December 30, 2024
Over the past four decades, I’ve had the great privilege of traveling on assignment for the Monitor to seven continents, 90 countries, and 49 states (sorry, North Dakota, I’ll get to work on that!). At the start of my career, I sometimes felt like Dorothy in Oz – untethered from my regular life and overwhelmed by all that was new.
But something funny happened. The more unfamiliarity I saw, the less different it seemed. My goal, then as now, was to bring home photographs that told stories. And gradually, the images I made seemed less about how far away and exotic those locations are than about the people I met in them, people not so different from you and me, people whose hopes and dreams are powerfully similar to our own.
This year, as it happens, my favorite photos bear that out. They come from close to where I live – as close as next door – proving you don’t have to go far to make photographs that touch you. I was moved by neighbor girls enjoying juicy watermelon ... a new American citizen proudly pledging allegiance for the first time ... pig yoga, in which most participants had more fun petting piglets than doing the downward dog ... an old barn framed by fall leaves.
Beautiful things are all around us if we stay curious and keep looking – even in places we pass every day, even if we’ve been around the world. Dorothy might have been right. Sometimes, there really is “no place like home.”
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
The other photos that I loved in 2024 are below.
Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy.
JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, CALIF.: Migrants who have crossed from Mexico walk into the United States before being detained by border agents, April 1.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, CALIF.: Sam Schultz, who gives humanitarian aid to migrants, stands at the border wall with Mexico, April 1.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
NEW YORK: Salomé, an artist, singer, actor, and music teacher, sits in the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in the East Village, where she plays the organ, May 24.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
BOSTON: Linda Smith speaks about the loss of her son, Dre’shaun Johnson, near The Gun Violence Memorial Project at City Hall, Oct. 9. M
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
BOSTON: Garry Monteiro stands on the stairs of 140 Clarendon, the Back Bay building that became his home after he had lived in shelters for two years, Jan. 26.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
WINCHESTER, MASS.: Blacksmith Jim Curry (right) turns guns into jewelry and tools at The Parish of the Epiphany, Oct. 6.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
KEENESBURG, COLO.: Mobo the tiger sticks his head out of his shelter into the warm sun at The Wild Animal Sanctuary, Nov. 10.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: Lynn Rosenbaum (from left), Sam Whyte, and Patti Gurekian introduce themselves via song in a CircleSinging session at St. Mary Orthodox Church, Aug. 18.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA: Paul Lalonde, an interpretive officer for Parks Canada, appears in costume at the Habitation, a replica of an original French settlement, Sept. 19
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
NEW YORK: A rose grows in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, Aug. 27.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
NORTH OF KRAMER JUNCTION, CALIF.: Goldfields (Lasthenia gracilis) and purple scorpion weed (Phacelia crenulata) cover the ground in the Mojave Desert, April 3.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.: Tour guide Emily Fretwell interacts with Pietro the steer at Farm Sanctuary, which rescues and provides refuge for farm animals, June 10.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.: Rescued goats nuzzle each other at Farm Sanctuary, June 10.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
BOSTON: Harbor seal Amelia, who is 39, gets her teeth brushed by senior trainer Alainna Chretien at the New England Aquarium, Nov. 21.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Click here to explore all of our favorite photos.