The photographs that defined 2024 – and the stories behind them

London, UK, 24 April

Two horses bolt through central London Jordan Pettitt

I was on Aldwych in London, outside the building where the inquiry into the Post Office scandal was being heard, and I’d finished photographing people going in. A few of us were standing around, flicking through pictures and chatting, then all of a sudden, the normally busy street fell silent. Cars and buses had vanished.

You could hear it first – the thundering of hooves – and these two horses appeared at the top of the road. People must have stopped and slowed down to let these horses bolt straight through. I ran to the pavement edge, whipped up the camera and managed to get a few frames as they sped past. I initially thought that the red colour on one of the horses was paint. Only when it got nearer did I realise it was blood.

The only thing that was going through my mind was the colour of that horse, and just thinking that was a red I hadn’t seen before, it was so rich. It was all so quick that you don’t get time to think about anything else other than make sure the camera is pointing in the right direction. It was all over in seconds, completely random, and we just managed to be in the right spot at the right time.

It made the news very quickly – the horses had been on a training exercise at the barracks near Buckingham Palace, got spooked, thrown off their riders and bolted. Fortunately, they were safely caught.

Mexico-US border, 26 March

A man carrying his daughter waits before attempting to cross into the US Brandon Bell

It was sunset, and temperatures were dropping pretty fast. Every maybe 30 minutes, somebody within a group would use pliers or cutters to try to cut through the barbed wire.

Earlier that week, there was a major clash on the border and border patrol had doubled down, so security around the area was really tight. Jordan was one of around 30 people in a group, which included children. He was carrying his daughter, wrapped in a blanket, while her mother was trying to sort out a plan with the rest of the group. They have a quick window – maybe 45 seconds, not even a minute – once they get to the razor wire, to make it through before law enforcement swarm that area and close it down.

He had stepped away from the group and just stood in this valley, looking at the fence and looking at the other side. When I saw him, I thought that it showed struggle, but also determination to make it across by any means necessary. He’s trying to keep his daughter warm, and he’s just waiting patiently for the group to come up with a plan.

He did make it across with his family, but others who followed got right to the wire and were turned around. When they make it through, they run, before border officials can get them into SUVs and take them to be processed.

Valencia, Spain, 1 November

Cars and debris pile up by a bridge after the flooding in Valencia David Ramos

I had headed straight to Valencia after the floods, and was one of the first outsiders to arrive at the villages near the city. People would shout out of their windows asking if someone was coming to help, and where had I come from. It was quite shocking how little information they had – no television, no phones, the communications were down. I walked for miles. It was like a tsunami, the destruction. That feeling of shock turned into anger at the management of everything, from the alerts the day before the floods, and then the devastation everywhere. At least 200 people lost their lives.

This photograph was taken three days after the flood. I was walking towards the village of Benetússer, outside Valencia, along the railway track – it was the easiest way to reach it. A lot of people from the village used the track to get water, or food, from Valencia. I saw some firefighters pumping water at an underpass under a railway bridge, and when I went to the other side, I found that wall of cars. I was amazed at the power of the water.

The emergency services were there, analysing the situation. I think they were looking for bodies in the cars, but luckily none were found. Then they were working out how to move the cars, one by one. I was there for a couple of hours, but I know it took a couple of days to clear the underpass.

Florida, US, 26 September

The US coast guard rescues a man and his dog during Hurricane Helene

Twenty-five miles off Florida’s Sanibel Island, a sailing boat began taking on water and called for help. Coast guard footage shows a man encouraging his lifejacket-wearing dog to jump off the side of the boat, into the ocean, before following him. They are assisted in the water by a rescue swimmer, then winched to safety in a basket to the helicopter.

Hurricane Helene made landfall along the Florida coast that evening. States of emergency had been declared there and in neighbouring states. The tropical cyclone brought high winds and storm surges, and caused the deaths of at least 234 people.

