans, Louisiana, chugs some water provided to him. The city saw record heat this summer.
Lawyer Don Tamaki, who recently served on California’s reparations task force as the panel’s only non-Black member, works on his bonsai trees in his backyard in California.
Andrea Harris Smith with her daughter in Washington DC. Harris Smith is the granddaughter of the two researchers who devised the “doll test” that led to the 1954 Brown v Board of Education supreme court decision to desegregate public schools.
Sergii Zhuk teaches his mother, Natalia Zhuk, how to drive near their home in Los Angeles. Zhuk moved to be with her son after escaping the war in Ukraine.
A student raises his hand in class at Stege elementary school in Richmond, California. Black and Latino youth are more likely than their white peers to have a homicide happen near their home each year.