Boston Globe photographers take thousands of pictures over the course of a year, from spectacular sports moments and breaking news to weather features and long-term projects where they document the struggles and triumphs of everyday people. Each year, editors from the photo department and magazine single out the most memorable images of the past 12 months. Click on the audio links that accompany the following six photos to hear photojournalists explain how they captured some of their best images of 2018, then click on the link at bottom to see the full Big Picture gallery of this year’s most outstanding shots.

JIM DAVIS
“You really can’t watch it like a fan.”
FENWAY PARK (Oct. 24) — It was the second game of the World Series. I was in the Jim Beam Dugout seats, a different angle than my usual position. I got Andrew Benintendi in focus, tracking the ball. That was actually the first frame. If I had gotten there a split second later, I wouldn’t have had him. Had it been 2/1,000ths of a second earlier, the ball may have been in front of the white letters, and you wouldn’t see it. The wall behind shows the standings. That’s what makes the picture — the 108 wins. The Red Sox had a historically good season; Baltimore, historically bad.
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JESSICA RINALDI
“Patricia was given 18 months to pack up her life.”
REVERE (Aug. 25) — This was a story of a Honduran woman who has Temporary Protected Status — she’s been living in the US legally for 19 years, has a 4-year-old daughter who’s an American citizen, a job, an apartment, and just an entire life here. The Trump administration decided to revoke that, impacting at least 250,000 people. Patricia was given 18 months to dismantle her life and figure out what to do next. One thing I’m always trying to show, even in sad stories, is moments of joy. Being able to teach your daughter to rollerblade on Revere Beach is something we take for granted.
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DAVID L. RYAN
“What immediately caught my eye was how they do a circle around the shark.”
TRURO (Aug. 16) — A man had been attacked by a shark the day before off the beach in Truro. We chartered a single-engine airplane. As we took off, [a boat with researchers] was right there, using a GoPro and filming the sharks. They do circles to make a wake. It also makes the shark disoriented. We were 150 feet above the water. I saw around 12 great whites in an hour. You can see how big they are. They were very close, like a short swim [offshore]. If you were on a surfboard, you’d be right by the shark.
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JOHN TLUMACKI
“I went into the water a little bit ... and just kept shooting and hoping that the picture would be in focus.”
QUINCY (March 2) — This was a rain event, a Friday nor’easter. It was astronomically the highest tide in years; they were expecting a 3-foot surge. The night before, I got an e-mail from my photo editor saying you should invest in a pair of fisherman’s waders. It saved me that day. I was so soaked, water was dripping off me. There was major flooding in Houghs Neck, the water was 4 to 5 feet deep, cars were underwater. On Post Island Road, people were trapped in their houses. In this particular rescue, the fire department got the woman holding her child. It was pretty dramatic.
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JOANNE RATHE
“Before dawn, people line up and gather all around the Lexington Green to watch the reenactment.”
LEXINGTON (April 16) — Because I live in Lexington, I cover the reenactment of the Battle of Lexington every year. I try to get there by 4:30 in the morning; the actual battle starts at 6 a.m. The light changes from darkness to total brightness within 15 minutes. The nice thing about the event is they try to make the day feel like it was. You get what it was like to live in the village at that time. This one works — the mood, the morning dew in the air, the lanterns. It has a look that it could have been a very long time ago.
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CRAIG F. WALKER
“It’s important to treat people the way you want to be treated.”
WILMINGTON (May 4) — Globe reporter Liz Kowalczyk wanted to do a story on mental health care for youth. She met Roberta Biscan and her son Connor, and they gave us full access to their lives for a year. Connor is this wonderful young man. He’s autistic but also suffers from mental illness. He’s extremely emotional, and it comes out in powerful ways. When he’s happy, he laughs with exuberance; when he’s upset, he kicks and screams with passion. This is at a lake they go to during the summer. This picture is a visual metaphor, how he lives in his own world, a stranger in a strange land.
To see the Big Picture gallery with all the top photos of 2018 from Globe photographers, click here.
Photo captions as told to Melissa Schorr; audio interviews by Scott Helman/Globe staff. Send comments to magazine@globe.com. Get the best of the magazine’s award-winning stories and features right in your e-mail inbox every Sunday. Sign up here.
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