Portsmouth, UK 27 July

Kites at the Portsmouth kite festival. Josh Edgoose

I’ve been wanting to go to the Portsmouth kite festival for a long time. I love photographing these dedicated hobbyist events – it’s always a really nice vibe, being around people who have that shared passion in something quite niche. It just kind of rubs off on me. It was a much bigger turnout than I expected, probably a few thousand people. I had no idea it was so popular. It was surreal, with hundreds of kites in the sky, just an eclectic mix. It’s quite meditative watching them float.

Photographing people is my main thing. I got a few nice photos of just the kites in the sky, but they looked as if they’d been created with AI – I think you do need the actual human element.

Madrid, Spain, 13 March

Atlético Madrid fans line the road to the Metropolitano stadium Violeta Santos Moura

Atlético Madrid were playing Inter Milan in the Champions League. At important games the Madrid fans line the road to the stadium, chanting and carrying torches, and wait for the team bus to go by. There’s a big police presence to make sure nobody approaches the bus or gets run over.

It’s somewhat tense, because the fans are very excited, but it’s mostly fun. The most striking aspect is that there is a lot of smoke. It’s really thick, and the police horses can’t see very well, so you do have a few close calls with them, especially when the bus is passing and they’re galloping.

The police allow photographers to be on the road, to the side, so I was waiting for the bus to arrive and taking a few photos of the fans. I had earplugs in, because it’s hard for me to work with a lot of noise, but it all became silent in my head when that one horse drew my attention. Everything else dissolves around you. It felt very unreal and strange, and I wanted to convey the energy and tension, and my bewilderment.

Kharkiv region, Ukraine, 16 May

The bodies of Russian soldiers after an assault Kostya Liberov

This photograph was taken in the Kharkiv region during the early days of the offensive on Vovchansk, near the border with Russia. We had been there for about a month. Suddenly, Russian soldiers started to assault our positions, but thanks to our FPV (first person view) drones the attack was stopped. This photograph was taken with a drone.

I feel great sorrow that these people could not come up with anything better than to give up their lives in an invasion of the territory of another country. When you see this, when you see a dead body in front of you, some sense of pity awakens inside. This was once a living person who has now left this world for ever. At the same time, you understand that this could have been avoided if they had simply not waged war against Ukraine.

Teahupo‘o, Tahiti, 29 July

The Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina celebrates riding a big wave during the Olympic Games Jerome Brouillet

I’d been covering the entire event, from training to the podium. That morning in Teahupo‘o, the swell was bigger than expected and the waves were pretty good. Around 9.30am, Gabriel Medina took one of the biggest waves of the day. I knew, like other surf photographers, that Medina loved Teahupo‘o and would often celebrate the end of a big wave ride. And that’s what he did.

I was on the photographers’ media boat, and the tricky part of the shot was that when he was about to jump out of the wave, we couldn’t see, because the wave passed behind the boat. I just had to aim somewhere towards the back of the wave where I expected him to appear. When he jumped, I took eight pictures – this picture is the fourth. He went on to win the bronze medal.

I had a few seconds to send all the shots to the editor from my camera, so I selected one of Medina riding the wave, this picture, and another one of him paddling back to the lineup, then focused on shooting the rest of the event. I still had work to do.

Nairobi, Kenya, 30 January

Volunteers help firefighters at a blaze at a commercial depot Thomas Mukoya

I was downtown, walking to the coffee shop to have an evening break, when I realised there was black smoke in the air, coming from a flight path. I thought it might have been a plane that came down. I didn’t have my cameras with me, but I had my phone, so I took a motorbike taxi and headed in the direction of the fire, even though the roads were blocked.

It turned out to be a depot where they keep secondhand drums of oil paint, so when they started burning, the flames went up so fast. It was daylight outside the area, but the smoke was so thick it was like night, and the light was orange. There was a choking, dark smell and the ground was covered with different colours of oil paint. Every so often, there would be a huge blast, as a barrel exploded.

There were volunteers and traders helping the firefighters, and they knew the area, so they were saying where to direct the water. In this photograph, they’re dousing an area which wasn’t yet burnt but the fire was spreading fast in that direction. People were scared, but they worked together. It was like a show of solidarity.

I was there for a couple of hours, but people had started to arrive to steal what they could. I had to pocket my phone tightly and find a way out – someone on a motorbike was trying to leave and I asked him to drop me back in the city centre. The fire kept burning until morning.

