In nearly 100 countries and all 50 U.S. states, The Associated Press photojournalists are eyewitnesses to world news and have won 36 of AP’s 59 Pulitzer Prizes since the award’s inception in 1917.

AP photographers have compiled a visual catalog of our civilization as life in 2024 races directly toward us at every speed and in every color and flavor imaginable – dizzying, relentless and challenging humanity to understand. And behind them are the unspoken questions:

How do you stop time? How do you preserve moments? Amidst all the quick cuts that cut to the heart of the matter, how do you capture what needs to be seen and remembered?

The answer is – as it has been for almost two centuries – summarized in one word that contains a multitude and possibilities: photography.

This year, AP photographers around the world captured 2024’s vast catalog of events, from breaking news (wars, natural disasters, an assassination attempt) to intimate, quiet and hilarious moments.

Thanks to photographers and their cameras, we were able to look down from the air. We crawled on the floor and watched the events unfold. We swam in the sea. We looked from a distance and were faced with fascinating faces. We looked straight ahead.

We stared at the news from odd angles. We’ve seen landscapes full of violence and inspiration, and we’ve seen intimate details that only a modern digital camera with a talented human behind it can deliver.

We have seen people around the world elect one another, love one another, break bread with one another, and compete against one another in the most prestigious forums. We saw them praying for one another and with one another, killing one another, and mourning one another.

Through the lenses of photographers, from the widest wide angle to the most impressive zoom, we saw:

A Pope alone in his chair and thinking. Lava flows over a burning landscape in Iceland. A former president of the United States — now its next president — defiantly raises his fist to the sky after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt outside a small western Pennsylvania town.

How do we stop time in 2024? A photographer arrives at the crime scene and presses a button. A sophisticated device reacts to light. Pixels are saved, edited and transmitted around the world.

Through the lens, time stood still for a split second on February 11 when Taylor Swift kissed Travis Kelce after his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, won the Super Bowl.

In these images, people are fighting the heat, fighting the cold, fighting the drought, going to the sea, passing the baton, casting the fishing line and hitting each other with sticks. Fearful and expectant, they search for a better life; sometimes they find them.

The child was born on water on July 3 – on a boat along the Bhramaputra River in northeast India, one of more than 100 million babies born in a convulsive year. Her first tears in this world were frozen in time and revealed to distant eyes for one simple reason: a photographer was there to bear witness.

In photography, the angle of view is important. We see where the camera goes. The decisions AP photographers make in seconds can shape how we see our world for years to come. Look at these photos in this light and they will become more impactful than they already are.

Take the case of Christophe Chavilinga, a 90-year-old man from a refugee camp called Munigi in eastern Congo. This year he became ill with MPOX. On August 16, blistering lesions covered large portions of his face.

That day, while waiting for treatment at a clinic, he stared directly into the camera. His eyes were tired. His mouth dropped. His dignity was expressed in every pixel. This frozen moment was broadcast around the world.

In July, we saw inmates in a Paraguayan prison reaching for bread from their cells – reaching with their outstretched hands, hoping something would come their way.

Each image manages to stop the world a little. It gives us a small moment to reflect on the people around us and those far from us – and how, like so many, they are struggling through the 21st century, trying to survive and thrive. Some are successful, some are not.

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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, writes frequently about photography. Follow him at http://x.com/anthonyted