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A young man in the Stara Gazela camp.

Crowds arrive from around Nova Gazela to witness a house fire on the day before relocation. The suspected arson happened in an abandoned home in a remote part of the camp.

The famous black birds of Kosovo in flight over Mitrovica. Mitrovica, Kosovo - One-year anniverary of Independence - February 17, 2009.

Obama Inauguration train -- Wilmington, DE. Rally for President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden.

The Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Washington DC, January 20, 2009. Police and military personnel direct pedestrian traffic along a crossing of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Obama Inauguration - Monday activities around the Capitol on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A young vendor sells Obama-themed merchandise and flags at dusk near the White House.

Obama Inauguration - Monday activities around the Capitol on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Washington Monument at dusk.

Landscapes in Northern Kosovo, near Lesak.

Inside the Stan Trg mine, part of the Trepca complex in Mitrovica, Kosovo. Once employing up to 300,000 people, the operation is on a skeletan crew after the war struggling to remain viable. International investment is approaching on the horizon, lending hope to the local populace that the once-thriving company could restart and jump-start the local economy.

An elderly man aboard a free public bus from Sarajevo to Srebrenica at 0500 during the 14th anniversary of the genocide.

Families of Srebrenica victims gather at the Potocari memorial to bury the remains of their loved ones.

A local bus from Kosovska Mitrovica to Belgrade.

On the road from Prishtina to Mitrovica. Large snow storms in Kosovo, 2/19/09.

Reshat Zatriqi, 48, sits in his home in Mitrovica with his son. He is worried about the violence that happens near his house in northern Mitrovica in one of the only Albanian neighborhoods. On December 30 2008 a nearby store was burned and on February 14 2009 there was a bomb or grenade explosion at a friend's house a few hundred meters away. Mitrovica, February 15, 2009.

Kosovars celebrate the one-year anniversary of independence along Mother Theresa Street in the center of the capitol, Prishtina. Prishtina, Kosovo - One-year anniverary of Independence - February 17, 2009.

Stojan, center, and friends smoke cigarettes in the shade on the hottest day of the year during the celebration for a baptism in the Nova Gazela camp.

A boy climbs on to the roof of his family's home in the Stara Gazela camp to jump into their inflatable swimming pool.

Boys play on top of a garbage pile behind their home in Nova Gazela.

A young man along the train tracks in Nova Gazela.

Smoke from a trash fire looms over the Nova Gazela settlement.

Mourners of Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Pavle in Belgrade. Pavle is laying in state at the Cathedral Church of St. Michael the Archangel in the center of the Serbian capitol during three days of national mourning.

2009 was my first real year of living and working in Serbia and it was wrought with more questions than answers. I’m still trying to figure out what last year was and what the next will bring, in terms of life and my photos. But I think these pictures may show some of what this was about for me, my relationship to friends and strangers, places and stories. These are not just my “best” pictures but include many more personal. A visual taste of my year. And I’m ecstatic to be back for another take.

Of course, I am a month past due with this in part to recovering from the holidays stateside and setting up everything here for 2010. I’ll have much more to share in the near future on what’s new these days, including projects, collaborations and websites. As always you can see my work at www.mattlutton.com and dig through my archive (and buy pictures!) at archive.mattlutton.com.

Thanks for keeping up with my work and supporting us here at Dvafoto. Happy New Year!

Continuing our roundup of “Photos of the Year” lists (previous Parts 1 and 2):

• The Sydney Morning Herald’s Photos of the Year (warning: there’s music)
• The LA Times’ Best Photography of 2008, including World Photography, National Photography, California Photography, Sports, and more.
• Vanity Fair’s Year in Pictures, Parts 1 and 2
• The Big Picture’s Year in Photographs, part 3
• UNICEF’s Photos of the Year (including an honorable mention for Melissa Lyttle)
• The possibly soon-to-be-closed Rocky Mountain News’ Year in Photos
• The Independent on Sunday’s World News Pictures of the Year
• Wired.com’s Best (Reader) Contest Photos You Never Saw
• SportsShooter’s Top 5 Cool Things for 2008 by the Click’s Trent Nelson (dvafoto was listed for November! Thanks, Trent!)
• Huffington Post’s 10 Worst Media Moments in 2008

(Thanks again to Filmoculous’ huge and growing 2008 List of Lists for some of these; there are a couple I didn’t list, CollegeHumor.com and the Village Voice’s NSFW New York Photos of the Year, because they seemed so out of place here…)

The Year in Photos packages are trickling out. Thanks to Filmoculous’ great annual List of Lists, here are a few of the collections released so far.

• MSNBC’s Year in News Pictures (watch out for the way over the top music…)
• MSNBC’s Year in Sports Pictures
• Time’s Top 10 photos
• Time’s Top 10 election photos
• National Geographic’s Best Science Images
• Pitchfork Media’s Year in Concert Photos