Donbas region, Ukraine, 18 April

The tattooed hands of a commander Tom Peter

Roman is 38 and a commander of a sniper support unit. He left Ukraine years ago and settled in France. He said he had everything he ever dreamed of, but then the war started, and he signed up because he felt he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror if he was sitting this out. So he went back to his home country to fight. We were in Donbas region and spent four or five days with him and his men in various dugouts. He has a reconnaissance drone unit, a mortar unit, and active fighting personnel, and they fan out across a section of the frontline. He works out of a command room in the basement of a house in a damaged village that’s barely populated. Most locals have left. He spends most of his days and nights in front of his screens, directing his guys.

He’s a very impressive, imposing character, with tattoos all over his body, this massive ginger beard and a low gravelly voice, a charismatic person who is well respected by his peers. The tattoo on one hand says “revenge”, the one on the hand that holds the cigarette says “hate”.

One of his closest childhood friends was killed fighting the Russians, and it was a very traumatic experience for him. He got those two words tattooed on to his hands, and he says that’s what motivates him on days when he might be feeling low. Many people volunteered to fight to protect their country, but for many it’s become personal, because they have lost close friends and comrades. These tattoos symbolise the personal tragedy that every soldier like him has experienced in this war.

Maldives, 3 March

A group of young sharks moments before an attack Angela Albi and August Paula

We are a team of scientists working on a project studying the predator-prey dynamics of blacktip reef sharks and baitfish. We’re interested in understanding how animals behave as a collective, and in this case, we see both the predator and the prey at the same time. This is a frame from a video taken by drone in the Maldives, just a little more than 10 seconds before a successful predation.

These are juvenile sharks, around 50cm or 60cm. When they’re bigger, they might be more likely to be seen in slightly deeper waters, but here they’re just a few metres from the shore and the water is shallow and really clear. It was a great opportunity for us to study this complex phenomenon that otherwise would be inaccessible, as well as a unique opportunity to ask some questions: how do the prey synchronise their response and transfer the information through the rest of the group when there is a potential attack? And how do the sharks decide when and how to attack, and do they benefit from being in a group? This project is relatively new, so we don’t have answers yet.

It’s a dynamic system that can go from a more quiet scenario, where you have sharks just cruising, and then there could be a trigger and a shark initiates a predation attempt, which could be successful or unsuccessful, or maybe there are other predators that come into the game. It’s never boring.

Los Angeles, US, 2 May

Police come up against pro-Palestinian students on the UCLA campus Etienne Laurent

Since the October 7 attack, I’ve been covering most of the protests in the Los Angeles area, both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. This was the pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA the night the police raided. I had been there the previous night when the camp was attacked by pro-Israel protesters, so the tension was growing. The next day, a colleague called me to say there was a big buildup of police officers surrounding the camp. I arrived at around 7pm to take photographs of the mobilisation of the police, and then try my best to access the encampment.

Some protesters had already decided to leave, but there were still a couple of hundred who stayed. Tension was growing. The police had a megaphone and were asking protesters to leave. To prevent them from getting some rest, they were shooting flash bangs, but it wasn’t like a direct confrontation, so it lasted for several hours until the police moved in. They were pulling the protesters from the lines, while the protesters were locking each other by the elbows. It was mostly peaceful in a very weird way and any protesters who threw things at the police, like plastic bottles, were scolded by others.

I took this photograph between the two opposing lines, balancing on a bush which had some cardboard piled on top of it. The idea was really to capture these two forces facing each other.

It was like a tug of war for quite some time until the lines collapsed, with the cops slowly gnawing away by removing protesters, one after the other, removing the barricades and finally entering the camp.

California, US, 25 July

An animal flees the encroaching wildfire Noah Berger

The fire was coming really fast up this ridge into a community called Cohasset. Where the fire is going to affect civilised areas, most of the work of covering wildfires is putting yourself in those spots.

