Garden & Gun’s Best Photos of 2016

Actor Matthew McConaughey relaxing for a moment in the Garden District of New Orleans.

This Light Dragoon’s Punch, one of the most popular cocktails at Husk in Charleston, South Carolina, is a brandy-based libation said to have originated in 1783 at the Preservation Society of Charleston.

Actor, writer, and comedian Danny McBride puts on a show in Asheville.

Singer, violinist, and banjo player Rhiannon Giddens shines before a show in Beacon, New York.

Matthew McConaughey kicks back in New Orleans’ Garden District between setups and wardrobe changes.

Each year, for four decades running, an extended brood gathers for the Peoples family reunion in Texas. Clockwise from top left: Marthel Modkins; Vanessa Curlin with her daughter, Dai’sha; Alice Cummings Hill; Patricia Peoples and her granddaughter, Ke’marie.

We caught this shot of a vintage Volkswagen bus on the Pacific Coast Highway, a photo from the April/May Los Angeles City Portrait.

A mighty full plate at North Carolina pit master Sam Jones’s new smokehouse—smoked chicken, turkey, chopped pork, ribs, and plenty of sides.

Japanese magnolias, late-blooming camellias, kumquats, loropetalum, and bottlebrush set off this Southern display by Pistil and Stamen, of New Orleans.

Sturgill Simpson and Merle Haggard trade a couple of notes and swap a few stories on Haggard’s Northern California ranch.

Singer-songwriter Aubrie Sellers, whose debut full-length album, New City Blues, came out in Jan. 2016 poses in a New York studio following a recording session.

A row of planked shad lined up during the smoking process at the Wakefield Shad Planking, a 70-year-old tradition that is part political rally, part community fish feed.

BB, an English setter, gets some love during a morning quail hunt at George Hi Plantation in North Carolina.

Southern-born, Los Angeles–based actress Emayatzy Corinealdi at the Palihouse Santa Monica.

Our June/July cover shoot in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, went on for fifteen hours, but this fresh photo was one of the first shots of the day.

Scott Avett lights it up onstage during a show in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Landscape painter West Fraser stands with Lady Godiva, an English springer spaniel, in his Charleston, South Carolina, studio.

A lone slice from our summer pie feature.

This bedroom in designer Alexa Pulitzer’s New Orleans home, located in Bayou St. John, distinguishes itself with a mural by Rebecca Rebouché.

The Avett Brothers’ Bob Crawford, Scott Avett, Joe Kwon, and Seth Avett in front of their tour bus in Wilmington, North Carolina. We asked for rock-and-roll energy, so photographer Squire Fox brought along some fireworks, grabbed a few willing fans, and let the sparks fly.

There’s no finer quail country than the Red Hills, which boasts 300,000 acres of longleaf and wire grass and more than one hundred sprawling plantations between Tallahassee, Florida, and the Ochlockonee River north of Thomasville, Georgia.

Chef Greg Baker (of the Refinery and Fodder & Shine) updates the sour orange pie, originally introduced to Florida by sixteenth-century settlers.

A mess of crabs at Nick’s Seafood in Freeport, Florida.

Texas-born James Lee Burke, a titan among mystery writers, at his Montana ranch.

Volunteer coordinators John Shuck and Marvin Harris strip English ivy from a grave marker in Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond, where thousands of African American graves lie obscured and overgrown.

This Charleston, South Carolina, garden graced the August/September cover and is tended by a retired doctor.

This photo from Bayou Ben Garden in Houston is one of the best magnolia shots we’ve seen (and we’ve seen a lot).

A slate-roofed dovecote finds its home in a secret garden dreamed up by Greyson and Garland Tucker at their home in Raleigh.

A private cottage overlooks the crops on the property of Cumberland Island, Georgia’s Greyfield Inn.

On Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, fresh white paint and playful details make the front porch at Rita Hayes’s home all the more inviting.

A beach towel hangs within easy reach on a newel post in Rita Hayes’s home on Sullivan’s Island.

Former Olympic skier Andy Mill and son Nicky show off a sixty-pound tarpon off the Florida Keys.

Carla Hall’s callaloo collard greens draw inspiration from African American and African cooking, using thyme, coconut, and chile in the style of West African callaloo.

Chef Griffin Bufkin, of Southern Soul Barbeque in St. Simons, Georgia, puts a twist on everyone’s favorite down-home dessert with this pineapple upside-down cornmeal cake.

It took hours to get just the right amount of sauce and spice on the pickle-brined dipped chicken that covered our October/November issue.

The palm-studded patio at the Pontchartrain Hotel in New Orleans’ Garden District.

The Knockaz Brass Band plays it loud in New Orleans’ Jackson Square.

Traditional meets modern inside antique dealer Roderick Coles’s charming Charlottesville, Virginia, bungalow.

Hunters crouch behind portable blinds as ducks come into view just after sunrise in South Carolina’s Santee River Delta.

A hunter surveys the sky before calling it a morning.

Motte gets a post-hunt rinse.

Lead singer Paul Janeway and trombonist Chad Fisher of St. Paul & the Broken Bones clown around in Birmingham, Alabama, in front of the blast stoves at Sloss Furnaces.

For chef Mimi Maumus, who runs home.made in Athens, Georgia, the only thing better than a cheese straw is one stuffed with pimento cheese.

Interior designer Bunny Williams with one of her beloved rescue dogs on the lawn of her Connecticut home.

An English setter in the field.

In-demand designer Louisa Pierce in the living room of her Nashville home.

In her kitchen, designer Louisa Pierce covered a range hood in subway tile, establishing one of the hallmarks of her distinctive style.

Mercy Street actor McKinley Belcher III kicks back at Loew’s Jersey Theater in Jersey City, New Jersey.

A trio of English setters at the ready at Otter Creek Farm in Ohatchee, Alabama.

Two English setters on point at Otter Creek Farm.