Welcome to the Herald’s annual Photos of the Year.
Every year the photographic team select their favourite 20 images from our 12 full-time photographers, as well as a core group of six casual photographers.
For the first time, a panel of four judges – editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Bevan Shields, NSW State Librarian Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon, Powerhouse senior curator Sarah Rees and a photographer-at-large (who has no connection with this masthead but wishes to remain anonymous for professional reasons) – will select a Photo of the Year from this shortlist of 20 images.
Readers can also select their favourite (in a poll at the end of this article).
The final selection will be published on Thursday, December 28.
It’s been a momentous year for photography, with our coverage stretching from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Indigenous Voice referendum, the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case and state elections to the worst natural disasters across our nation.
The Herald is one of the few media organisations in Australia, and indeed worldwide, maintaining a commitment to coverage of these events by staff photographers.
It follows a long and proud tradition: the first Herald photograph, taken by George Bell, appeared in the newspaper in 1908.
Since that time, our images have seared themselves into the national memory and, in some cases, shaped the national consciousness, as former editor Max Prisk once wrote.
Take, Russell McPhedran’s world exclusive pictures from the 1972 Munich Olympics of the Palestinian gunmen who kidnapped the Israeli team, leading to 17 deaths including 11 Israeli athletes and officials.
Or John O’Gready’s mud-caked rugby league players, known as The Gladiators, which became the inspiration for the NRL’s premiership trophy.
Or Mervyn Bishops’s portrait of prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975 pouring sand into the hand of traditional landowner Vincent Lingiari.
The 2023 Photos of the Year list is a small gesture honouring that history, but it is an even larger statement of intent to keep showcasing the world’s best images for our readers.
INSTA INFERNO
Spectators take images on their phones of firefighters, police and emergency services personnel responding to a large building fire at Surry Hills on May 25, 2023.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
BORED
Sonny, 10, and Emmanuel, 7, play in the backyard of their Kingsford home on April 5, 2023. Their mother Tracey Adamson is part of a collective of parents, known as the Heads Up Alliance, who have agreed to delay their children’s use of social media and internet on their phones until they are 14.Credit: Jessica Hromas
GOOD LIFT
Then-NSW premier Dominic Perrottet takes the goods lift after a live debate against then-opposition leader Chris Minns in the Channel Nine studios on March 15, 2023, during the state election campaign.Credit: James Brickwood
WENDY
Trailblazing broadcaster, comedian and author Wendy Harmer at her Collaroy home on October 23, 2023, as part of the publicity surrounding the release of her memoir Lies My Mirror Told Me.Credit: James Brickwood
UNCOMFORTABLE
Indigenous members of the audience make their feelings known before opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, addresses the National Press Club in Canberra on September 14, 2023, ahead of the Voice referendum. In the audience are prominent Coalition figures Barnaby Joyce, Michaelia Cash and Bridget McKenzie.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
2 KMS
Perchya, 61, shows her distress on October 19, 2023, as she wants to leave Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, which has faced persistent missile attacks from Hezbollah for the past 36 years. She lives alone in an apartment with no safe room, no bars on the windows and no one to look after her. Because her home is four kilometres from the border, rather than two kilometres, she has not yet been entitled to government-funded emergency accommodation.Credit: Kate Geraghty.
WELCOME STORM
An unidentified woman celebrates the arrival of a summer thunderstorm sweeping over Clovelly on February 10, 2023.Credit: Brook Mitchell
CRAZY HAIR DAY
The first day of Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation trial against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, pictured.Credit: Steven Siewert
WAITING ROOM
At home in Bondi on July 26, 2023, Cathy Csergo, 85, whose son Alex Csergo was arrested and accused of foreign interference on behalf of Chinese spy agencies. Alex was the second person to have been charged under the 2018 espionage laws.Credit: Kate Geraghty
SYNCHRONISED
Swimmers cool off at Clovelly on September 17, 2023, during an unexpected early summer heatwave that hit Sydney.Credit: Brook Mitchell
TWINS
A double lightning strike hits the Western Plains of NSW near Nyngan, as storms swept the region on November 24, 2023.Credit: Nick Moir
BUS TRAGEDY
Bus driver Brett Button, accused of causing the deaths of 10 people and injuring 25 others in one of the country’s worst road accidents, leaves Cessnock police station after a bail hearing on June 13, 2023. Button, who has not entered a plea, remains before the courts.Credit: Janie Barrett
NICO
NRL star Nicho Hynes, the Cronulla Sharks halfback, poses ahead of the 2023 finals series on September 6, 2023.Credit: Steven Siewert
WAR AND PRAYER
An armed man takes a photo of a boy moments before praying together at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on October 24, 2023.Credit: Kate Geraghty
PRIDE
A reveller takes part in a once-in-a-lifetime closure of Oxford Street in Sydney as part of the WorldPride celebrations on March 4, 2023.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
TRACK WORK
Horse trainer James Cummings runs his eye over his charges at the Godolphin stables at Osborne Park in north-west Sydney ahead of the Queen Elizabeth Stakes on March 30, 2023.Credit: Louise Kennerley
RED CASINO
A volunteer firefighter with an RFS strike team deployed to the Bean Creek and Capeen Mountain fires, north-west of Casino, in the NSW Northern Rivers, on October 20, 2023.Credit: Nick Moir
TANKS
An Israeli tank fires a round during the Gaza conflict on October 16, 2023.Credit: Kate Geraghty.
MESSAGE WINDOW
A hole in a door in an old car park that runs parallel to a platform at Sydney’s Wynyard station gives an intimate glimpse of a train passenger looking at his phone.Credit: Brook Mitchell
SAINT SUE
NSW Greens politician Sue Higginson, a former public interest environment lawyer, on May 29, 2023, after voicing her support for the release of Kathleen Folbigg from jail. Folbigg’s conviction for killing her four young children was quashed in December after she spent two decades in prison.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
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