I was on the side of the road, watching the flames approach. Residents were evacuating down that road – they were taking horses behind their cars and walking with dogs. I believe this is a fox, and I saw it in the corner of my eye as it was fleeing the flames. The grass isn’t on fire but is reflecting the colour of the flames. The fire reached that spot a few minutes later, and tore through there hard.

I shot about 12 major fires in California this year, but this, known as the Park Fire, was our second-largest single-ignition fire ever in the state. It was caused by a person who rolled his burning car into vegetation.

The fire was rotating, like a tornado, so I had to be extra-vigilant for my safety. I ended up riding it out in a small dirt patch, maybe a quarter of the size of a soccer field. There were fire crews in that safety zone. You have to find a patch that doesn’t have any vegetation. It’s insanely hot and smoky; your eyes are burning. There’s embers and debris flying through the air, vegetation falling, branches being picked up and carried around, and the fire spreading insanely fast. I would say the intense fire burned for another half a mile from where this photograph was shot. If the fox kept running, it might have outrun the fire, but I don’t know.

Pennsylvania, US, 13 July

Secret Service officers lead Donald Trump from a rally following an assassination attempt Evan Vucci

I’ve covered Trump since he was a candidate in 2015, and then at the White House. Once he came back to the campaign trail, I was right back on it. Nothing was out of the ordinary at this rally, the same thing I’ve done a thousand times before. You see the same faces, a hardcore group of Trump supporters. He comes out and he’s waving to the crowd and speaking.

I heard the popping sound, and I knew immediately what it was from the rhythm of it – I’ve been in combat zones. I had my lens trained on the stage when the Secret Service started to rush the stage and cover him.

There was another shot, which we now know was the sniper team that fired back, so people in the crowd were yelling: “Second shooter!” Officers were yelling, trying to get people out of the way and getting people down, so there was a lot of chaos at that point. I was just trying to find an angle where I could actually see.

I remember being hyper-aware of everything that was happening, telling myself to slow down, compose the photograph, think about where the light was coming from, what’s going to happen next, where they are going to take him. I didn’t want to miss anything. Are there any people down? Is there another shooter in the crowd? I’m looking all around while trying to keep my main focus on him.

Trump started fighting with the Secret Service officers to let him go to the front and he started pumping his fist at the crowd. Before they took him down the steps, that’s where I made that photograph.

My job is to show you the world through my eyes. I try to do it professionally, fairly, and I feel like I did that in the moment. The reaction to the photograph afterwards is out of my control. As far as people saying that photograph won Trump the election, I would have to push back on that. I think people have very real problems and very real issues, and I feel that for someone to vote based on a photograph is ridiculous.

Gravelines, France, 26 April

Sudanese refugees on a French beach attempting to cross the Channel Sameer Al-Doumy

Three days after five migrants, including a child, had died attempting to cross the Channel, I watched more people trying to make it from Gravelines, between Calais and Dunkirk, to the UK.

The sea was calm, but I didn’t expect anyone would attempt the crossing, since a police buggy was already stationed on the beach. Around 7am, however, a group of migrants emerged from the dunes. The police tried to stop them with tear gas but a “taxi boat’ was already waiting offshore. This is a new tactic where smugglers avoid patrols by coordinating pick-ups at different beaches. The migrants boarded quickly, but the overloaded boat struggled with the waves and drifted back toward the beach.

A French police officer then waded into the shallow water, knife in hand, and approached the boat. The migrants were terrified, pleading with him to let them leave. One young Sudanese man stood at the edge of the boat, crying and begging the officer to stop, but his pleas were ignored. The officer punctured the boat, forcing the migrants to abandon it.

Back on the beach, the Sudanese man collapsed in despair, screaming and sobbing uncontrollably, while others gathered around to console him. It was an incredibly painful scene to witness – his anguish reflected the hopelessness that so many endure in their search for safety and dignity.

Atka Bay, Antarctica, 12 January

Young emperor penguins take their first leap off an ice shelf Bertie Gregory

We spent two months camping about a mile from this emperor penguin colony. We arrived when they were about four months old and we wanted to follow them through that really important phase when the parents leave the colony, the chicks are left alone, and for their next meal, they have to march to the ocean by themselves, take their first swim, and learn to be emperor penguins without any instruction from their parents. It happens when the sea ice is starting to break up with the onset of the Antarctic summer, which means that for humans, it’s a very challenging environment to work in – you can’t drive a snowmobile on sea ice that’s breaking up.

