The 10 Best Photo Essays of the Month

2 minute read

This month’s Photojournalism Links collection highlights 10 excellent photo essays from around the world, including Rubén Salgado Escudero‘s stunning portraits of people using solar lanterns in India, Myanmar, and Uganda. The pictures, made on assignment for National Geographic magazine’s new climate change issue, demonstrate how the clean-energy lights are transforming lives in places where there’s no access to the electricity grid.

Rubén Salgado Escudero: How Solar Lanterns Are Giving Power to the People (National Geographic)

Alex Majoli: A Tragedy Unfolds on Lesvos (The New Yorker Photo Booth) The Magnum photographer’s stark, flash-lit black-and-white pictures offer a different visual take on the refugee and migrant crisis on the Greek Island.

Mauricio Lima and Sergey Ponomarev: A Family Swept Up in the Migrant Tide (The New York Times) Their powerful photographs document a Syrian refugee family’s journey through Europe. | See more photos on the Lens blog

James Nachtwey: The Journey of Hope (TIME LightBox) Great pictures by TIME’s veteran contract photographer, who followed migrants and refugees from Lesbos to the Balkans.

Josh Haner: Greenland Is Melting Away (The New York Times) These striking stills and footage, made using a drone, show the very real effects of climate change. | See also the Times Insider piece about the challenges of using the drone in the harsh conditions.

Ciril Jazbec: How Melting Ice Changes One Country’s Way of Life (National Geographic) These compelling pictures capture how climate change is changing the lives of Greenland’s hunting communities.

Maria Turchenkova: Bearing Witness to the Victims of Yemen’s ‘Forgotten War’ (TIME LightBox) Turchenkova’s photographs highlight a conflict that continues to receive far too little attention.

Lorenzo Tugnoli: A Libyan Militia Confronts the World’s Migrant Crisis (The Washington Post) Fascinating story of Libya’s northernmost city, Zuwarah,which is trying to close down a smuggling route to Italy.

Andrew Quilty: Inside the MSF Hospital in Kunduz (Foreign Policy) Quilty presents devastating pictures from inside the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital hit by a U.S. attack.

Ruth McDowall: The Young Survivors of Boko Haram (The New Yorker Photo Booth) Portraits and searing testimonies of young Nigerian Boko Haram survivors.

Mikko Takkunen is TIME.com’s International Photo Editor. Follow him on Twitter @photojournalism.

Solar power
From the November issue of National Geographic magazine: How Solar Lanterns Are Giving Power to the PeopleAt a brick kiln in India's rural state of Uttar Pradesh, workers use solar lanterns to illuminate their paths.Rubén Salgado Escudero—National Geographic
Majoli migrants refugees
The New Yorker Photo Booth: A Tragedy Unfolds on LesvosRefugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia arrive on the northern shores of Lesvos after their journey from the Turkish coast. Lesvos, Greece, 2015.Alex Majoli—Magnum
Mauricio Lima migrants
The New York Times: A Family Swept Up in the Migrant TideRojin Shikho, center, wife of Farid Majid, sleeps with her daughter, Widad, among other relatives in a wheat field as they wait to cross barbed wire from Horgos, Serbia, into Hungary, Aug. 31, 2015.Mauricio Lima—The New York Times/Redux
Nachtwey migrants refugees
TIME LightBox: The Journey of HopeA man walks with his son behind him as they make their way to the train station in Tovarnik, Croatia, on the border with Serbia. In the Balkans, many migrants began traveling by foot, echoing more ancient journeys, Sept. 17, 2015.James Nachtwey for TIME
Greenland
The New York Times: Greenland Is Melting AwayMeltwater flows along a supraglacial river on the Greenland ice sheet, July 19, 2015. Josh Haner—The New York Times/Redux
Greenland
From the November issue of National Geographic magazine: How Melting Ice Changes One Country’s Way of Life Albert Lukassen’s world is melting around him. When the 64-year-old Inuit man was young, he could hunt by dogsled on the frozen Uummannaq Fjord, on Greenland’s west coast, until June. This photo shows him there in April. Ciril Jazbec—National Geographic
Yemen
TIME LightBox: Bearing Witness to the Victims of Yemen’s ‘Forgotten War’A man stands in a shelter dug in the ground in Rahban, on the outskirts of Saada City, the Houthi stronghold where the rebel movement was founded in northern Yemen, Aug. 26, 2015.Maria Turchenkova
Libya militants smuggling
The Washington Post: A Libyan Militia Confronts the World’s Migrant Crisis Members of the Black Masks, a militia that is trying to shut down the local smuggling business, drive through Zuwarah.Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post
Kunduz MSF hospital Afghanistan
Foreign Policy: Inside the MSF Hospital in KunduzThe remains of a bed frame in a room on eastern wing of the main Outpatient Department building.Andrew Quilty—Oculi
Boko haram survivors
The New Yorker Photo Booth: The Young Survivors of Boko HaramMairama. “Boko Haram attacked my village and came to my house in the night of September 30, 2013. I was sent to a camp in the Gwoza hills, where I spent three weeks. I would fetch water and cook for the insurgents and spent a lot of time sad and crying. They arranged for me to marry, but I refused to sleep with the man, so he threatened he would kill me next time. One night, a wife of one of the commanders showed the path to escape, so me and two other girls spent two days walking and running through the bush until we reached a safe city. It was just the grace of God that saved me. I am now back in school and would like to become a nurse one day.”Ruth McDowall

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