11 Incredible Photo Stories You Absolutely Can’t Miss

Kate Bubacz's roundup of images from the recent suspected chemical attack on Syrian civilians is difficult to view, but it's a must. The tremendous amount of pain, death, and suffering of these people, many of whom are infants and children, is on view right here in plain sight. Have a look at these images and ruminate on what you've seen.

—Gabriel H. Sanchez, photo essay editor, BuzzFeed News

Mario Tama’s images from Canada and Greenland are mesmerizing expanses of blue and white, capturing the remoteness of the north. The only humans seen in the images are in aircraft or research stations, as far removed from the landscape as astronauts in space. The Atlantic edit allows the viewer the luxury of seeing without narrating too much, so that one feels a sense of wonder at the unknown.

—Kate Bubacz, senior photo editor, BuzzFeed News

James Friedman’s work in the Huffington Post is a moving elegy to his late mother. The photos showing her life and eventual death from cigarettes are unflinching in both love and warning. The series shifts from glamour shots of her youth to images of her ill in the hospital without regard for chronology, allowing a greater understanding of Dorothy and of her relationship with her son.

—K.B.

Childbirth can be pretty damn messy. BuzzFeed's parents editor Mike Spohr highlights the most beautiful birth pictures of 2017 that celebrate the miracle of childbirth and prove once again that women are the strongest organisms on planet Earth (as if we needed proof).

—G.H.S.

As you scroll from portrait to portrait in Myriam Meloni's collection of Georgian child brides, you can't help but wonder at the thoughts behind their wistful expressions. In a country like ours, where feminism has a stronghold, it's jarring to see such young girls entering into matrimony and motherhood before they've even graduated high school. Do they have dreams that don't involve being at the service of others? If they do, is there any recourse for such aspirations? One of the most striking images shows the child of a child bride hiding her face in a blanket as if to escape the reality that may be her own in 12 years' time.

—Laura Geiser, photo editor, BuzzFeed News

The first photo alone is enough to hook you to this series: WHY is there a bear by the dumpster?! It’s bizarre to me personally since we don’t have native bears in Australia. But what’s really intriguing about Laurent Geslin’s “Urban Wildlife” project is that not a lot of us are conscious that we share our cities with animals that aren’t pets or in zoos. Just like some human beings, these wildlife are native-born and raised in the urban landscape. And I just love how Geslin photographed these dwellers the same way he’d treat an animal in, say, a safari.

—Anna Mendoza, photo editor, BuzzFeed Australia

We’ve seen the photos of soldiers eyeballing each other at the Demilitarized Zone of the Koreas so, so many times that we forget the hermit kingdom shares a border with another country. These photos show how the Chinese border looks and how different it is from South Korea’s. It’s fascinating (and saddening) to see a city that once had a glimmer of potential and how political breakdowns can get in the way of these plans. Unfortunately for North Korea, everything, even an ordinary citizen’s life, all boils down to politics.

—A.M.

Jeanine Michna-Bales' work in the New York Times brings to life the Underground Railroad in a way that is evocative and complex. The landscapes feel weighted with emotion as they are seen in series rather than as individual images, the progression from the South to the North subtly noticed in shifts in geographical elements.

—K.B.

Time's coverage of Smita Sharma's photo essay "It's Not My Shame" forces the viewer to engage with the crisis that is India's rape and victim-blaming culture. Smita delicately photographs rape survivors. She's careful to keep them semi-obscured, often in darkness, which preserves their anonymity but also metaphorically hints at the pall of their violent encounters. There are also photographs of mothers whose daughters did not survive. Their rapes and murders were brutal. The details are laid bare next to each portrait without any effort to advise viewer discretion. When detailing the systematic violation of human rights one should never be discreet.

—L.G.

Here are the most moving, sorrowful, and beautiful pictures from the past week.