This summary provides the key details from the document in 3 sentences: Hurricane Sandy devastated the US northeast coast in late 2012, while numerous typhoons caused damage in Asia. The conflict in Syria grew increasingly bloody as it dragged on into its second year. Protests against austerity measures occurred across Europe as China transitioned leadership and violence continued between Israelis and Palestinians.

1. 1

2. 2
Our collection of the best photojournalism of 2012 concludes with a look at the
months of September, October, November, and December. While hurricane
Sandy devastated the American northeast coast, numerous powerful typhoons
wreaked havoc on several Asian nations. The battle for Syria further devolved
into a bloody abyss as the conflict dragged on well into its second year. Protests
against austerity measures roiled Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and other
European countries, China picked a new leader during their once-a-decade
power transition, and a new burst of violence scarred relations between Israelis
and Palestinians. Through it all, the ordinary lives of people in our multifaceted
cultures shined bright. [Editor's note: The Big Picture will not publish during the
week beginning December 23. We will return on December 31.]- Lane Turner (43
photos total)

3. 3
A woman, dressed
in a Halloween
costume, takes a
rope jump from an
old water pipe
bridge 144 feet
high in the Siberian
Taiga area outside
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
on October 28,
2012. (Ilya
Naymushin/Reuter
s)

4. 4
A child jumps on the waste
products used to make
poultry feed as she plays in a
tannery at Hazaribagh in
Dhaka, Bangladesh on
October 9, 2012. Luxury
leather goods sold across the
world are produced in a slum
area of Bangladesh's capital
where workers, including
children, are exposed to
hazardous chemicals and
often injured in horrific
accidents. None of the
tanneries packed into the
Hazaribagh neighborhood
treat their waste water,
which contains animal flesh,
sulphuric acid, chromium
and lead, leaving it to spew
into open gutters and
eventually the city's main
river. (Andrew Biraj/Reuters)
#

5. 5
Jorge Lorenzo falls
during the Valencia
Motorcycle Grand
Prix at the Ricardo
Tormo racetrack in
Cheste, Spain on
November 11, 2012.
(Heino Kalis/Reuters)
#

6. 6
A multiple exposure
photograph shows Britain's
Andy Murray as he serves
to Serbia's Novak Djokovic
during their men's singles
tennis match at the ATP
World Tour Finals in the O2
Arena in London on
November 7, 2012. (Dylan
Martinez/Reuters) #

7. 7
People celebrate
as a balloon
carrying fireworks
takes off during
the hot-air balloon
festival in
Taunggyi,
Myanmar. (Ye
Aung
Thu/AFP/Getty
Images) #

8. 8
A woman escapes from a cloud of
tear gas thrown by the police during
the second day of skirmishes in the
Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi
on November 19, 2012. Police
dispersed Kenyans raging against
ethnic Somalis in the Somali-
dominated neighborhood in protest
against a bomb attack in the
district. (Noor Khamis/Reuters) #

9. 9
A Palestinian firefighter
tries to extinguish a fire
after an Israeli air strike in
a building that also houses
international media
offices in Gaza City on
November 19, 2012.
(Suhaib Salem/Reuters) #

10. 10
A riot police officer is
engulfed by petrol
bomb flames in front of
parliament during
clashes in Athens on
November 7, 2012.
(Dimitri
Messinis/Associated
Press) #

11. 11
A Red Deer stag roars in the early
morning light in Richmond Park on
October 10, 2012 in London. Autumn
sees the start of the 'rutting' season
where the large stags can be heard
roaring and barking in an attempt to
attract females and can also be
seen clashing with rival males. (Dan
Kitwood/Getty Images) #

12. 12
A Pakistani Hindu girl holds
an earthen lamp while
decorating an area of her
house to celebrate Diwali,
the Hindu “festival of lights”
on November 13 in
Karachi. (Shakil
Adil/Associated Press) #

13. A participant performs a
re-enactment of the rise
of the Chinese 13
Communist Red Army in
a theatrical production in
Jinggangshan, China on
October 15, 2012. (How
Hwee Young/EPA) #

14. 14
Indian herders and their
camels gather at the
annual Pushkar Fair in
Pushkar, India on
November 22, 2012. The
annual camel and livestock
fair attracts thousands of
livestock dealers who bring
thousands of camels,
horses, and cattle. (Kevin
Frayer/Associated Press) #

