Behind the scenes of this year’s top photo story; tracking the butterfly hunters
|  | Saturday, April 9, 2022 | | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHEW ABBOTT
| | By Kurt Mutchler, Editor at Large
In the age of the single image that feeds Instagram, and photojournalism reduced (mostly) to drive-by portraiture, Matthew Abbott’s photographic coverage of Australia’s Aboriginal people goes deep and long. In a flash last week, Abbott won the World Press Photo’s photo story of the year award for his work for this Nat Geo feature, but the work was no one-off assignment.
Matthew’s connection with the people of the Warddeken Indigenous Protected Area began over 10 years ago. He lived there for two years and returned as often as he could. The story and traditional fire-control methods (pictured above, burning off undergrowth) is one he’s always wanted to do: “This is a story of Indigenous people using traditional practices and modern technology that is offering us a potential solution to deal with the climate crisis, while at the same time giving these previously disenfranchised people the opportunity to thrive and live a free life,” Matthew says.
He made three, two-week trips from his home in Sydney for this story. On his second trip, a COVID lockdown prevented him from flying, so he drove 4,300 miles one way (yes, that's not a typo), so he wouldn’t miss photographing the community’s annual walk through its ancestral lands. For the third trip, he had to stay in COVID quarantine for two weeks in a prison-like facility.
Like all of the damn good photographers I’ve been lucky to work with all these years, Matthew’s passion, smarts, keen eye—and most importantly, dedication to the STORY—are the qualities that make him so special.
Scroll below to see a few of Matthew’s photos from the story in our May issue—and see the full story and images here.
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| | Deliberately set: Smoke rises from this fire in northern Australia. The blaze reflects an old fire-control tradition. Aboriginal people have inhabited the area for tens of thousands of years, managing it by burning grass and underbrush early in the dry season. Those efforts can prevent wildfires from ravaging forests later, when it’s hotter and drier. | | | |
| | A hike during a blaze: Guided by fires set by members of their clan, Kaywana Gamarrwu and Vernon Garnarradj, a Warddeken ranger, hike with their daughter, Vinnisha, through their ancestral lands. The six-day bushwalk was organized to help Aboriginal people reconnect with their environment and learn traditional practices. | | | |
| Snake hunting: After lighting the bark on nearby trees, Stacey Lee hunts for snakes in the fires’ glow, while Evelyn Narorrga, carrying a flashlight, already has one wrapped around her right hand. The harmless snakes will be eaten. Aboriginal people have used fire to hunt for millennia.
Reader, please consider supporting storytelling like this by subscribing to our magazine and our unlimited digital offerings. | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY NICHOLE SOBECKI
| | Another prize winner: Photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Nichole Sobecki took this image of a seven-month-old cheetah in the back of an SUV. The image just won a National Magazine Award for Best Service and Lifestyle Photograph. In the photo, the cub hisses at a rescuer’s outstretched hand. Authorities intercepted the cub, later named Astur, before he could be sold to a smuggler. But every year scores—perhaps hundreds—of mostly very young cheetahs are trafficked out of Somaliland to Persian Gulf states to be sold as pets, Nat Geo reports.
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| EARTH MONTH: ARTICLE OF THE DAY | |
| PHOTOGRAPH BY SHANNON WILD, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY JANET JARMAN
| | A personal delivery: A jubilant Clementa Eluvia Monterroso Romero dresses her recently born grandson under the watch of her four-year-old granddaughter, left, in the room where she assisted her daughter through birth. Monterroso Romero and her daughter are part of a group of traditional midwives in the community of La Victoria near Concepción Chiquirichapa, Guatemala.
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 | | When I started, I really, really wanted to use photography as a tool to leave [the Philippines]. But as I went deeper into my practice, I realized that it was really important for me to understand home. | Hannah Reyes Morales
Photojournalist, Nat Geo Explorer | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY EVGENIA ARBUGAEVA
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| This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Send along your thoughts to david.beard@natgeo.com. And please, consider supporting our visual storytelling by subscribing to our magazine and unlimited digital offerings. | | | |
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