Sanctuaries

[Times photo: Lara Cerri]

By JOHN BARRY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 1, 2003

Our photographers' favorite pictures of the year are mostly about seeking refuge.

St. Petersburg Times photographers were asked to choose their favorite photographs from 2002. No restrictions. Just whatever they liked best.

But as you look through this extraordinary collection of photos from the past year, you will find in nearly all of them the same humanistic theme, the same artistic expression. They are images of safety, of refuge, of pillars of strength surviving in places of peril.

You'll see a legless dad, struggling to restart his life, at peace in a swimming pool with his daughter; a posse of last-of-a-breed cowboys trailing a cattle herd in Hernando County; endangered manatees finding refuge from boat propellers in a federal sanctuary; Bucs running back Mike Alstott impossibly on his feet, carrying three tacklers on his back; Pentecostals praising God at an old-time revival.

The photographers each had a different vision, but each seemed to share a collective hope: that we be safe. You could say the unanimity of theme was accidental. But in the kind of year we had, it may have been inevitable.

Enter gallery

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.