Here's my take on 2021. An intense news year to say the least. One picture per month (except July when I had vaccation). All pictures were taken on assignment for Verdens Gang (VG).
The insurrection
Washington DC - January 6
Reporter Camilla Svennæes Bergland and I flew from Atlanta to Washington DC in the evening of January 5th.
Earlier in the day we had covered the two Republican US senators in Georgia losing their seats to the Democrats in a special election, which meant that the Democrats now, via the Vice President's decisive vote, would have a majority in the Senate.
We had the feeling that something big was going to happen in DC the day after, Trump had been tweeting about it for weeks and it was difficult to find airline tickets for flights to Washington. But we finally did and the hotel lobby in DC was filled with militant Trump supporters, many dressed in military gear. It was an unpleasant atmosphere.
Trump's speech the next day in front of hundreds of thousands of supporters did nothing to calm the mood and when he called on everyone to march over to the Congress, where the vote to certify Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election was taking place, I looked at Camilla and said, "this is not going to end well," and when we saw how the Congress building was being stormed, I had the same uneasy "now anything can happen" feeling that I had on September 11, 2001 in lower Manhattan.
The 2nd wave
Laredo, Texas - February 3
Most people didn’t yet have access to Covid vaccine and a new wave of the virus were sweeping over the country in the beginning of the year. Nearly 3,000 people were dying daily and Southern Texas was one of the worst affected areas.
Dr Ricardo Cigarroa (holding the patients hand in the picture) in Laredo was called the "Dr. Fauci” of southern Texas for his commitment to fight the decease. Here he is with a newly admitted covid-patient at the hospital he works at.
To get access has been a challenge when covering the pandemic and this was first just an interview at his office, but just like that we were finding ourselves next to a newly admitted covid patient. Being unvaccinated it wasn’t a totally relaxed situation but I did have a N-95 mask (as opposed to the doctor who just had a surgical mask) and it did make the story stronger.
This was also my first work trip together with VG’s (then) new US Correspondent Erlend Ofte Arntsen.
The vaccine
Rio Rancho, New Mexico - March 19
The development of the Covid-19 vaccine happened in record time and by March a lot of Americans got vaccinated. New Mexico was one of the states that was fastest in vaccinating its population, this picture is taken at a mass vaccination site in a sports arena.
I saw the man with the tattoo getting ready to get his shot and I knew I wanted to capture that. But the picture of him getting the shot didn’t work so well, the hands of the nurse giving the shot were covering the tattoo. I was unhappy as I took a few shots of the tattoo partly covered by the band aid. In hindsight, it turned out to be a better picture than then I had first envisioned.
The verdict
Minneapolis, Minnesota - April 20
A man on a roof top in downtown Minneapolis is celebrating after the jury announced that they found the former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd 11 months earlier. The killing happened during an arrest and the video of it set of protests all over the country (I was in Minneapolis then, covering the protest there).
Reporter Erlend and I was in Wisconsin for another story and Minneapolis was next stop. The verdict came a little bit faster than we expected but we still just made it. We drove from the airport parked our rental car nearby the court house just minutes before the verdict came and we managed to rig up the equipment and do a live report for VGTV as the people who had gathered there got the news about the guilty verdict.
Afterwards, the streets were filled with people celebrating, but also reenforcing the message about discrimination heard during the BLM demonstrations last year.
War
Beit Hanoun, Gaza - May 29
A woman with a child walking trough a residential area hit by missiles from Israel during the 16 day war that started after rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel.
Normally this part of the world is not covered by VG’s U.S. office but the fact that reporter Erlend Ofte Arntsen and I, unlike everyone in Norway, were vaccinated against Covid-19, a condition to be able to travel to Israel, led to us being asked to cover the war. After a lot of bureaucracy we got there and after a few days of work in Israel and even more bureaucracy, we finally got into Gaza where scenes of devastation met us. Hardest to forget is the meeting with a man who had lost his wife and four young children, the only one besides him who survived was the youngest son who was 6 months old.
The war claimed the lives of 256 Palestinians (including 66 children) and 13 Israelis (including 2 children).
Trump
Wellington, Ohio - June 26
Donald Trump throws MAGA-caps to his supporters when holding his first rally since Joe Biden became president. In his speech he reinforced his story about the election being stolen and that he was the actually winner and also doing the usually verbal attacks towards the journalists who had showed up to cover the event.
Hurricane Ida
Laplace, Louisiana - August 31
They are cleaning out a trailer toppled over by Hurricane Ida that hit Louisiana hard with strong winds and flooding. Many were without power and water for weeks.
New Orleans was a ghost town without electricity and almost everything was closed. The few hotels that kept open was filled with rescue workers and Erlend and I ended up sleeping in the car. I have covered many natural distress in the United States but this was actually the first time it came to sleeping in the car. It wasn’t that bad (but not that good either…)
The deported
Port-au-Prince, Haiti - September 21
Carline has just landed in Port-au-Prince after being deported from the US. She spent weeks and about 5 000 dollars to get from South America to the Texas border. The rumor was that Haitians where getting visas to stay in the US (which was true until just a month or so earlier)
“I've lost everything I have. I only have the clothes I'm wearing now. We have no hope anymore. I sold everything I had to be able to go to the USA” she told us.
The Biden administration had just started to deporting the thousands of Haitian migrants, whom were arriving at the border, to Haiti in large numbers even though almost all of them had lived in Chile, Colombia and other South American countries and hadn’t been in Haiti for many years.
Erlend and I witnessed the American government airplanes landing in Port-au-Prince dropping of the deportees who had been led to believe they were being flown from Texas to another destination in the United States. They were very upset and ended up storming the tarmac, trying unsuccessfully to get back on the plane.
The abortion fight
Jackson, Mississippi - October 19
Derenda is one of several volunteers who escort women to the Pink House, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi. They do it to protect the women from the many time vocally aggressive abortion opponents that meet up outside the clinic every morning.
The Pink House is now under legal attack since the abortion law in Mississippi has been taken to the Supreme Court, where it may be further restricted.
Fentanyl
Tucson, Arizona - November 9
Theresa is wearing the fingerprint of her son Jacob in her necklace He died, at the age of 31, in May 2020 from fentanyl mixed with cocaine. Fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs without the user knowing about it.
The number of overdose deaths has increased in the United States during the pandemic. Theresa is now working to spread the word about how dangerous Fentanyl is, a drug which now is involved in a majority of overdose deaths.
An estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses from May 2020 to April 2021. A record number for a 12 month period.
Extreme Weather
Mayfield, Kentucky - December 12
Derek (19) was with his mother and siblings in their house when a tornado hit. The room they hid in was the only room not destroyed. He told us that he felt really bad for his mom who had worked hard to be able to afford moving the family into this house recently, “the first nice home we have ever lived in” he said.
A number of tornados caused a lot of destruction in the midwest and the southern states. It was the deadliest tornados on record in December, a month that usually don’t see many tornados.
Mayfield was one of the cities hardest hit, 58 people died there and most of the historic downtown area was destroyed. It was an EF4 tornado with wind speed up to 190 mph (310 km/h).