David Brendan Hall's Top 10 Photos of 2020

Staff photographer David Brendan Hall writes: “On May 30, the streets outside the Austin Police Department erupted with protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other high-profile cases of police violence against the Black community, including the shooting death of Austinite Michael Ramos in April. The following day, just like the previous, protesters blocked the I-35 overpass at 8th Street. As officers in riot gear – wielding myriad “less-lethal” weapons – formed a line to clear it, I made my way onto the highway. In the moment I made this photo, all the protesters had already retreated — except this one. He walked the median like a tightrope, back to the police and smoking a blunt, a casual posture, yet pointedly in defiance of the danger edging closer. Adrenaline skyrocketing, blindly trusting that I’d be recognized as media and not fired upon, I asked my house mate (and fellow photojournalist), Casey Holder, for a boost up and captured what, for me, became the epitomic illustration of the summer’s protests: an individual occupying the line that was historically a literal racial divider in Austin, alone in the moment, but in reality part of a multitude working to transform a barrier from the past into a bridge to a potential future. It was only later, when I enlarged the image, that I realized the text on his shirt reads ‘Blvck History.’”