dead rhino with missing horn in Africa
man comforting his baby
Indian sisters born with cataracts who can see after receiving surgery
dock workers
children carrying bottled water in Flint, Michigan
a girl with a pet tamarin on her head, in Manú National Park, Peru
orphan baby orangutans
migrant family
vultures surrounding a dead zebra
Port Salut, Haiti after Hurricane Matthew
Steven Donovan flipping into a pool in Glacier National Park
displaced children in the rubble of an apartment complex
sunlight shining on the Garden Wall, Glacier National Park, Montana
a man standing outside of a gay club in Orlando, Florida
a California sea lion on rocks near Canada’s Vancouver Island
protest in Bismarck
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Poachers killed this black rhinocerous for its horn with high-caliber bullets at a water hole in South Africa’s Hluhluwelmfolozi Park. They entered the park illegally, likely from a nearby village, and are thought to have used a silenced hunting rifle. Black rhinos number only about 5,000 today. This photo was originally published in "Special Investigation: Inside the Deadly Rhino Horn Trade," in October 2016.
Photograph by Brent Stirton

Most Moving Photos of 2016

Taking a look at the most emotionally charged photos taken by National Geographic photographers over the course of the year.

ByDaniel Stone
December 06, 2016

What makes a photograph moving? Emotional gravity, says National Geographic photo editor Elijah Walker, and another term for that is stakes. Something at stake, such as a person, a place, or something different entirely. Walker can often detect an image's emotional punch at one glance, and the giveaway is a moment of genuine joy, anger, sorrow, surprise, or awe.

Most often, powerful images are ones of people, but not always. A dead zebra scavenged by vultures evokes the unflinching rawness of life and death. A dramatically shrunk glacier demonstrates the irreversible footprints of human development.

Two of the most arresting images we published this year featured kids. In one, a group of siblings in Flint, Michigan, carries cases of bottled water, their only source of fresh drinking water following the discovery of tap water contaminated by lead. In the other, in Ramadi, Iraq, a young boy with no arms sits with other kids in a windowsill carved by the rubble of war. In both images, unlikely places to find kids, and in neither, in positions that they should be.

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