Photos of of the year by The Sydney Morning Herald photographers
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Photo Editor’s choice: 2021 was no mean feat. On the back of 2020, Herald photographers continue to capture the stories and events that matter. Our photos from this year document poignant and profound moments that mark the universal challenges of living in a pandemic. From floods, protests, lockdowns, to mice plagues; this curation celebrates our commitment to visual storytelling. We hope that looking through these images will offer you the pause to reflect back on the year that was.
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Kate Geraghty’s photo of a COVID-19 patient receiving treatment in ICU at St Vincent’s Hospital was awarded the Nikon-Walkley Photo of the Year 2021. Credit:Kate Geraghty
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A protester makes contact with a police horse outside Town Hall during a chaotic anti-lockdown protest in Sydney on July 24, 2021. Brook Mitchell’s photo is a finalist in this year’s Walkley Awards for News Photography.Credit:Brook Mitchell
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Coonamble broad acre farmer Allan Inglis. Since December last year, Allan has been waging war against a current mice plague and has caught and disposed of an estimated 35,000 mice in ten weeks. Allan is captured in this series going about his daily routine of cleaning out his traps. He collects some two dozen industrial grade perforated steel traps, submerging them in water to drown the rodents and then disperses them into his fields. This image is part of Dean Sewell’s series “Of (swarming) mice and (desperate) men” which is a finalist in this year’s Walkley Awards – Feature/Photo Essay category.Credit:Dean Sewell
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NSW Police patrol Bondi Beach keeping the COVID-19 restrictions in place.
14th August 2021.
Credit:Steven Siewert
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Brittany Higgins speaks at the March 4 Justice protest to rally against the Australian Parliament’s ongoing abuse and discrimination of women in Australia at Parliament House in Canberra on March 15, 2021.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
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John and Sue Brookes clean up debris in their backyard, Thompson square, Windsor. Hawkesbury River flooding. 24th March 2021Credit:Louise Kennerley
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Active storm off the Sydney coastline. 2021 has been a wet year with November being the wettest on record. Credit:Nick Moir
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Damage caused by a microburst, a severe storm downdraft often with winds exceeding 100kph. Ripping roofs off and uprooting trees from Dee Why to Narrabeen. Photographed on Pacific Parade. Dee Why, Sunday 19th December 2021. Credit:James Brickwood
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An anti-lockdown protestor is arrested. Protesters have managed to make it into central Sydney for an anti-lockdown rally, where a large number of waiting police have made arrests. A massive police operation involving over 1400 officers across the city appears to have stopped a large number of people from attending and turning the protest into the large event organisers had hoped for.Credit:James Brickwood
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Larisha Taylor with her greyhound Chilli. She has been waiting more than five days for her COVID results and has missed out on work. Long delays for COVID-19 test results in parts of NSW are causing some people to miss vaccination appointments and lose work as one of the private clinics processing results continues to be overwhelmed amid record testing rates.Credit:Nick Moir
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A message to celebrate Cleo Smith’s safe return. There was a palpable relief in the Carnarvon community with the news of police finding Cleo safe and alive on 3rd November. 5th November 2021. Credit:Philip Gostelow
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NSW teachers protest in Sydney over poor pay and conditions. 7th Deceber 2021 Credit:Janie Barrett
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Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced she will quit as NSW Premier after the Independent Commission Against Corruption revealed she was being investigated. An in-camera multiple exposure image during a COVID-19 press conference update at St Leonards, in Sydney.Credit:Sam Mooy
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NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, with student Ethan Ooi, Treasurer Matt Kean and Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning Sarah Mitchell at Randwick Public School to discuss the first stage of return to school for Greater Sydney and some regional areas.
18th October 2021.
