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Refugees and migrants aboard the Golfo Azzurro after being rescued off the Libyan coast

Photographer of the year: we shortlist the best of 2017

This article is more than 6 years old

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, bombed-out buildings in Syria and an anti-Trump march in New York are among the images captured by the agency photographers shortlisted by the Guardian picture desk this year. The winner will be announced on 21 December

by Guardian picture desk

From photojournalism in conflict zones and refugee camps to reactive news, politics, and feature work, the shortlist for agency photographer of the year 2017 scratches only the surface of the breathtaking work seen by the Guardian’s picture desk over the past 12 months.

More than 10,000 images come into the picture system from agencies on a daily basis. In addition to the daily run of galleries, the weekly From the Agencies series is where we display photo stories by individual news photographers. The winner of the agency photographer of the year 2017 competition will be revealed on 21 December.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rodrigo Abd is an Associated Press staff photographer based in Lima, Peru. He works across Latin America.

  • Right: A child holds a bowl of hot food at the Avila family home in Coata, a small village on the shore of Lake Titicaca, in the Puno region of Peru.
  • Workers aboard a bus wait to go home in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. The Mexican state is across the border from Brownsville, Texas
  • Haitian Marie Mirlande Caceus with her sons, Miguel and Lilliam, and family friend, three-year-old Ryan, in Tijuana, Mexico. Right: Rudy Espiriya and his three-year-old son Dayiro Tahuara in the Sinakara Valley, in Peru’s Cusco region, during the Qoyllur Rit’i festival.
Zohra Bensemra

Zohra Bensemra is an Algerian photographer working in the Middle East and north Africa. She covers conflicts, humanitarian issues, politics and stories about women for Reuters.

  • Rohingya refugees queue to get food near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
  • Bombed-out buildings in the old city of Raqqa, Syria, after clashes with Islamic State.
  • France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, waves at onlookers as he walks with Algeria’s senate president, Abdelkader Bensalah, in Algiers.
Hannah McKay

Hannah McKay is a staff photographer for Reuters. She is based in London and has covered British politics, the London Bridge terror attacks and travelled to Bangladesh to capture the plight of Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar.

  • People react as police attend an incident near London Bridge in the centre of the capital, UK
  • Theresa May arrives at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London after a van was driven at Muslims. Right: A resident is evacuated from the Taplow Tower in north London after concerns over the type of cladding used on the building.
  • Theresa May discards a fake P45 termination of employment letter she was handed by a delegate. The British prime minister was speaking at the Conservative party conference in Manchester.
Kevin Frayer

Kevin Frayer is an award-winning photojournalist based in Beijing covering Asia for Getty Images. He is regularly featured in our From the Agencies series.

  • A teenage girl from the Long Horn Miao ethnic group has makeup applied as she and her friends prepare to celebrate the tiaohua (flower) festival. The event is part of lunar new year festivities in Longga village, Guizhou province, southern China.
  • A Rohingya boy cries as he clambers on to a truck distributing aid for a local NGO, near the Balukali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
  • Ethnic Uighurs watch a laser and water show as part of a local government tourism development in the old town of Kashgar in Xinjiang province, China.
Stephanie Keith

Stephanie Keith is based in Brooklyn, New York, and has photographed news and features for Reuters and Getty Images this year.

  • Kandy Freeman takes part in a Black Lives Matter protest outside Trump Tower in New York City on 14 January.
  • Protesters at a Women’s March against Donald Trump in New York City on 21 January.
  • Donald Trump Jr arrives at Trump Tower. Right: A White Lives Matter rally in Tennessee in October.
  • A woman holds a duck at the Easter Parade and Bonnet festival on 5th Avenue, New York City, in April.
David Ramos

David Ramos is based in Barcelona for Getty Images. From the migrants story off the coast of Libya to the constitutional crisis in Catalonia and summer festivals, his work is featured regularly in the Guardian.

  • Women wearing traditional Sevillana dresses enjoy the atmosphere at the Feria de Abril (April Fair) in Seville.
  • Refugees and migrants on the deck of the Spanish NGO vessel Golfo Azzurro. They are sailing towards the Italian port of Pozzallo after being rescued off the Libyan coast north of Sabratha in February. Rescuers saved 466 migrants in high seas.
  • People demonstrate on a Spanish Guardia Civil car as officers search the Catalan vice-president’s office in Barcelona. Right: police move in on people queuing outside a polling station to prevent them from voting in the independence referendum.
Allison Joyce

Allison Joyce is a Boston-born photojournalist based in Mumbai, India, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been covering the unfolding humanitarian crisis of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh extensively for Getty Images.

  • Roshida Begum, 22, fled to Bangladesh from Tula Toli village in Myanmar.
  • Recently-arrived Rohingya refugees queue for aid in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
How Hwee Young

Singaporean photojournalist How Hwee Young is EPA’s Beijing-based chief photographer for the China region.

  • A Chinese couple kiss as they play games on a cruise organised by the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays China as the ship leaves Sasebo in Nagasaki, Japan.
  • Hosts take selfies on Tiananmen Square before the closing ceremony of the 19th Communist party congress in Beijing, in October
Yasuyoshi Chiba

Yasuyoshi Chiba works for Agence France-Presse in Nairobi, Kenya. He has covered stories in Brazil and Japan, where he is from, over the course of the year.

  • Exclusive members of the Jockey Club hippodrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  • Eiji Ohmatsudani of the Sasa-ren leading dancers on a street during the Awa Odori festival in Tokushima, 13 August.
  • Supporters of Raila Odinga, the National Super Alliance presidential candidate, react after an election rerun, in Kisumu, Kenya, in October. Right: Effie Wambui, dressed as Jotaro Kujo from the Japanese manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, at a cosplay contest in Nairobi
Jim Watson

Jim Watson is a staff photojournalist based in Washington for Agence France-Presse. Over the past 12 months, he has covered events at the White House, general news and sport.

  • A border fence stretching through Nogales in Arizona and Nogales in Mexico. The image is part of a photo project documenting life on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
  • Donald Trump sits in the driver’s seat of a vehicle as he welcomes truckers and CEOs to the White House. Right: The US president at a roundtable with female small business owners.
  • Demonstrators chant during a #NoMuslimBanEver rally on 18 October.

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