15. 15
Models mingle at
the bar prior to the
Bodyspectra body
painting event in
Cape Town, South
Africa on October
26, 2012. (Nic
Bothma/EPA) #

16. 16
A bus driver waits
for passengers in
Jinggangshan,
China on
September 20,
2012. (Carlos
Barria/Reuters) #

17. 17
Medical workers help a
patient into an ambulance
during an evacuation of New
York University's Tisch Hospital
on October 29, 2012, in New
York. The hospital was moving
out more than 200 patients
after its backup generator
failed after superstorm Sandy.
(John Minchillo/Associated
Press) #

18. 18
An Afghan man smokes a
cigarette in a tea house
at dawn in Kabul on
September 24, 2012.
(Roberto
Schmidt/AFP/GettyImage
s) #

19. 19
Tahera Begum, who
survived a devastating
fire in a garment
factory, lies inside her
room in Savar on
November 30, 2012.
Begum, an operator at
Tazreen Fashions
garment factory,
escaped the fire which
killed more than 100
workers on November
24. According to
Begum's husband, she
became mentally ill and
lost her memory after
escaping the fire.
(Andrew Biraj/Reuters)
#

20. 20
Indonesian mental
patient Ujang
takes a bath at a
small mental
rehabilitation
center run by the
Jamrud Biru
foundation in
Bekasi, West Java,
Indonesia on
October 10, 2012,
the World Health
Organization World
Mental Health Day.
(Mast Irham/EPA)
#

21. 21
Doris, a supporter
of Sierra Leone
opposition
presidential
candidate Julius
Maada Bio, poses
for a picture at
Bio's final
campaign rally in
Freetown on
November
15, 2012. (Joe
Penney/Reuters) #

22. 22
A farmer walks through a paddy field to
his home in the village of Khokana, Nepal
on September 4, 2012. (Prakash
Mathema/AFP/GettyImages) #

23. 23
A scientist delegate yawns
on stage during the closing
session of the 18th National
Congress of the Communist
Party of China inside the
Great Hall of the People on
November 14, 2012 in
Beijing. (Feng Li/Getty
Images) #

24. 24
People are attracted by
a luminous carnival ride
in the evening of day
one of the Oktoberfest
beer festival on
September 22.
(Johannes Simon/Getty
Images) #

25. 25
A worker breaks bedrock by
sledge hammer as a rotary
dredge rips the coal face of the
Borodinsky opencast colliery near
the Siberian town of Borodino on
November 15, 2012. The
Borodinsky colliery is the biggest
opencast coal mine in Russia,
built from 1945 to 1949 by gulag
prisoners and now produces
about 20 million tons of coal
annually. (Ilya
Naymushin/Reuters) #

26. 26
A man walks under
the wreckage of a
fair ride after a
tornado ripped
through Gandia,
Spain on
September 29,
2012. (Pedro
Armestre/AFP/Getty
Images) #

27. 27
A person passes by
an equestrian
statue of King
Johannes created
by Johannes
Schilling in
Theaterplatz Square
on a foggy morning
in Dresen, Germany
on November
23, 2012. (Arno
Burgi/EPA) #

28. 28
Internally displaced
children walk through
flood waters next to
makeshift shelters at a
camp in southern
Mogadishu on
December 1, 2012.
Heavy rains in
Mogadishu caused
floods which have
affected the entire
capital but hit internally
displaced persons and
their camps hardest.
(Abdurashid Abdulle
Abikar/AFP/Getty
Images) #

29. 29
Palestinian schoolchildren walk
in debris by a damaged school
in Gaza City on November 24,
2012. A truce came after eight
days of cross-border fighting,
the bloodiest between Israel
and Hamas in four years. The
school was damaged when
Israeli forces struck on a nearby
building. (Bernat
Armangue/Associated Press) #

30. 30
A man carries a
woman from her
destroyed home in
the Shaar
neighborhood of
Aleppo on October
13, 2012. (Zac
Baillie/AFP/GettyIma
ges) #

