We look back at 2014 through the photos, videos and stories of our audience. You can see all readers’ contributions on GuardianWitness.
January
At the turn of the year we shared your views from Romania, after thousands of pictures and stories from readers challenged reports that there would be unprecedented migration from Romania to the UK in 2014.
We heard the other side of the situation in the UK too, as Romanians working in the country told us about the challenges they face, as contributor ancabostiog23 describes:
I moved to the UK in 2010 because it was hard for me to find a job to pay for my studies in Romania. Now I am a degree in Economics Science and I tried to apply for a good job (as receptionist and secretary) but always I received the same answer: Sorry but you are Romanian and we can’t employ you.
I miss Romania every second of my life because here is my family and part of my life but the UK is giving me the chance for a better future (...) It’s very hard to be a foreigner in UK, but I will try my best to show everyone that a Romanian can be human and not the worst person in the world!
With the help of The Tehran Bureau and Iranian photography website AKSbazi.com, you showed us what it was like to grow-up, live and love in Iran, including this glamorous shot from the 1940s from Ali Divani.
Farah
My mom in the 1940's at a party in Tehran.
February
The second month of the year gave us a chance to showcase the creativity of our audience with a fantastic series of animations.
A Seagull
This animation was inspirated by a poem of Lluïs Solà. A verse says: "And everything suddenly is an instant, without waiting or calm, vast, made of foam, and there's no time to choose the prey".
This month also brought us some of the most extreme weather conditions the UK had experienced for years. Your photos and videos helped Guardian journalists document the scale of flooding across Britain.
Our house and the River Trent
Our house not so long ago! Hope it doesn't come round again this month.
March
New data suggested that cycling the commute to work was proving less popular than expected in England and Wales, but what’s stopped you?
The overwhelming answers from hundreds of contributions: poor infrastructure and road conditions. Not everyone was deterred:
A broken collar bone!
Despite coming off my bike I am counting down the days until I can get off the tube and control my own destiny again on the roads. For the record it was my own fault. No other road users involved...
Our travel team wanted to hear your stories of holidays from the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. The result was a wonderful snapshot of holidaying across the world and families together.
Kenyan holiday
My mother, father (not in photo) sister and myself on holiday in Kenya in the early 1960's
Family Holiday, 1960's Ireland
Having to pose for yet another photo for our photography mad father
The inaugural GuardianWitness awards celebrated the best work from our readers during our first year. The winning contributions show the high quality and range of submissions and a special mention goes to two of our winners, Giles Bennett and Barbaros Kayan who’re now working as professional photographers.
April
You helped us mark the passing of author Gabriel Garcia Marquez by paying tribute and celebrating what his work has meant to you. Amongst the voices was Hernan Villamizar:
It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of García Marquez’ figure for someone who, like me, grew up in Colombia. His magnificence was made out of words in a country obsessed with violence and money. He managed to express what our history felt like in a way no one could. The “magical realism” felt much more honest and sincere than any history book I’ve come across.
One of our most popular assignments of the year also had a literary theme and asked for the female characters in fiction that inspire you, from the BFG’s Sophie to Philip Pullman’s Lyra Silvertongue.
April saw the largest elections in the world take place in India and locals and visitors took the chance to show us what everyday life is like in their part of the country with hundreds of pictures.
Boys hanging out on a bicycle rickshaw in Varanasi.
I live in Mumbai and when people say it's not the real India I often disagree. I think you can find anything that's India in Mumbai. But visiting Varanasi this year made me realize India has so many faces and a metropole like Mumbai is a bit like a bubble. Varanasi displayed more India's raw beauty I felt.
Local journalist KumKum Dasgupta took a look at your stories and reported on key themes emerging from what you were telling us - the story of young voters and what women wanted from the election.
One of our most interesting projects this year has been the Observer magazine’s assignment commemorating the centenary of the first world war. You have shared fascinating and moving photos, diaries and letters. Perhaps one of the most surreal perspectives submitted, was a photograph of an officer and his pet:
Taking my pet to war
A photograph from a family album. Taken by professional photographers, the detail is still very sharp. The idea of taking one's pet fox to war has always amused me.
We remembered the women in the first world war too, with an exhibition of your contributions in the foyer of the Guardian.
May
Ahead of the World Cup, we needed an authentic view of the host nation. With your help we created the Brazilian’s guide to Brazil, challenging the everyday travel guidebook.