Credit:Steven Siewert
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A line of cars stretches back past the Bondi Golf Club at the Bondi COVID-19 clinic before 830am. December 27, 2021.Credit:Brook Mitchell
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Behind the airtight doors at a biosecurity lab in Darlinghurst, scientist Stuart Turville peers into a microscope to analyse samples taken from the first handful of people infected with Omicron in Australia. In the weeks since international flight passengers from Doha became Sydney’s first cases of the new COVID-19 strain, the Kirby Institute’s Associate Professor Turville has put in gruelling days as he and his team work at breakneck speed to get an understanding of the variant, its constellation of mutations and how well current vaccines shield the body from infection. “We didn’t expect Omicron to come out of the blue and be so drastically different to Delta,” he said, emerging from the confines of his biohazard suit on the ninth floor at St Vincent’s Centre for Applied Medical Research. “And we certainly didn’t expect to catch it in the wild in Australia so quickly.”Credit:Kate Geraghty
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Protestors take part in an anti COVID-19 vaccination and ‘freedom’ rally at Hyde Park, Sydney. November 27, 2021. Credit:James Alcock
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Long queues for the 24 hour COVID testing drive through clinic at Endeavour Sports Reserve, Fairfield West. 14th July 2021 Credit:Louise Kennerley
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Catherine Bugmy from Wilcannia is currently in isolation at the Warrawong on the Darling after testing positive to COVID-19. She doesn’t have access to a washing machine and is forced to do her washing in the the Darling River, Wilcannia. September 2, 2021. Credit:Rhett Wyman
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The Summer Hill shopping strip like other areas of Sydney was impacted by the lockdown. Several store owners have not been operating long enough to qualify for government support.
“I couldn’t demonstrate downturn,” says Rob Price who opened Mad Wholefoods in Summer Hill just after last year’s lockdown. “I thought there might be something for people like us.” Other business owners say applying for emergency government grants has been more cumbersome than during last year’s disruptions and the distribution of support has been slow.
26th August 2021
Credit:Steven Siewert
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Professor Richard Kingsford, the director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of NSW, has been involved in surveying major wetland sites in eastern Australia for 39 years. In the latest Aerial Survey of Waterbirds in Eastern Australia report, Professor Kingsford and his colleagues found that the total waterbird abundance in 2021 remained well below the average. The areas with the highest abundance were in the Macquarie Marshes and Lowbidgee wetlands regions – both of which have experienced floods this year. “We need floods to get onto the floodplains because it is that water that really sustains these forests of red gum and native fish and turtles and waterbirds” he said. “That boom effect of flooding sustains them through the dry times.”Credit:Janie Barrett
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Water flows into sections of Gayini which have been largely dry since 2016. Gayini is a 87,816 hectare property owned and managed by its Traditional Custodians the Nari Nari Tribal Council. Credit:Brook Mitchell
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Fruiting Yuzu trees at Buck’s Farm in Chillingham, northern NSW.Credit:Elise Derwin
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Swimmers cool off at Bondi Beach jumping into the water from flat rock, Sydney, 12 January 2021. Credit:Jessica Hromas
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Mona Vale ocean pool before dawn. 23 July, 2021.Credit:Nick Moir
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He’s one of Australia’s most celebrated chefs, with a drug-fuelled backstory to rival that of Anthony Bourdain, a staunch commitment to Indigenous ingredients and a Scottish gift for storytelling. But is the Jock Zonfrillo tale too incredible to be true?Credit:Nic Walker
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Former attorney-general Christian Porter will quit federal politics at the next election having fallen from future leadership aspirant to backbench MP within 12 months after the fallout from historical rape allegations and secret donations to fund his legal bills.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
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Grace Tame, an activist, an advocate for survivors of sexual assault. Tame was named 2021 Australian of the Year. Credit:Adam Gibson
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Lightweight Boxing Champion George Kambosos arrives in Sydney after his victorious fight against favoured opponent Teofimo Lopez. December 9, 2021. Credit:James Alcock
