2025's Most Powerful Images from an Unforgettable Year!
Conflict and Crisis:
- Gaza remained a central focus, with images showing Israeli strikes, Palestinians killed while trying to reach aid trucks, malnutrition among children, and the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, SF Gate, Hartford Courant
- Ukraine's war continued with photos of air raids on Kyiv, children practicing boxing in underground shelters in Kherson, and people taking refuge in metro stations during attacks, SF Gate,
Hartford Courant - The historic Trump-Putin meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in August marked a significant diplomatic moment, SF Gate
Political Upheaval:
- The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, with the heartbreaking image of his widow Erika Kirk wiping tears at his memorial, WRAL.com, U.S. News & World Report
- Pope Francis's death in March, with his portrait projected on fountains in Lima, Peru, and his successor Pope Leo XIV attending climate conferences, SF Gate
- Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addressing supporters protesting President Maduro, SF Gate
Hartford Courant - Syria's regime change, with toppled statues of Hafez Assad lying in ruin,s Hartford Courant
Natural Disasters:
- The devastating Palisades Fire in Malibu on January 8, with firefighters battling flames engulfing beachfront properties, SF Gate Hartford Courant
- Catastrophic flooding in Texas that killed more than 130 people, with memorial walls showing photos of victims, WRAL.com,
Hartford Courant - Wildfires in Greece, with a man carrying a sheep on a motorcycle to escape flames in Patras, SF,
Hartford Courant - Hurricane Melissa's aftermath in Jamaica in October, Hartford Courant
- A plane crash into a building in Ahmedabad, India, in Jun,e Hartford Courant
Human Tragedy:
- A jetliner and military helicopter collision in the Potomac River that killed 67 people, WRAL.com, U.S. News & World Report
- Palestinian photographer Mariam Dagga, who captured a wounded mother holding her dead infant after an airstrike, was herself killed weeks later in another airstrike while covering the same hospital KENS5
WHAS11 - Street vendor Boniface Kariuki was shot in the head during protests in Nairobi, Kenya, SF Gate
Hartford Courant
Moments of Resilience and Beauty:
- Palestinians gathering for iftar during Ramadan, surrounded by rubble in Rafah, SF Gate, Hartford Courant
- A bride preparing to enter a flooded church for her wedding in the Philippines, Hartford Courant
- A man leaping into an ice pool carved from the frozen Songhua River in Harbin, China, SF Gate,
Hartford Courant - The Northern Lights shimmering over Greenland, Hartford Courant
- A polar bear resting on the stairs of an abandoned Russian research station, Hartford Courant
Immigration and Enforcement:
- Venezuelan migrants giving up hopes of reaching the U.S. amid Trump's immigration crackdown, SF Gate, Hartford Courant
- Protests outside ICE facilities in Chicago and Los Angeles, U.S. News & World Report
- An asylum seeker from Ecuador hugging her father as he was detained by federal agents in New York, Hartford Courant
The AP's collection, as writer Ted Anthony notes, captures "the frenzied and the quiet, the bloody and the contemplative, and even healthy doses of joy, wonder and discovery to help us see that our violent and sometimes inexplicable world is full of good things, too." Hartford Courant
These photographs serve as "grooves of collective memory with color and light and verve and creativity," Hartford Courant
—essential documents of a tumultuous year that resist forgetting. They remind us that even in our darkest moments, photojournalists bear witness, creating visual records that shape how we remember and understand our shared history.
https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/2025-year-in-review/
