Pictures of the Year: A Picture and its Story

From the protests convulsing Hong Kong to that exchange between U.S. First Lady Melania Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Reuters photographers covered the biggest news stories of 2019 and captured some of its most viral moments as well. Reuters photographers were ready, often in challenging situations, to document an explosion at an Aden military graduation or an evacuation after al-Shabaab militants barricaded themselves inside a Nairobi hotel.

Beyond the images themselves, these are the inside stories of the men and women behind the lens and their experiences in the line of duty. "Every choice you make, is a gamble," said Carlos Jasso of his visually compelling picture of the Dakar Rally in the Peruvian desert taken from a helicopter.

For dramatic images from the U.S.-Mexico border as a mother and her young son pleaded with border patrol, to an arduous journey into the Brazilian jungle to observe the indigenous Guajajaras stopping illegal logging, Reuters photographers had to overcome technical and logistical challenges. Below is a selection of some exceptional 2019 Reuters pictures along with the stories of how they came to be, directly from the photographers who took them.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)