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Toomelah Local Aboriginal Land Council board member and Gomaroi elder Elaine Edwards outside her home. Younger unvaccinated members of the community rely on double-dosed elders, like Elaine Edwards, to do their essential shopping. Standing at her rickety front gate, the 68-year-old says she’s excited to cross the border for the first time in four months. But she’s also nervous.Credit:Rhett Wyman
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A man swims with seagulls at Clovelly Beach. 19th February. 2021 Credit:Janie Barrett
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Schoolies week in Byron Bay.Credit:Natalie Grono
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Anzac Day march, Sydney. 25th April 2021. Credit:Edwina Pickles
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Youth activist and campaigner Natasha Abhayawickrama, 17, at Kenthurst Park. 24th September 2021. Natasha said the pandemic has forced organisers to think creatively about how to get their message across in a COVID-safe way. “You cannot recreate marching in street with tens of thousands of other people, but there will be small COVID-safe gatherings keeping up the pressure,” she said. “The climate movement hasn’t got as much traction as much as it did in 2019.Credit:Louise Kennerley
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Messages from the people to the people on a highway in Beirut, August 30 2021. Credit:Carmen Yahchouchi for SMH
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Issa Khalil Bilal is 9 years old and has spent almost 9 months between home and the hospital his mother said. Issa’s parents must drive 85 kilometres from Tripoli to the hospital every three days to treat his failing kidneys, so every second day his father queues for hours to spend £LB250,000 on petrol.Credit:Carmen Yahchouchi
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his wife Jenny Morrison visit Hillcrest Primary School on Saturday morning to pay their respect to the six children, students of the school – who died on Thursday in a jumping castle incident during end of year celebrations.Credit:James Brickwood
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School teacher Stephanie Lentz was sacked at a Christian school in January this year due to her sexuality. Her sacking was perfectly legal under state and federal laws, which give religious organisations including government-funded evangelical schools exemption from anti-discrimination legislation. But as the federal government prepares to introduce the third draft of its contentious Religious Discrimination Bill to Parliament later this year, LGBTQ staff and students fear yet worse treatment. “Australian law already allows the kind of discrimination that got me sacked for what I believe and who I am,” says Lentz, who has gone public for the first time about her dismissal from Covenant in Sydney’s north-east. “The new bill will only reinforce that religious schools can continue to discriminate with outdated, stagnant views and processes.”Credit:Kate Geraghty
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Christmas Lights on Robertswood Ave, Blaxland. Credit:Wolter Peeters
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Toomelah resident Sharon Duncan, 46, is a mother of nine and grandmother of seven – including three babies. All but one of her children and grandchildren live under her roof. She’s fiercely protective of them, and like too many in the community, doesn’t trust the vaccine. Because of that, her Toomelah household is unvaccinated, and the only way she’s been able to get baby food, wipes, fresh food and cleaning products is to have her sister in Goondiwindi pass groceries through a hole in the hurricane fencing on a footbridge across the river.Credit:Louise Kennerley
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Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet address the media about further easing of COVID-19 restrictions for indoor venues, pubs and clubs at The Mercantile Hotel on St Patrick’s Day. Credit:Rhett Wyman
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Minister for Sport Natalie Ward arrives with John Holland CEO Joe Barr, and Member for Vaucluse Gabrielle Upton, for a construction update on the Sydney Football Stadium at Moore Park in Sydney. December 13th, 2021. Credit:Dylan Coker
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A worker on one of the two roadheaders waves the Australian flag moments after smashing through sandstone connecting two sections of the M4-M5 Link. Having slowly burrowed towards each other deep below Sydney’s inner west for more than two years, two roadheaders have broken through the last section of limestone to connect the missing link in the city’s multibillion-dollar WestConnex motorway. Scores of workers were on hand to witness the breakthrough more than 50 metres below Newtown on Friday, connecting the M4 corridor at Haberfield with the M5 and M8 WestConnex tunnels at St Peters.Credit:Kate Geraghty
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Koranis (Micky) Weerachaiyong designed his own flamboyant outfit “This year, I have created huge wings of fabric and colour feathers, decorated with glittering sequins and different colour beads spread over the front and back. In addition, there will be heart shapes, circles and free forms all surrounded by little flowers. The SCG was awash with rainbow flags and sequins at this year’s Mardi Gras.
