TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2025

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Wildlife forensics — the work that aims to disrupt or dismantle criminal networks and wildlife trade chains. On the first glance this appears to be a fascinating underwater image of a green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) but can you spot the hand print? This award winning photograph, taken by world-renowned wildlife photojournalist, demonstrates a method for securing forensic evidence that can help to catch poachers and animal traffickers. Special fluorescent powder dyes, photographed under ultraviolet light, reveal hand and fingerprints, blood and other bodily fluids, gunpowder residue and other human traces. Dr. Alexandra Thomas, wildlife crime and conservation training practitioner and Project Manager Louise Gibson, from the Wildlife Crime Forensic Lab at the Zoological Society of London, are developing such methods to assist law enforcement. Six of the world's seven sea turtle species are classified as threatened, endangered, or critically endangered due to human persecution, habitat destruction, or marine pollution. (In case you need info about the award: The GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year is an annual competition organised by the German Society for Nature Photography — The GDT)
Ultraviolet light reveals a human handprint on the shell of a green sea turtle—demonstrating a cutting-edge technique for capturing forensic evidence to be used against poachers and animal traffickers.Britta Jaschinski
By TIME Photo Department

We stand at scenic overlooks and lift our lens to capture a post card view that, of course, looks better on a postcard. It’s not about gear, or the 10,000 hours. It’s simply that almost any photograph is improved by having people in it—a lesson TIME’s Top 100 Photographs of 2025 underscores in images that capture not only a year, but also the faint but discernable shadow cast by a less human future.

The moments photojournalists document tend to be most visible on faces: the panic of a fallen runner about to be spiked, the anguish in an immigrant in a headlock, a smiling Buddha toppled in a quake. Robots (in a footrace, at a bedside) serve as comic relief partly because they have no faces. But, as machines, they carry the same ambiguous edge as artificial intelligence. In Ahmedabad, the tail section of an Air India flight juts from a building like a paper airplane that sailed in and stuck. And in Portland, Ore., sworn agents of the United States government all but disappear inside red smoke, body armor and gas masks. — Karl Vick

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Palestinians warm themselves by a fire near the rubble of their destroyed house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Feb. 3.
Palestinians warm themselves by a fire near the rubble of their destroyed house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Feb. 3.Mohammed Salem—Reuters
Attendees pray during a memorial service for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, on September 21, 2025.
Attendees at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, on Sept. 21.Adriana Zehbrauskas—The New York Times/Redux
The Halemaʻumaʻu eruption at Kīlauea in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, on April 1. The lava fountain sustained heights of 600 to 700 feet for over 23 hours, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.Will Matsuda
Columbia University alumni Jess Pearce is arrested during a protest of Columbia University outside the campus during their graduation ceremony in New York City, on May 21.
Columbia University alumni Jess Pearce is arrested during a protest of Columbia University outside the campus during their graduation ceremony in New York City, on May 21.Alex Kent—The New York Times/Redux
ICE
Hand and leg restraints left over from a pervious deportation flight await collection at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Alexandria Staging Facility in Alexandria, La. on May 29.Christopher Lee for TIME
People gather for prayer outside the Parkchester Jame Masjid during the funeral for NYPD Officer Didarul Islam in the Bronx, on Thursday, July 31, 2025.
People pray outside the Parkchester Jame Masjid during the funeral for NYPD Officer Didarul Islam in the Bronx, on July 31.Amir Hamja—The New York Times/Redux

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