Through your photos and stories we were with you every step of the way as tens of thousands of Australians took to the streets of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth to protest against the policies of Tony Abbott’s government.
Abbott manages to annoy every sector in the community!
March in May, George St, sign in the crowd.
A different kind of debate raged in the same month, as our partners, the Tehran Bureau, laid down the gauntlet by saying Iranians make the best cups of tea. Stories from Hong Kong and Mumbai to Morocco and Trinidad begged to differ.
June
The Guardian’s New East network challenged perceptions of Russia with 24 new photographers and the help of our audience. To get a sense of life in Russia day-to-day, you took us on a trip through the seasons, from country to city.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Guardian readers shared first-hand accounts of D-day and its aftermath. Richard Ashby, now 98, remembers his part in the operation to take the bridges at Benouville (later know as Pegasus Bridge) and Ranville early on D-day:
We had expected that all hell would break loose when we landed, but it did not. In fact, when, after a very brief pause to catch our breath, we tumbled out, we were in mortal dread not of the enemy but of other gliders. They were landing all over the place, some with spot-lights on, which was a dead give-away, others approaching from the wrong direction, and many crashing into posts or other gliders.
“All of this happened within the space of about a minute. When it was all over there was a sudden silence. All that could be heard was the gentle sighing of the wind through the grasses. Typically English, I suppose, but the first thing we did in Normandy was to get out the large Thermos flasks and have a mug of tea ...”
July
From past conflicts to current: as violence escalated between Israel and Palestine, we asked you to share your experiences of living with the conflict. GuardianWitness tries to find alternative perspectives that don’t necessarily make the headlines, but nevertheless contribute to the whole picture. In both assignments, readers expressed anger and fear at a situation that was outside their control.
The Bereaved Parents Families Forum, created this video response, with Israeli and Palestinian participants who had lost a family member in the conflict. Their message ‘I don’t want you here’ refers to not wanting any more bereaved parents because of the conflict.
A message from Israelis and Palestinians - We don't want you here!
We are all - Palestinians and Israelis - going through difficult, sensitive and emotional days
But it’s time for someone to stand up and say what is on everybody’s mind. Even though it hurts.
There are many series running on GuardianWitness, from Recipe swap to Share your art, you have been sharing your creative content week by week. As well as jumping – feet first –into Do Something magazine’s monthly challenges.
Tonbridge Off Road Cycling
Mark, Pete, Paul, Paul and Greg(camera) a wet day from Brockenhurst to Swanage.
August
This was the month when you showed us just how exciting politics can be. All eyes were on Scotland as the vote for independence became a nail-biting affair. You kept us informed about the mood in Scotland and although the Nos had it in the end, the September vote was close enough to galvanise a desire for political change across the UK.
Many of you also told us that the result in Scotland had inspired you to switch support to the Greens. Contributor ID3765539 shares their reasons:
I’ve recently joined the Green Party. I’m tired of the jaded concensus and what masquerades as a democracy in the country. The two/three main political parties are all shades of grey and all are dedicated to perpetuating the neo-liberal concensus.
I believe in democracy, I believe in sustainability, I believe in fairness and I don’t see these beliefs adequately reflected by the main parties. We have only one finite resource and that is our planet. If we continue to treat it in the way we have been then you can forget about the economy, forget about jobs, forget about our children’s future, forget about everything. There will be no future.”
You found your voice too in Comment is Free’s spoken word assignment. Many of you shared videos of your performances, here Amerah Saleh defines ‘Beautiful’:
Amerah Saleh- Spoken Word Piece 'Beautiful'
A spoken word piece for every man, woman, child, human out there who for a second in their day question anything in their life & what their purpose is.
From the beautiful to bountiful – this was the month when Observer food monthly readers got involved with the return of BBC’s The Great British Bake off and created outrageously decorated cakes.
September
Pro-democracy protestors took to the streets of Hong Kong in their thousands and you shared eyewitness accounts from the early days of the ‘umbrella revolution’:
... to its dismantling a few weeks ago:
First light, last morning.
The last morning before protestors were cleared outside SoGo Causeway Bay.
There were more demonstrations across Australia too as thousands turned out to mourn the death of asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei who had died at the Manus Island detention centre after delays stalled his transfer to hospital. This was six after another asylum seeker, Reza Barati at died at the centre.
The devastating impact of the Ebola crisis on the lives of people in west Africa was documented by readers after our global development team asked for stories from the region. The spread of ebola has been difficult for mainstream media to report and stories from citizen reporters’ living in badly affected areas like Sierra Leone have been vitally important in showing the effect of the epidemic on communities.