6th March 2021
Credit:Steven Siewert
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Planning is under way to create a new theatre district centred on Sydney’s George Street and Haymarket in the tradition of London’s West End and New York’s Broadway. The NSW government has been identifying old picture palaces and other properties ripe for conversion while quietly talking to theatre owners and producers about what it will take to snatch Melbourne’s mantle as Australia’s cultural capital. Live Performance Australia has facilitated roundtable meetings between the nation’s leading theatre players and Create Infrastructure, a division of the government’s arts agency.Credit:Wolter Peeters
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Jason and Sarah Cielo with their three children have been unable to cross the QLD border, they were heading to Cairns for work and to buy a home. They missed the border crossing by two hours on 24th July 2021 and have been staying at Moree Showground. Credit:Louise Kennerley
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A resident of St Georges Caravan park along the Hawkesbury River stands on building remnants as the remains of his home and many others are slowly swept away. Credit:Nick Moir
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Snow falls in Blackheath as a deepening low-pressure system moves offshore. As of 5pm on Tuesday, the city’s top of 10.2 degrees had Sydney on track for its coldest day since 1984 and its coldest August day since 1962.Credit:Wolter Peeters
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Peter Heggie, 64, from Thornleigh near Hornsby is a carer for his wife Leah, who has several diagnosed mental illnesses. In 2020, Mr Heggie was cut off from a support service for carers, his regular psychology sessions were no longer face to face, and he was unable to see friends. Over time he grew emotionally unwell, feeling tired and flat and prone to over-reacting to small things. “I’m just trying to get by day by day, but the mental resources are not there, they’ve been wound back,” he said.Credit:Wolter Peeters
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Singer songwriter Martha Marlow at Gordons Bay. She is the artist approved by Randy Newman to sing “Feels Like Home” in the Qantas ad. Marlow has a debilitating illness which has caused many delays in her first album which is finally coming out after 5 years. Credit:Louie Douvis
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Locals at Waverley Cemetery use the cemetery for exercise. August 18, 2021.
Credit:Nick Moir
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Former Prime Minister Paul Keating in his Potts Point office.Credit:Louie Douvis
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Australian boxer Tim Tszyu. Like his father, hall-of-famer Kostya, Tszyu is hungry for success. The plan is to rule the super-welterweight division by taking out its champions before the get to make their own step up in weight.Credit:Nick Moir
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison visits Destro’s Pharmacy in Drummoyne. 10th Dec 2021. Credit:Edwina Pickles
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Sydney Kings player Biwali Bayles at The Block. Biwali is a rising Indigenous basketball star, who grew up in The Block at Redfern. He wants to be an inspiration for people coming from the area. Credit:Edwina Pickles
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Former Prime Minister John Howard in his office, Sydney CBD. Credit:Louie Douvis
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Dancer and choreographer Lucky Lartey dances on a cricket pitch at Beaman Park in Earlwood during lockdown in Sydney on September 7, 2021. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
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Fashion show – Resort 22 Collection at the overseas passenger terminal.Credit:Dean Sewell
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Moshing to band “Speakin of Which” at the Old Manly Boatshed, Saturday, 22 May 2021. Credit:Sam Mooy
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Plans for a sunny summer full of hot days lazing on the beach are far less likely now that a La Nina weather pattern has taken hold over the Pacific Ocean, bringing a stream of wet easterly trade winds to Australia’s eastern seaboard. The Bureau of Meteorology declared on November 23 that a La Nina event was in full swing, with climate scientists saying it would bring cooler temperatures, more rainy days and higher risks of extreme weather.Credit:Janie Barrett
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101 years old fisherman Santo La Macchia with his son Bobbie La Macchia on their fishing boat ‘Joyce’. Photographed in Pittwater where they fish around Broken Bay. Santo still comes out to fish with Bobbie. Credit:James Brickwood
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Fay Elzein baking, Elzein Baker, Arncliffe, Rockdale LGA during Sydney’s lockdown.Credit:Louise Kennerley
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison leaves a press conference on Covid-19 in Australia, at Kirribilli House in Sydney. 9th July 2021.Credit:Janie Barrett
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A crowd gathers as boats sail past the Hornby Lighthouse at South Head during the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on Dec 26, 2021.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone
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A severe storm outbreak producing giant hail cover an area north of Bourke.
Flooding and violent storms have been the theme of the year, a huge contrast to 2019.
Credit:Nick Moir
Photos of of the year by The Sydney Morning Herald photographers
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