Yasuyoshi Chiba, a staff photographer with AFP, spent nearly the entire year of 2018 in Kenya, documenting an incredibly wide range of subjects, landscapes, and issues. Chiba has been on staff with AFP since 2011, winning multiple awards for his photojournalism, which is based mostly in Brazil and Kenya. This year, he captured the faces and stories of some of the 50 million people who live in Kenya, an East African nation of incredible diversity in culture, landscape, and wildlife. His photos cover subjects from a China-backed railway cutting across Nairobi National Park to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Dadaab refugee complex, from fashion shows and premieres in Nairobi to lions in open grassland and tribal festivals, and much much more. Below, in roughly chronological order, is a look at some of the stories brought to us through Yasuyoshi Chiba’s lens in the past year.
2018 Seen Through the Lens of Yasuyoshi Chiba
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Rabecca Zawadi, 8, walks on the runway during a rehearsal session prior to taking part in the "Mr. and Miss Albinism East Africa" pageant in Nairobi, Kenya, on November 20, 2018. Thirty contestants from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda compete under the theme "Celebrating the beauty of color" to raise awareness of their challenges with albinism, including stigma and brutality. #
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On January 1, 2018, people react after counting down to New Year's Day, during the New Year's music event at Kenyatta International Convention Center in Nairobi, Kenya. #
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An aerial image shows a part of Lake Turkana, the world's largest desert lake, in northern Kenya on June 28, 2018. In June, the World Heritage Committee decided to inscribe the Lake Turkana National Parks on a list of endangered World Heritage sites due to what monitors say are threats posed by an Ethiopian dam, sugar factories, and a huge infrastructure project involving Kenya. #
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A woman poses prior to the start of a protest against repeated failures to apply laws that women must hold at least a third of government seats in Nairobi, Kenya, on January 22, 2018. According to Kenya's 2010 constitution, women must have at least a third of seats in parliament and a third of appointed positions. At the time, the National Assembly had 349 MPs, yet only 76 were women. #
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An elephant grazes in the Mara Triangle, the northwestern part of Maasai Mara National Reserve, managed by the nonprofit organization Mara Conservancy, in southern Kenya, on January 23, 2018. #
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Invited guests watch the film "Black Panther," featuring the Oscar-winning, Mexico-born, Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o, in 3-D during the Movie Jabbers Black Panther Cosplay Screening in Nairobi, Kenya, on February 14, 2018. #
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A dancer passes through a security checkpoint at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi on February 26, 2018, prior to the arrival of the FIFA World Cup Trophy during its World Tour. #
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The Kenyan sculptor Edward Njenga, born in 1922, repairs his stoneware work "Women's Guild Member (2008)" with assistance from his grandson Edward Njenga, at his studio in Nairobi on March 12, 2018. Njenga is the one of East Africa's most prominent sculptors who has been capturing scenes from Kenya's daily life. #
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Kabras Sugar's Andrew Chogo grabs the ball in a line-out during the Kenya Cup's final rugby match between Kenya Commercial Bank and Kabras Sugar at the KCB Sports Club in Nairobi on March 24, 2018. #
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A ranger with Kenya Wildlife Service tries to cover the eyes of a 2-and-a-half-year-old female southern white rhino, Elia, to calm it down after it was shot with a tranquilizer from a helicopter during a KWS rhino ear-notching exercise for identification at Meru National Park, 350 km. from Nairobi, Kenya, on April 5, 2018. #
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A Somali refugee girl stands in a makeshift shelter at the Dadaab refugee complex, in the northeast of Kenya, on April 16, 2018. The Dadaab refugee complex, which houses more than 235,000 refugees and asylum seekers in four camps about 80 km. from the Somali-Kenyan border, was established in 1991, according to UNHCR camp-population statistics in January 2018. #
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The Portuguese street artist Ricardo Romero (right) makes graffiti with spray paint and stencils on a wall with Saviour Juma, 15, during a workshop as part of his worldwide art project, "Project Matilha," which raises awareness of human and animal rights in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, on April 25, 2018. #
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Yvonne Oduor, the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya operations officer, poses after the UN GLOBE event celebrating, for the first time, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia at the United Nations office in Nairobi on May 17, 2018. UN GLOBE is a staff group representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex staff members of the UN and its peacekeeping operations. #
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Models wait before presenting eco-fashion using recycled or biodegradable materials during the Fashion for Sustainable Future event by UN Environment in Kisumu, Kenya, on May 31, 2018. #
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A Kenyan Muslim girl enjoys a fairground ride on the cricket field at the Sir Ali Muslim Club in Nairobi on June 15, 2018, after prayers on Eid al-Fitr, which marked the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. #
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A dancer of the Turkana tribe performs in blue light during the launch ceremony of the 11th Marsabit-Lake Turkana Cultural Festival in Nairobi on June 20, 2018. The annual festival features the cultural traditions of 14 ethnic tribes in Marsabit County, in the northern part of Kenya, to promote tourism and social inclusiveness. #
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Impalas walk near a section of elevated railway that allows for movement of animals below the tracks at the construction site of Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Nairobi National Park, Kenya, on November 21, 2018. The SGR phase 2A project is an 120 km. extension of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR project to Naivasha, with the longest railway bridge in the country, the 5.8 km Super Major Bridge, constructed across Nairobi National Park. #
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Chinese workers stand at the construction site of Standard Gauge Railway during the presidential inspection of the SGR Nairobi-Naivasha Phase 2A project in Nairobi on June 23, 2018. #
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Kenyans watch the action on a giant outdoor display installed on a truck, during the Russia 2018 World Cup Group D football match between Nigeria and Argentina, in Nairobi, on June 26, 2018. #
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Locals watch tribal performances during the Marsabit Lake Turkana Culture Festival on June 28, 2018. The annual three-day festival features the cultural traditions of 14 ethnic tribes in Marsabit County to promote tourism and build better relationships between tribes. #
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Wind turbines, part of the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, which have been standing idle for nearly a year, are seen in Loiyangalani, Marsabit County, northern Kenya, on June 29, 2018. After seven years of research, 365 wind turbines made by Danish Vestas Wind Systems have been placed in 40,000 acres to be turned by near-constant winds which will provide 310 MW, about 15 percent of the country's installed capacity. The Kenyan government is building the 428-kilometer transmission line linking Lake Turkana Wind Power to the national grid, which has been delayed by landowners' compensation demands and a change of contractors. #
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This photograph taken on October 2, 2018, shows a man pulling a boat through water hyacinth, which prevents fishermen from working on Lake Victoria at Kichinjio Beach in Kisumu, western Kenya. #
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A view of Migingo Island, which is densely populated by residents who fish mainly for Nile perch in Lake Victoria on the border of Uganda and Kenya, photographed on October 5, 2018. A rounded rocky outcrop covered in metallic shacks, Migingo Island rises out of the waters of Lake Victoria like an iron-plated turtle. The island is barely 3,000 square yards in area, its residents crammed into a hodgepodge of corrugated-steel homes, with seemingly little but a few bars, brothels, and a tiny port to boast of. #
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A maasai giraffe walks in Nairobi National Park, Kenya, on November 21, 2018. The Kenya Wildlife Service has begun an initiative for the first-ever national recovery and action plan for giraffes. Kenya has 36 percent of the giraffe population in Africa, and that population has decreased by some 67 percent since the 1970s, mainly due to poaching. In December 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature had classified giraffes as "vulnerable" in their Red List. #
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The Kenyan contestant Sharleen Tunai Lumumba looks at her smartphone as she prepares backstage prior to the "Mr. and Miss Albinism East Africa" pageant in Nairobi on November 20, 2018. #
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Members of Dance Center Kenya speak with the dancer playing the role of the "sugar plum fairy" before the start of a production of The Nutcracker, a ballet primarily performed during the Christmas season, as their fourth annual show, along with the Nairobi Philharmonic Orchestra playing the score by Tchaikovsky, at the National Theatre in Nairobi, on December 2, 2018. DCK, founded by a few passionate families in early 2015, teaches more than 600 students at three studios in Nairobi, and provides lessons based on the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus. Selected students in various schools and slums receive scholarships to promote the development of their talents. #
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The U.K. lawyer Khawar Qureshi (right) who was appointed as the special prosecutor, speaks with other prosecutors, Dorcus Oduor (center) and Alexander Muteti (left), during the corruption trial of Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, the country's second-highest judge, at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi, Kenya, on December 6, 2018. Mwilu is facing multiple charges including abuse of office, bribery, and tax evasion. #
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Maasai warriors attend a sporting event dubbed the Maasai Olympics at Kimana, near Kenya's border town with Tanzania, on December 15, 2018. The Olympics are an initiative of international conservation groups led by Born Free, and they have been held every two years since 2012 to offer Maasai warriors an alternative to killing lions as part of their traditional rite of passage. It was the brainchild of the wildlife charity Big Life Foundation and eight Maasai elders who wanted to stop lion-hunting by the warriors once and for all. #
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