Peter Zelewski’s extensive body of work with identical twins is an incredible study of biology. By taking the twins out of any personalized environment and having them in identical clothing, the viewer is able to see beyond the similarities, to the subtle differences that make each set of twins two completely separate individuals, which is how many struggle to be seen.
—Laura Geiser, senior photo editor, BuzzFeed News
Filled with overwhelming, colorful GIFs, this story gives me SUCH anxiety related to social media and influencers, but it effectively captures the madness of popularity in the times that we live in. The entire piece is a gem of see-and-be-seen — plus pasta — so you can’t really go wrong.
—Kate Bubacz, deputy photo director, BuzzFeed News
Bec Martin's exploration of early adulthood is raw and real, and everything from her approach to her style just clicks. The portraits show us how photography is really about everything around the mere clicking of a camera — it's about building relationships with your subject and environment, and about finding the technical and mental methods that work for you so the viewer can understand the story by just looking at the result.
—Anna Mendoza, photo editor, BuzzFeed Australia
There's nothing quite like that special bond between a loyal dog and its faithful owner. This lighthearted and witty photo series pokes fun at our furry amigos by illustrating the stereotype that the more time people spend with their dogs, the more they begin to resemble them. These pictures are guaranteed to put a smile on your face — whether it resembles your dog's or not.
—Gabriel H. Sanchez, photo essay editor, BuzzFeed News
Ice diving isn't for everyone, but for Viktor Lyagushkin it's a big and wild world that's ripe for exploring. It seems that everything operates differently in the deep Arctic waters — from how one photographs to how the local life moves. These pictures offer plenty of organisms that look alien to most people, even comical. Lyagushkin's work gives a true sense of discovery, that there's so much of our own world that we don't know, but also the realization that there may be species from the past that ceased to exist before we could discover them.
—A.M.
With prison reform a current topic lately, this Mother Jones photo essay of Bruce Jackson's work at Cummins prison farm is quite timely. Jackson's friendly connection to the commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Corrections gave him fairly unadulterated access to Cummins, allowing Jackson to capture an intimate depiction of life in a Southern prison in the 1970s. Here we see relics of a prison system before federal reforms in 1980, with armed convict “guards,” and black inmates picking cotton on a former plantation for the profit of the prison under the watchful eye of white guards, a century after the emancipation of their ancestors.
—L.G.
Here are the most moving and breathtaking pictures from the past week.
—G.H.S.