31. 31
Residents look over
the remains of
burned homes in
the Rockaways
section of New
York on October
30, 2012 after
Hurricane Sandy
battered the U.S.
East Coast. (Keith
Bedford/Reuters) #

32. 32
A hand of a flash flood victim
protrudes from the debris of
Typhoon Bopha in New Bataan
township in Philippines on
December 7, 2012. (Bullit
Marquez/Associated Press) #

33. 33
Shackled inmates accused
of murders sit in their cell in
Rumbek Central Prison in
Rumbek, South Sudan on
October 24, 2012. Built in
1948 by the British colonial
government, Rumbek
Central Prison houses some
600 prisoners who live in
overcrowded cells with
virtually no access to the
basic health care,
sanitation, or adequate
food and nutrition. Arbitrary
detention is rife in South
Sudan, says a 2012 report by
Human Rights Watch, which
also states that access to
legal aid is just one of
several human rights laws
being broken at the prisons
in South Sudan, which
'clearly do not comply with
international or domestic
law and standards on
prisoners' welfare'. (Dai
Kurokawa/EPA) #

34. 34
Palestinian gunmen
drag the body of a
man suspected of
working for Israel in
Gaza City on
November 20, 2012.
Palestinian gunmen
shot dead six
alleged
collaborators in the
Gaza Strip who
"were caught red-
handed", according
to a security source
quoted by the
Hamas Aqsa radio.
(Yasser
Gdeeh/Reuters) #

35. 35
A riot police officer is
dragged by
protesters after being
knocked from his
horse with rocks
thrown by workers of
'La Parada' wholesale
market in Lima on
October 25, 2012
during clashes
between the
wholesale market
workers and police
officers. (Alessandro
Currarino/Diario El
Comercio/Reuters) #

36. 36
Riot police detain a
protestor in Athens
during a
demonstration
against the visit of
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel on
October 9, 2012. (Aris
Messinis/AFP/GettyIm
ages) #

37. 37
A local scout reacts
as he inspects the
body of a
Congolese
government soldier
who was killed in
fighting with M23
rebels near
Sake, Democratic
Republic of Congo
on November
23, 2012. Tens of
thousands of
residents fled Sake
and surrounding
areas after heavy
fighting. (Dai
Kurakawa/EPA) #

38. 38
A Palestinian man
carries the dead
body of a child of
the al-Dallu family
out from the rubble
after an Israeli
missile struck a
family home, killing
at least seven
members of the
same family in
Gaza City on
November 18,
2012. (Mahmud
Hams/AFP/Getty
Images)#

39. 39
A father cries while
holding his dead child in
front of Dar al Shifa
hospital in Aleppo, Syria
on October 3, 2012 after
the Syrian army shelled
rebels in the city.
(Maysun/EPA)#

40. 40
A girl looks at a
body inside a coffin
during a wake for
seven earthquake
victims in El Recreo
town, Guatemala
on November 8,
2012. (Saul
Martinez/EPA)#

41. 41
A teddy is measured at
the Teddy Bear Hospital in
the AMC Hospital in
Amsterdam on
November 6, 2012. The
Teddy Bear Hospital aims
to make children
comfortable with
hospitals and doctors.
(Lex Van Lieshout/EPA)#

42. 42
A Greenpeace activist, dressed as a polar
bear, sits inside a police car after being
detained outside Gazprom's headquarters
in Moscow on September 5, 2012. Russian
and international environmentalists are
protesting against Gazprom's plans to
pioneer oil drilling in the Arctic. (Misha
Japaridze/Associated Press) #

43. 43
A cow is washed before
entering the slaughterhouse
of the Frigorifico San Jacinto,
a meat processing plant in
San Jacinto, Uruguay on
October 31, 2012. (Pablo
Porciuncula/AFP/Getty
Images)#

44. 44
A North Korean traffic
coordinator stands on a
roadside near portraits of
the late leaders Kim Il
Sung (left) and Kim Jong Il
during a foggy morning on
Kim Il Sung Square in
Pyongyang on December
17, 2012, the first death
anniversary of the former
leader Kim Jong Il. (Ng
Han Guan/Associated
Press)#

45. 45
A woman cries near a makeshift
memorial close to Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newtown,
Conn. on December 16, 2012
after a mass shooting at the
school. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)#