To our readers
It’s been quite a year for news in New Mexico.
We started the year locked down, with students learning from home, many businesses closed and events canceled. Over the course of months, some things have returned to normal while others have not.
Through it all, what never changed was the wonderful, adventurous spirit of New Mexicans and the natural and cultural beauty of our state.
While Journal photographers are tasked with shooting news, both good and bad, it’s been our distinct privilege and pleasure to turn our cameras on occasion to what makes us unique and special — our community and the places we cherish.
We are grateful to be able to share our favorite of these images of enchantment with you this holiday season, and we hope they leave you with a smile, too.
— Robert Browman, Director of Photography & Multimedia
The Journal’s photography staff in 2021
Robert Browman graduated from the University of Florida and came to the Journal as a photo intern in 1997. He left to work at MSNBC.com in Seattle, and then Corbis in New York, where he helped run a team covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He later helped start MediaStorm, winning an Emmy and being nominated for another. He returned to the Journal as Digital Editor in 2012 and became Director of Photography in mid-2021.
Dean Hanson is a native of Minnesota who became a staff photographer for the Albuquerque Journal in 1986. His areas of special interest in photography include nature, wildlife, history, science and the performing arts. He was promoted to Photo Editor of the Albuquerque Journal in 2017 and retired in 2021.
Eddie Moore grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina and worked for several years as a photographer at newspapers there. He moved to Santa Fe in 1996 and started working as a freelance photographer before joining the Albuquerque Journal photography staff in 1998. For more than 20 years, he has worked for the Albuquerque Journal and photographed all of northern New Mexico.
Adolphe Pierre-Louis is a native of Haiti who has been living in New Mexico for more than 30 years. He did freelance work for the Journal from 1990 to 1994 before becoming a staff photographer in early 1995. He started his career in photojournalism at the New York Daily News. He specializes in covering breaking news, sports, portraiture and human interest stories.
Roberto E. Rosales, a native of El Salvador, concentrates on issues such as immigration and breaking news. Twice a week he teaches a photography course at the University of New Mexico’s Film and Digital Arts Department and occasionally photojournalism courses in the Communication and Journalism Department. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art and a master’s in Art Education.
Jim Thompson came to New Mexico from Portland, Oregon, where he worked as a stringer for the Oregonian, the Associated Press and a group of papers in Washington County, Oregon, called the Times Publications. He started for the Albuquerque Journal in 1986 with an interest in sports photography, spot news and everyday life in New Mexico. He retired in 2021.