The mission of photojournalism is to capture moments that represent — and, at their best, truly reveal — the endless spectrum of the human experience.
Associated Press photographers across the world have spent 2023 doing exactly that — sometimes at great risk or through personal exertion, always with ethics and compassion and quality, and with an eye forever trained toward the memorable.
Image 1 of 26: A woman carries two children at Fontaine Hospital Center, which treats malnourished children in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti in May. Photo / Ariana Cubillos
When those photographers encounter the world, though — from Israel and Gaza to Brazil, from Mongolia to the American heartland and beyond — they often have no idea what they’ll find until it is upon them.
Here is some of what they found in 2023, in all its contradictions: Conflict. Ambition. Anger. Injustice. Striving. Merriment. Poverty. Blood. The quest for excellence, no matter the arena. The human body, in glorious and panicked motion and, too often, sadly stilled. Struggle — to protect loved ones, to navigate a warming planet, to escape strife and oppression, to survive nature’s capriciousness.
