In November 2020, people took to the streets to celebrate the calling of the U.S. presidential election for Joseph R. Biden Jr.; after four years of a regime whose policies and politics the revelers did not agree with, change was coming, and for many, joy cometh in the morning.
Originally based in Los Angeles, I was reassigned to The Times’ D.C. bureau to document the nation’s capital and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden-Harris administration.
What I found was the convergence of the different parts of 2020 and 2021: the pandemic, the dawn of a new administration, the insurrection and its aftermath, the shifting of power in Congress and a city and country that were desperately seeking to return to a sense of normalcy.
Kent Nishimura is a former staff photographer with the Los Angeles Times, based in Washington, D.C. Born in Taiwan, Nishimura immigrated to the United States, grew up in Hawaii and is a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, the National Headliner Awards, the White House News Photographers Assn. and the National Press Photographers Assn., among others. He has worked on staff at newspapers across the United States and freelanced for many national and international publications before joining The Times in 2017.