Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Bored Panda

Ilona Baliūnaitė

39 Powerful Photos Of All Time That Left People Completely Speechless

Reddit Earth

Being able to take a photo these days isn’t exactly difficult. You can just pull out your phone or camera, tap a few times, and you’re done. But just because taking pictures is easy doesn’t mean capturing a truly amazing one is.

That’s why a great photo can still stop you in your tracks. On Reddit, users shared the most powerful images they’ve ever seen, and we’ve put together some of the best ones below. Scroll down to see them, and hopefully, they’ll move you too.

#1

Look, I know this is going to be buried, but I really want this to join these, as part of the narrative. I've seen many of these other images before, and cried over them and had them tear my heart out, but I want to share my own photo.

It's an image similar to what most of you will have of yourselves or maybe your children. It's an image similar to that that you've probably rolled your eyes at in your Facebook feed a hundred times.

It's the first time I held my daughter. She was a mighty 4.4 pounds and was 32 weeks gestational age. At 23 weeks, my ob/gyn did a rescue cerclage and then said, I've done all I can, please don't expect to make tomorrow.

And that night I I went to sleep quite early. And then I woke up. I can't remember the time now, perhaps 11 o'clock. And fear gripped me. This horrible, intense, overwhelming fear. It hurt my insides and made my head vibrate. It was the most terrible thing I have ever experienced. And then thoughts like no one should ever think filled my head. Sad, scared, lonely thoughts. I was so worried about being given full anaesthetic the next day and desperately wanted to ask for an epidural.

Who would demand my daughter be given oxygen if she was born breathing and fighting? Who would wrap her up and put her hat on? Who would hold her and kiss her? Who would rock her gently to a never waking sleep? Who would take photos of my sleeping angel? Would I be brave enough to hold her and love her if I woke up after she was gone? Would she be cold or would they keep her warm for me? Would I let the nurses take her when it was time? How on earth would I EVER be brave enough to put her in the ground?

But we made it to 32 weeks. We were so thrilled. But the paed that attended her birth said to me: "32 weeks. That's good. 99% survive. I don't say that to give you hope, I say that because 1% don't. She won't be breathing, she'll need resuscitation and you won't get to hold her today and probably not tomorrow either." But she came out screaming and this was taken when the midwife handed her to me after she had been checked over.

My husband, on his way back from dropping her off at the NICU ran into another father taking photos of the sunrise and the father stopped him and asked him how excited he was and wasn't our babies' first sunrise so exciting and beautiful. And my husband did the "Yeah man. Boy or girl?" thing, but inside he was thinking "What is this guy on about? First sunrise? Couldn't care less. She's *alive!*"

She's doing well now. She's 2 and 27 pounds and simply amazing.

#2

The Hubble Deep Field image.

And that's just a piece of 'empty' sky the diameter of a straw.

#3

The Animals In War Memorial in Hyde Park. The inscription reads:

>This monument is dedicated to all the animals that served and persihed alongside British and Allied forces in wars and campaigns throughout time.

Then, to the far right:

**They had no choice.**

#4

This one

#5

This is a sunset on Mars. The amount of effort, science, hope, manpower, time, EVERYTHING that went into capturing that image is beyond my comprehension.

#6

Calvin and Hobbes. I think it's the way they're smiling at each other.

#7

One product of the residential school systems in Canada.

So much culture...destroyed.

#8

One that always sticks out in my mind is this one of a soldier with a dog at a Memorial for dogs in service.

#9

It's actually a picture of me and my best friend. The reason it's so powerful is really only to me...because every time I look at it I want to lose it.
This was the last picture taken of me and my buddy, Thor. He was taken into the vet the next day and didn't come back....but he was one of the main reasons I hadn't lost it these past 13 years.

When I would wind up crawling to the bathroom in the middle of the night to throw up in the toilet and black out on the ground due to the pain in my head..he would literally follow me down the hallway and lie next to me in the bathroom so I wouldn't be cold or alone.

I love him. He's gone. That's why this picture hits me hard.

#10

That picture. You already know which one I'm talking about.

*The* picture, if only one picture in all the world were to survive

#11

1991 January 13, Lithuanians defending the TV Tower from tanks with their bare hands, so it could braodcast the russian attack to europe

#12

A truly dedicated son. Teared up and called my mom. Love is a powerful thing.

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my Mommy you'll be."

#13

Antarctica

#14

This picture makes me feel so happy inside. It's about simple pleasures. I remember the first time I saw this photograph and was so tickled by the gaze of admiration that this little boy has on his face. He is so happy, just him and his ice cream cone.

#15

This. Not that it's gripping, or joyful, or makes tears come to my eyes. It's the sudden realization that two seemingly irreconcilable points of view can *both* be correct.

#16

The face of a boy hearing for the first time

#17

This image shattered my conception of history. I have never seen older pictures of people smiling, so over time I just developed the idea that history was full of grim and mirthless people.

To see these two breaking out into laughter, in such a human fashion, really shocked me. All I could think when I saw this photo was "Life.".

#18

War, for both sides, is hell. A young German soldier is scared

#19

Heart surgeon after 23-hour (successful) long heart transplantation. His assistant is sleeping in the corner

#20

This. Not only the picture, but Carl Sagan's quote associated with it.
>But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

>The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to [attack] one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

#21

The imagery of the Challenger breaking up. As an 8 year old at the time, it got real.

#22

Uncovering the unknowns of our planet

#23

Photo of Saturn. That bright star on the left of Saturn, just inside the outer ring, is Earth.What's most spectacular is that Earth is being cradled just within the outer rings. It makes me realize the vastness, emptiness, and just how small we are.

#24

Eyeglasses at Auschwitz. It was a whole room full...just the numbers start adding up and my head started to spin.

#25

Mustard gas in World War I

#26

Poster ad for the Canadian Paralympics

#27

Shell shocked soldier, 1916

#28

This is my grandmother on the day she came back from a 3 week stay in the hospital. We weren't sure she would be back this time, but she stayed a good long while after that trip. When the second youngest (not the one being held) saw her, he just cried and looked at her and held on to her leg until he was sure she wasn't leaving again. The look on her face just shows how much love she had for her grandkids. I miss that woman so much.