Towards the end of each year, we embark on the process of creating our Editorial Year Review collection, rediscovering some of the very best pictures from throughout the year (as well as some we’ve never seen before).
Where to Begin?
We have to decide on the content we want to feature. We know we want to share the most stunning and impactful images from the year, but that’s an ambiguous ask. With such a broad customer base, this roundup must cater to all of their needs––whether that’s a customer wanting the best, most comprehensive sports content or a publication wanting an edit of the very best ten editorial images of the year, regardless of genre.
How Is the Content Arranged?
Rather than compiling the most remarkable images in one page, we set about breaking down the specific content we want to feature in detail.
Here, we have attempted to cater to as many audiences as possible by offering curations across Entertainment, News, Sports, Fashion, Obituaries, Quirky, and Royal. But the craziness that was 2020 prompted us to offer event-specific curations on the stories that dominated the headlines— including the novel coronavirus, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the U.S. Presidential Election, and one we always feature, although it feels like a lifetime ago, Awards Season.
These genre-specific images are further broken down by month, and we also feature a monthly roundup of all genres grouped together.
Summarizing this year is no easy feat. However, we’ve curated the Editorial Year in Review collection to highlight the very best images of the year, regardless of the genre. Explore the Top 200, Top 50, and Top 10 stand-out moments of 2020.
Here’s our 2020 review in ninety seconds:
Let’s see how we approached our Editorial Collection of the Year.
Keywords and Editors’ Picks
“Editors’ Picks” is a category used to showcase the top editorial photography on the Shutterstock Editorial platform. We ask each of the editors to apply this term to images that they feel are of exceptional quality. This is highly useful since the Editor’s Picks selection forms the backbone of our Editorial Year in Review.
Images featuring this phrase highlight the richness of Shutterstock’s Editorial content, with editors selecting noteworthy imagery from current events and cultural moments.
Some of our key partners, such as EPA and AP, curate their own premium content by using a similar keyword phrase.
Pre-made curations
Throughout the year, our editorial team produces daily curations for our customers. We house these curations in a central document and use them to augment our Editors’ Picks selection.
Contributors and Editorial Team
We ask our highly-skilled Editorial team for their favorite images of the year. On top of this, we asked our Staff Photographers and some key contributors for their personal favorites.
Once all this content is gathered, we start to break it down and split it into genres, events, and months.
For this year’s review, we have featured seventy-six galleries of images. These galleries are then individually assessed: How thorough is it? Is it lacking key material? Is it too heavy in one specific topic/genre?
Our Editorial team has been invaluable in the creation of this page. It’s reassuring to be able to ask any of them to find “the best entertainment pictures from June” or “the most interesting images from the BAFTA Film Awards,” and know that it’ll be done to the exact standard we require.
Once the content is primed and ready, we start producing the web page.
Best Of’s
The 2020 Year Review page features over 11,300 images, and by the end of December, it may reach 12,500. All of these images are ones we consider to be above average. From this selection, we produced a Top 200, and from there selected a Top 50, then a Top 10.
This year has been dominated by major news stories––we could have chosen 200 images alone from the nights of protests that followed the death of George Floyd. Each of the images from those nights could be considered “better” than the selected image of a worker laying out rows and rows of incense sticks (below), however, we wanted to feature a breadth of image type and genre.
What Makes a Great Picture?
A great image could be outstanding for many reasons, including relevance and topicality, technical quality, subject matter, and emotional impact.
An image will resonate differently depending on who’s looking at it. If a person can define why they think an image is great, for whatever reason, then we’re not one to argue.
For our Top 10 images of the year, we took into account the year as a whole, selecting images that were considered significant. You could say that significant images are those that are timeless, make you feel something, and for some reason, you can’t stop looking at.
Burning buildings in Minneapolis, the celebrating cast of Parasite, emotion etched on the faces of the nurses during the “applause for essential workers,” the simplicity of the message “I Can’t Breath[e]” on the mask of a protester, and the new normal of socially distanced circles––here are the images that tell the story of 2020.
Remarkable Moments in 2020
Let’s take a look at the moments that will stay in our memories when this year is over:
In conclusion, 2020 has been a year like no other. We have documented it well within our editorial image collection. Browse by genres, editors’ selection, month, and stories of interest.
Cover image via Khanh Phan/Solent News/Shutterstock.
Find even more of the people and events that inspired us this year: