From adventure cats to an ice resurfacer driver, OPB’s visual journalists created thousands of memorable images from Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in 2024.
Some photos depict the beauty and ruggedness of Oregon, such as Dan Evans’s images from “The Hen Party,” an all-female packing trip in the Wallowa Mountains. Others feature unique personalities in our region, such as Alejandro Figueroa’s portrait of a fishmonger in the Port of Garibaldi and Emily Cureton Cook’s photos of Sandra Claus in Bend. A few give us insight into cultural traditions, like Kathryn Styer Martinez’s photos of the Pi-Ume-Sha celebration in Warm Springs.
At its most basic, news photography is a contribution to the historical record, a way to document and preserve stories of today’s people, places and happenings for future generations.
At its most aspirational, news photography can help foster a deeper understanding of our community and build connection. Photos pick up where words stop, conveying information about how our world works in just a fraction of a second. This aspect of our visual journalism aligns with OPB’s broader mission: Connecting people across Oregon and the Pacific Northwest through the power of a shared story.
We hope you enjoy this look back at some of our favorite images published in 2024.
Shell Galloway, haunt manager at Underhill Haunted House in Portland, wears one red eye and yellow eye contact to complete her goth vampire costume. Galloway has worked in haunted houses in the Portland area for 50 years.
Mia Estrada / OPB
Jory Olson stands on Mount Hood with his two Siberian cats, Lewis and Clark.
Noah Thomas / OPB
Portland Police Officer Michael Terrett approaches a recently stolen pickup truck with his flashlight as he details several factors about the truck. The Portland Police Bureau has been tracking more granular detail about stolen vehicles to improve their ability to find and catch them.
Troy Brynelson / OPB
Tanya March started driving the Lloyd Center ice resurfacer over a decade ago as a way to get free ice time for her son. "My favorite part of the job is seeing an individual who is scared, who has never tried skating, and then have success after they've overcome that obstacle and challenge," she said.
Lillian Karabaic / OPB
Six-year-old Lila shows off the fresh gaps where two her baby teeth used to be, while visiting with Sandra Claus in Bend.
Emily Cureton Cook / OPB
Kasia Moon in her nail salon, Moonchild Artistry, in Bend. Moon specializes in intricately designed nail art.
Kathryn Styer Martínez / OPB
Alan Case holds an umbrella to provide shade while searching for an arrow he shot with a footbow in the Alvord Desert in Southeastern Oregon. Case was trying to shoot an arrow farther than any human in history.
Ian McCluskey / OPB
Portland Mayor-elect Keith Wilson talked to his supporters on election night at Old Town Brewing. Wilson capitalized on mistakes from better-known candidates and his own promise to end unsheltered homelessness.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
Albert Lemos, a social worker and mental health therapist, watched presidential election results on election night in Portland.
Brooke Herbert / OPB
Portland Police Officers Donny Mathew checks the timer on his phone and waits for treatment providers to arrive after arresting a woman for drug possession in downtown Portland.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Boise State University Ph.D. Terra Miller-Cassman adds sawdust to a new sugar-based plastic alternative. She tested many different additives to increase the strength of the composite and found that sawdust increased the compressive as well as bend strength of the mix.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
A small, white, fox-like animal near the bike path off South Macadam Avenue in Portland in October. The animal was later captured and determined to be an arctic fox.
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Portland artist Hilary Pfeifer celebrates her love of birds in her current project "godseye."
Geneva Chin / OPB
In the green room of Northeast Portland's Alberta Rose Theater, burlesque performer Eva D'Luscious does her makeup and gets ready for the Oregon Burlesque Festival in September.
Mia Estrada / OPB
Jesse Johnson relaxes at a Portland hotel in September 2023, days after his release from Marion County Jail in Oregon. Johnson spent 25 years in prison and police custody for the 1998 murder of Harriet Thompson and was featured in the OPB podcast "Hush."
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
A patient's feet full of acupuncture needles at Working Class Acupuncture's Hillsdale location in August. Working Class Acupuncture is a nonprofit community acupuncture clinic that seeks to make acupuncture more financially accessible.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Peyton Scott, left, helps move a kayak to the event starting place in Knappton Cove, Wash., in August. Scott was one of 15 people about to attempt to swim the five miles across the Columbia River from Knappton to Astoria, Ore.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Jared Smull, left, and his wife Amanda stand on burned land at the edge of their rangeland near Durkee, Ore., after a wildfire devastated the area. Smull, a fifth generation rancher, says he has never experienced a burn of this scale. He anticipates it will take several years to recover.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Cassie Bone, left, joins others in dancing to T-Pain at the Project Pabst festival in Portland in July.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Ralph Lampman, Lamprey Project Lead for Yakama Nation Fisheries, holds up a lamprey harvested beneath a waterfall at Willamette Falls, near Oregon City.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Eunice Mathias, a member of the Wanapum tribe of the Yakama Nation, stands beside a lamprey that has been cleaned and prepared for drying at the third annual Willamette Falls Lamprey Celebration in Oregon City. Mathias says lamprey preservation was traditionally women's responsibility within the tribe and that she learned the process from older relatives when she was young. "We had no excuses," she says. "We had a lot of people to feed."
Anna Lueck / OPB
Gaoioi Poumele, right, joins other audience members in showering the Tausala Manaia dancers in money as they perform at the third annual Portland/Vancouver Samoan Festival in July. Poumele says this is customary during Samoan dances as a way to honor the performers.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Lili Marin, 14, seeks relief from the heat in the Sandy River with her dog, Luna during a heat wave in July. The area experienced high temperatures for several days, including the hottest July 5 ever recorded in Portland, Hillsboro, Salem, Eugene and Vancouver, Washington.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Bernice Jim, 83, attends the Pi-Ume-Sha celebrations in Warm Springs with her family. The event, also known as Treaty Days, marked its 55th year on the Warm Springs Reservation. It celebrates the Treaty of 1855, executed between The Wasco and Warm Springs Tribes and the United States.
Kathryn Styer Martínez / OPB
(Left to right) Sunny Hollenbeck, 14, comes in second to Alyssa James, 13, who crosses the finish line, winning the junior category of the endurance horse race at Pi-Ume-Sha on Saturday. The endurance horse race requires riders to pace their horse over long distances and challenging terrain in order to complete the course.
Kathryn Styer Martínez / OPB
Swimmers stand on the new dock at Cathedral Park in Portland. A celebration was held for the new dock, in part to increase interest in recreating in the Willamette River.
Joni Land / OPB
Heidi Howitzer slams Kylan Rowland during a MetalMania bout at Star Theater in Portland. MetalMania pairs a metal concert with pro wrestling.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Kelly Barnett tends to equipment on his trawler boat after a day of fishing off the coast in Garibaldi, Ore. Barnett is a fishmonger on the Oregon coast that catches, fillets and sell fish to local customers and visitors.
Alejandro Figueroa / OPB
Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong is greeted by the drill team at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in June. Armstrong was approved by the Portland Public Schools governing board unanimously as the next leader of Oregon’s largest school district.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Joe Winckler volunteers as an instructor during a prescribed burn at the Wanaket Wildlife Area outside Hermiston, Ore., in May, part of a training with the Nature Conservancy and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
April Ehrlich / OPB
Cynthia Basye looks at an archived photo of Daiichi Takeoka at the library of Japanese American Museum of Oregon in Portland. Takeoka, a first-gen Japanese American community leader, graduated from the University of Oregon’s law school in 1912 but wasn't allowed to practice because he didn’t have U.S. citizenship.
Winston Szeto / OPB
A small crowd stands outside the occupied Branford Price Millar Library at Portland State University in April. Dozens of people, including students, faced criminal charges stemming from a weeklong occupation of the university’s Millar Library to protest Israel’s war in Gaza and the university’s ties to aerospace company and weapons manufacturer Boeing.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Donna Bestwick, left, watches the partial solar eclipse with a friend at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in April. Oregon was not in the path of totality, and at the peak of the eclipse, the moon covered approximately 23 percent of the sun.
Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB
Riders from a modern-day “Hen Party” admire the view over the Lakes Basin region of the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
Dan Evans / OPB
Student Emily Boes performs a limb walking exercise as she learns how to become a professional pine cone collector at a Cottage Grove-based national tree climbing school.
Noah Thomas / OPB
Power lines are down along Southwest 90th Ave and Southwest Washington Street in Portland in January. Frigid temperatures, snow and freezing rain battered nearly every part of Oregon on Saturday, with multiple cold-related deaths reported and leaving tens of thousands without power.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB