Picture credits
Every photograph here was released by the person who took it under a licence that lets us use it, and every one links back to where it came from and to the licence itself. You can check it rather than take our word for it, which is the same thing we ask of ourselves everywhere else on this site.
The photographs
18 images7 of these are used under licences that require a credit rather than merely inviting one. Each is marked, and each required credit is printed in full.
hero
Two parents and four children sitting close together in a stone doorway. The father, in a cream cable-knit sweater, holds the youngest on his lap and smiles towards the camera; a boy in olive green leans in looking up, an older boy in cream laughs behind him, a girl in mustard sits in the foreground with her back to the camera looking up at them, and the mother sits at the right in mustard, smiling at the children rather than at the lens. Warm rust, olive and mustard clothing against pale weathered stone, with a dark interior behind the group.
grief
A hand holding a mounted 35mm slide up against a bright window, the small transparency showing two people standing together outdoors. The hand is an older one and the frame is otherwise almost white.
focus
Intergenerational Batik Making in Trusmi Cirebon
"Intergenerational Batik Making in Trusmi Cirebon" by Ahaetulla, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Intergenerational_Batik_Making_in_Trusmi_Cirebon_-_Mother_and_Daughter_Practicing_Batik_Tulis.jpg, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Resized only, not cropped.
Two women working batik tulis together at a frame in an open workshop: an older woman with white hair in a green top holding the canting, a younger woman in glasses leaning over the cloth beside her. Patterned brown and cream fabric fills the left of the frame.
relationships
A couple walking towards the camera holding hands through a cobbled courtyard, under a stone arch with ivy over it and a half-timbered clock tower above. Portrait format, the two of them small in the lower third.
scene-misty-reeds
"Dew" by afk ., https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:D_e_w_-_Flickr_-_jonhyblaze.jpg, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped and resized.
Mist lying on a lake at first light with dark treelines either side and reeds in the foreground. Cool blue, very quiet.
body
Two bare feet at the end of a white duvet on an unmade bed, a person asleep with their face turned away and out of focus. Morning light, teal cushions behind.
door-partner
Two hands reaching in from either side of the frame towards two white mugs of black coffee on a pale table, seen from directly above. One wrist wears stacked beaded bracelets. No faces.
trauma
Calm Lake Matheson with mist at sunrise
A still lake at sunrise with a low band of mist lying on the water, dark forest along the far shore and snow on the mountains behind it. The sun is low at the left and doubled in the reflection. No people.
emotions
A man sits on a kerb with his knees up, his head down on his folded arms and his face hidden. Patterned shirt, a watch and a small Roman-numeral tattoo on the forearm. Paved street behind.
anger
A man in a cream cable-knit sweater stands in a stone arcade with his arms folded, looking out through the arches into the light. Deep shadow on the left, warm stone on the right.
scene-mountain-lake
"Maroon Lake" by John Fowler, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maroon_Lake_(8029560398).jpg, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped and resized.
Snow-topped peaks above a valley of yellow autumn aspens, the whole scene reflected in the still lake in the foreground. Bright blue sky with thin cloud.
door-supporter
An older man with grey hair leaning in while a younger man speaks close to his ear, both seated by a window with plants and daylight behind them. Someone's shoulder is out of focus in the foreground; nobody is posing.
self
"My grand mother's smile" by Beshef, https://www.flickr.com/photos/14438701@N00/11488360, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped and resized.
An older woman photographed close up outdoors, smiling gently with her mouth closed and looking straight at the camera. She wears a dark blue headscarf printed with pale blue and white, tied under the chin, and small oval wire glasses. Behind her, out of focus, are a stone wall, bare spring branches and a spray of yellow forsythia in the top left corner. Her face fills most of the frame and the light is soft and even.
someone-else
One man with his arms round another outside a building in hard sunlight. The man being held has his back to the camera and a flat cap on; the other holds him and looks past him. Not posed.
scene-autumn-river
"Oromocto River Reflections" by James Mann, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oromocto_River_Reflections_(16175447530).jpg, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped and resized.
A stand of bare autumn trees along a riverbank with the whole line of them mirrored in the still water below. Warm ochre and green.
scene-still-water
Peace at sea, on a still morning
"Peace at sea, on a still morning" by Gael Varoquaux, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peace_at_sea,_on_a_still_morning_-_Flickr_-_Gael_Varoquaux.jpg, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped and resized.
A small wooden boat and a yellow buoy sitting on completely flat water under a pale hazy sky, horizon barely visible. Almost no colour and no other object in the frame.
anxiety
A woman in a grey plaid shirt over a black tee leans her forearm on a tall industrial window and looks down and away. Glasses, short hair, arms covered. The glass runs off to the left out of focus.
academy
"Muslim Women" by Rennett Stowe, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muslim_Women_(2708863184).jpg, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped and resized.
Three women standing talking under a dark arch at the end of a long sunlit colonnade, two in hijab and one in an abaya with a sun hat. Cream plaster, an inlaid stone floor running to the camera, green foliage through the arch behind them.
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Why these and not something generated
A picture that cannot be traced would be the one thing on this site you could not check. These can all be checked, in one click each, which is why they were chosen the slow way rather than made in a minute.
The geometric pattern behind the pages is not a photograph of anything. It is drawn in the stylesheet, from the Islamic geometric tradition, and it is ours.
Nothing here is decoration standing in for evidence. The evidence is on the pages themselves: how this is made sets out where every verse, report and study comes from.