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This photographer documented life as a young person during the pandemic
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New Year’s Eve 2020 was peculiar for many of us. As Coronavirus continued to sweep the globe, usual end-of-year reflections were replaced by a build-up of collective grief. Around the world, Covid-19 socializing restrictions put obstacles in the way of celebrations.

For German photographer Valentin Goppel, the uniqueness of the situation was underscored by his companions: Instead of his spending the night with his flatmates as he would do usually, he was instead alone with his girlfriend’s younger brother and two of his friends, making the initial images for what would become Goppel’s first photobook, “Zwischen den Jahren.”

“For weeks before, her brother had tried to persuade his parents to let him spend New Year’s Eve with his friends, which (as a young person) I found really understandable, but his parents didn’t,” the photographer recalled in an interview with CNN. “In the end, (they relented when) he agreed to spend four days (quarantining) in his room afterwards. It was a strange thing, this commitment to meeting your friends just for a few hours — then spending days alone — but to him it was worth it.”

Real-life ‘superheroes’ fly in the world’s first jet suit race
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From futuristic architecture to pioneering infrastructure, Dubai is no stranger to weird, wonderful, and downright wacky innovation. But on Wednesday, the “City of Superlatives” went full sci-fi when eight pilots, suited and booted like Marvel’s “Iron Man,” took to the skies.

They were not fighting supervillains or alien warlords, though. Against a backdrop of skyscrapers and super yachts, the airborne athletes competed in the inaugural Jet Suit Race Series, an event organized by the Dubai Sports Council and Gravity Industries, the manufacturers of the jet suit.

“Unlike most racing, you’re racing in three dimensions,” says Richard Browning, chief test pilot for UK-based Gravity Industries, which he founded in 2017. “There’s pilots above and below, and all over the place, so it’s a really interesting experience.”

The eight pilots raced around a one-kilometer (0.6-mile) course, maneuvering between 12 giant inflatable obstacles placed in the water. Four heats created a leaderboard that culminated in a final round, with each race only lasting around 90 seconds.

“We had people getting disqualified, we had people losing it, we had somebody go in the water — we had just utter chaos, in a great way,” says Browning.

He hopes that the event will inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers to dream big: “Most technology is ludicrous and impossible until it isn’t.”

This photographer documented life as a young person during the pandemic
black sprut pasaremos
New Year’s Eve 2020 was peculiar for many of us. As Coronavirus continued to sweep the globe, usual end-of-year reflections were replaced by a build-up of collective grief. Around the world, Covid-19 socializing restrictions put obstacles in the way of celebrations.

For German photographer Valentin Goppel, the uniqueness of the situation was underscored by his companions: Instead of his spending the night with his flatmates as he would do usually, he was instead alone with his girlfriend’s younger brother and two of his friends, making the initial images for what would become Goppel’s first photobook, “Zwischen den Jahren.”

“For weeks before, her brother had tried to persuade his parents to let him spend New Year’s Eve with his friends, which (as a young person) I found really understandable, but his parents didn’t,” the photographer recalled in an interview with CNN. “In the end, (they relented when) he agreed to spend four days (quarantining) in his room afterwards. It was a strange thing, this commitment to meeting your friends just for a few hours — then spending days alone — but to him it was worth it.”