We had planned to photograph their normal behaviour – they come down these big snowy ramps, march to the edge of the sea ice and jump in from a couple of feet. Then there was a big storm and the ice shattered, so we couldn’t get near. We were feeling very frustrated because our chance was gone. Then I noticed this one group of chicks that had taken a left turn and were going a different way, staying on the ice shelf.

I followed them by drone and realised they were marching towards the edge of this enormous cliff, 50ft high. Drones make a lot of noise, and I was very conscious that I shouldn’t frighten them. I wanted to have absolutely no impact. I used a really powerful scouting lens just to watch them from a distance for four or five hours.

They were stacked up at the edge and staring at the drop. I thought, there’s no way they’re going to jump. Then one took a step forward. As soon as I saw it jump, I thought, this is a thing they do, they can survive – so then I could go close enough with the drone to start photographing them.

By the end, they were just pouring off this cliff, a really extraordinary thing to see. I think around 100 jumped. The rest turned and went back to a point that was still a 20ft drop that they jumped off.

Some of them would be really brave and bold, and kind of swan dive, and then some of them would just fall over backwards. You’d see them trying to flap as they fell. They all splashed into the water and bobbed to the surface, looking very shocked. But what was amazing was that they had a few seconds where they looked like they were panicking, and it was like a switch went off in their heads – and they suddenly turned into these really graceful penguins. None of this is learned. It’s all instinctive.

Everyone says penguins can’t fly. And after seeing that, no, they can’t.

Shot for Secrets of the Penguins, for Nat Geo and Disney+

Reykjanes peninsula, Iceland, 20 November

Another volcanic eruption in Iceland Marco Di Marco

The temperature was -9C, and it was windy – which is why I managed to take this photograph because without that cold and wind cooling the air, I probably couldn’t have flown the drone above the lava. I was standing on the road to Grindavik, the town that was evacuated in November last year, on the Reykjanes peninsula in south-west Iceland. The road leads to the Blue Lagoon spa and swimming lagoon, and, a few hours later, a couple of hundred metres from where I was standing, the lava crossed the road and reached it. They’d built up a wall of dirt to protect the complex, but the parking lot is now gone.

The area is not steep, so the lava does not move so fast that it could outrun you. The wind was in the right direction – at the beginnings of these eruptions, the gas emission is massive, so you don’t want to be in the direction of the plume, because that can be dangerous.

There have been several eruptions this year. It’s nature and is kind of bittersweet. When eruptions like this happen in an area with no infrastructure around, they’re beautiful. At the same time, where there is a town close by, you know that something may be destroyed. In this case, nobody got hurt, the eruption didn’t threaten the town – but there was still a feeling that people would lose something, even if it’s just the road.

Lviv, Ukraine, 7 July

Mourners at a memorial for Iryna Tsybukh, a combat medic Julia Kochetova

I met Iryna Tsybukh when I photographed her work as a combat medic. She contacted me on social media when I posted the image and I started to cover her unit. We became good friends. Last year, she sent me and another friend a message about what to do in case she was killed, how she’d like to be commemorated. We spoke a lot about it but you never expect that you’re actually going to have to do it. Iryna was killed in May on her way to evacuate wounded soldiers in the Kharkiv region. She was 25.

This image was taken at her memorial, part of Orthodox tradition in which you commemorate the person 40 days after the person was buried. I noticed this family, and it’s a painful realisation that life still goes on. There are still babies being born in my country, even if we are burying other young people. There are still people who fall in love, have children and keep moving somehow. That was something special for me, so although I didn’t feel like taking photographs, I made myself do it.

Iryna loved to walk with her dog, to read. She was always having ideas about how to get more donations, how to keep this fight going and how to remember those killed in the war. She was full of love, energy, ideas; not fearless but extremely brave. She was bright and bold.

