Pandemic. Politics. Protest.
Those were the central issues that dominated 2020. Our photographers selected images from our coverage that best capture and illustrate those major storylines of 2020.
Below are the images that told the story of the pandemic. We also have photo highlights of the year in politics and in protests. You can find a complete collection here of more than 100 of the very best shots WBUR took in 2020.
(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Feb. 5 | All of the hand sanitizer for sale in the Target in Watertown was quickly wiped out as people stocked up to prepare for the arrival of the novel coronavirus epidemic in the U.S. Within weeks, grocery stores would experience a surge in people panic-buying food and supplies.
It feels like an understatement to express that 2020 was a year like no other and yet, a review of the photographs that best helped us tell stories of the raging pandemic, protests for racial justice and an extraordinary presidential election makes the singularity of 2020 clear.
Our photographers, Jesse Costa and Robin Lubbock, captured a year rich in devastating loss and anxiety, but also showed us moments of solidarity even levity in Massachusetts.
The pair got as close arguably closer than most to many of the scenes that define the last 12 months. These are the images that will stay with us beyond this year.
This man was perhaps the most important person to work for the Lemp family
Henry Vahlkamp was an unsung brewing hero with one interesting biography.
Henry Vahlkamp
New research on the Lemp family has increasingly shown that they relied on dozens of unknown but critical men and women whose work spelled success for the famous brewery. Whether it was the early partners of Adam Lemp such as John William Kaeckell or Louis Bach, or John Baitinger, the brewmaster of William Lemp Sr., we cannot truly understand the story of the familyâs rise without looking at the lives of their employees. Perhaps the most important man to work for the Lemp Brewery for a half-century was Henry Vahlkamp.