“The burial team just collected the corpse from the street”
Report by Amjata Bayoh in Freetown, posted by On Our Radar.
October
You showed us weird and wonderful bookstores from around the world after Guardian Books asked you to join in a campaign to support independent bookshops in the UK:
Home made vehicle bookshop
When we were in Mendoza, Argentina a couple of years ago, we saw this most amazing bookshop vehicle going by! (3 nice pix in total)
Thousands were on the march in cities across Mexico protesting against the disappearance of 43 student teachers.
Student protest, Mexico City
After the kidnapp and apparent killing of 43 students by mexican police forces, a huge protest takes part in Mexico City.
The 43 students are not forgotten as many of you are still taking part in protests and sharing your photos and stories.
People power helped bring about momentous change 25 years ago – when the Berlin wall came down. To mark the anniversary, we asked you to remember how the Wall had affected your life. You shared fascinating photos and stories, contributor Liese Steinhauser-Gleinser describes her feelings on the night:
My husband climbed up to the wall with the help of other people and helped me get up. We were standing on the Wall with a hundred or thousand other people, and on the other side. In front of Grenzsoldaten, we looked to each other and we said: ‘It’s all over now.’ Right decision! Das war die ‘Nacht der Nächte’ (this was the night of nights). You felt the spirit of history. And I’ll never forget that at checkpoint Invalidenstraße – the British army was responsible for this checkpoint – the day after, there were some Scottish army bagpipers and the troops served tea and biscuits!”
Over the past few months the crisis in Iraq created a fresh wave of refugees and internally displaced people.
Children of Iraq
Iraqi Yazidi girls wait for food outside a village community kitchen in Sharyia, near Dohuk, Iraq.
UNHCR / B. Szandelszky
Barbaros Kayan visited refugee camps in Suruc, southern Turkey, this month, where Kurdish refugees were fleeing the violence. We also haven’t forgotten Syrian refugees – the assignment was set up when GuardianWitness launched in March 2013 – and is still open.
November
‘Living in Finland’ was one of our most popular assignments this year, as Finns shared what it was like to live and work in their country. We found out that all parents receive a snowsuit in a box for their newborns, so they can introduce them to snow from a very young age.
Milo. Our Finnish/Australian snow bunny.
This is our 8 month old boy Milo. He is having his first play in the snow while wearing his government issue 'baby box' snow suit. In Finland, people let their babies sleep outside (in the pram) in sub zero conditions. It helps them sleep better apparently.
And from the snow of Finland to the mountains of Pakistan ...
The Biafo Glacier
The Biafo Glacier is the world's third longest glacier outside of the polar regions The Biafo Glacier is a 67 km (42 mi) long glacier in the Karakoram Mountains of Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan
As we asked you to show us aspects of your country that we don’t often see in the media.
Observer New Review are now running a weekly photography assignment. Three of your photos are published in the magazine every Sunday and a selection in an online gallery. We particularly liked your photos on the theme of ‘ruin.’
December
After the death of several black men at the hands of the police in America, our team in the US asked for your stories and photos of your protests against police violence.
People of all races come together for #phillydiein
Two protesters join hands for die in during Philadelphia protest against police brutality.
As the year drew to a close, you shared your memories of the Indian ocean tsunami that killed so many people, 10 years ago. One contributor, Andy Chaggar reflected on how he eventually managed to turn the terrible tragedy he experienced that day, into something positive:
As the ten year anniversary of the tsunami approaches I’m reflecting on my journey since and trying to raise awareness of International Disaster Volunteers work . Since IDV started we’ve raised over £500,000 and supported the recovery of over 12,000 disaster survivors. It’s been quite a journey, with some massive ups and downs. Ultimately though, it all comes down to that day in Khao Lak 10 years ago and my own personal experiences of disaster. I lost the woman I loved and was lucky to survive myself. As a result I’ve spent virtually every day since trying to make the most out of life and do what I can to make a difference. After all, I know more than most that anything could happen tomorrow.”
We’d just like to leave you with an image from Weather view, the monthly assignment where your photos are chosen by the picture desk for the Guardian’s weather page – this one shows the simple joy of winter sledding.
Winter Scene
The joy of winter - sledding in the park. Photo taken in Markkleeberg, Germany (near Leipzig) on December 29th, 2014.
Many thanks for all your contributions to GuardianWitness in the past year and we wish you the very best for 2015.