Paris, France, 31 July

Olympic athletes competing in the women’s triathlon Martin Bureau

The triathlons had been in doubt because of the weather conditions and concerns about water quality. The previous day, the men’s event had been postponed, but we got the green light for the women’s triathlon around 4.30am that morning. By 6am, I was at the pontoon built alongside Pont Alexandre III, the bridge where they would be starting their 1500m swim.

We met the safety team and one of them went into the water first to see if it was going to be possible. Wearing flippers and a wetsuit, I also jumped in – it was just a test, so I didn’t have my equipment with me. The temperature was fine, but it didn’t smell too good and the current was very strong. There was still about an hour before the race so I couldn’t stay in the water, but then I realised I couldn’t get back on to the pontoon – it was too high and I couldn’t find a ladder. I decided to swim across the river to get back up on the ramp, but the current was really strong and when I reached the ramp, I was getting exhausted. It made me realise how strong the athletes were, because they were swimming against the current on the return leg.

I’d already lost a lot of time – by then, the event was already live on TV, with the first athletes arriving. I had to run back along the pontoon, past lots of Olympic officials. Back in the water, I had to have a leash on my arm to avoid being dragged away by the current. The dive was the most important picture for me, and I got it. After days of uncertainty, it was one of the key moments. The Seine was playing a starring role in the Olympics – people had been banned from swimming in it for just over 100 years – and Paris had spent £1bn cleaning it up.

New Jersey, US, 26 May

Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones tour at the MetLife stadium Christopher Wahl

Mick Jagger is the greatest frontman in history. He can captivate 65,000 people in the most un-intimate venue and make them feel something. He’s one of a kind. It’s impressive.

Rock’n’roll pictures, especially on a stage of this size – there’s not really a level of intimacy to the photography, particularly. You’re just trying to be creative. I wanted something that looks like Jagger and holds up, as opposed to just a typical shot of him running up and down the runway.

It is remarkable to witness the man work. He is very good at it. Maybe the other band members are slightly slowing down, but not Mick. I don’t know how long they’re going to continue to do it so every opportunity you get to watch it, it’s something. Let’s not take it too seriously – as they say, it’s only rock’n’roll. But it surely does make people happy.

California, US, 9 September

A teenage boy watches a wildfire burning in Trabuco Canyon Jeff Gritchen

I noticed this kid because he was wearing a T-shirt with Smokey Bear, the character used by the US Forest Service in its public service campaigns about wildfire prevention. The fire was in the canyon below, and these houses were up on a hill in a neighbourhood that was being evacuated. The police weren’t forcing people to leave, but they were advising them to. Aidan Thomas and a couple of friends had been riding down the street on their scooters, and they hung around and watched the fire while people were packing their cars.

In the end, the fire didn’t reach the houses; it stayed up in the hills where helicopters doused it with water and kept it away. But there was smoke everywhere. People were on edge, but the threat level wasn’t the highest. Though if the wind changed, there would have been trouble.

I’ve been covering wildfires for around 25 years and I feel like it goes in waves. You have years where you have a lot, and years where you don’t. The hills will be really green in the winter, and if we get a lot of rain, there’s a lot of growth. In the summer, when that dries up, it’s so much fuel for the fire. It doesn’t take much to set it off.

Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 14 June

A Palestinian family climb out of the rubble of their home after an Israeli attack Ali Jadallah

The home of the Abu Aisha family was targeted around 11am. I was nearby and when I heard the massive explosion, I rushed to document the event. It was chaos – screams, cries for help, and frantic efforts to provide first aid.

Since the onset of this genocide, I have been documenting the atrocities, often unaware of who the victims are. As a journalist, it is my duty to record the crimes of the occupation. It is a duty to show the world the agony, suffering and death we are enduring every single moment. Yet every tragedy I witness brings me back to that devastating moment – the day my own family was targeted, and their bodies pulled from beneath the rubble.

The smell of debris, gunpowder, and blood is no longer just a scent to me; it is a haunting reminder of my family’s absence. Every time I document the destruction, I am forced to relive my deepest pain. This wound within me has never healed – it lingers, consuming me with every photo I take, every story I tell.