José A. Alvarado Jr.

Photographer

www.josealvaradophoto.com

TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2023

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Location: New York City, New York

Nationality: Puerto Rican American

Biography: José A. Alvarado Jr. is a Puerto Rican photographer dedicated to documenting class inequality, civic engagement, and contemporary issues in Puerto Rico and New York City. He works primarily in long-form storytelling, using visual imagery... MORE

Media

TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2023

josé a. alvarado jr.

Nov 22, 2023

Summary

Honored to have one of my images selected as one of TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2023

Did you see this photo??
*link*
Wow.
Omg!!

Follow this exchange with a dynamic discussion, hit repeat, and you have a pretty accurate snapshot of the TIME photo department’s typical Slack conversations. Even though we collectively scroll through thousands of photographs each day, there are still those that stop us in our tracks on a regular basis.

As we draw close to the end of another year punctuated by grief and conflict, but also records broken and breathtaking moments of human achievement, photographers continue to astound us by offering new ways of seeing the world. How incredible it is to think you’ve seen every photo of a president, a protest, a sporting event, only to see it anew through the lens of a storyteller who showed up with the intent to inform and to illuminate the connectedness of humankind.

What has become clear in 2023—a year dominated by the rapid rise of AI imagery—is that photojournalism has become more important than ever. The storytellers who are dedicated to bearing witness to events across the globe in real time are critical in providing lucidity to an otherwise muddled world. As such, the weight of responsibility on them to act ethically, and with the highest level of journalistic integrity, is greater now than perhaps ever in history.

Below is the 2023 Greatest Hits version of “Did you see this photo??”: an unranked collection of 100 of the images that moved us the most. We hope that you’ll take some time to reflect on the year that was, with thoughtfulness, clarity, and wonder.

— Katherine Pomerantz, Director of Photography

TIME's Top 100 Photos of 2023
These are the photographs that capture the year
Time.com

623

José A. Alvarado Jr.

Also by José A. Alvarado Jr. —

for The New York Times: Former Rikers Employees Are Charged With Smuggling in Contraband

for Seven Days VT: 'Safe Haven'

for The New York Times: Lawmaker Is Left With ‘Lifetime Trauma’ as Attacker Pleads Guilty

for The New York Times: Health Insurers’ Lucrative, Little-Known Alliance: 5 Takeaways

for The New York Times: Baruch College, an Upward-Mobility Machine

for The New Yorker: The Haunted Juror

for Bloomberg Originals:

for Bloomberg: Guyana Is Trying to Keep Its Oil Blessing From Becoming a Curse

for The New York Times: Audit Finds Fatal Lapses in Mental Health Program Meant to Curb Violence

for The Wall Street Journal: America’s Biggest Bank Is Growing the Old-Fashioned Way: Branches

for The New York Times: The Young Black Conservative Who Grew Up With, and Rejects, D.E.I.

for The New York Times: How Rikers Island Became New York’s Largest Mental Institution

for The New York Times: This Venezuelan Family Won Asylum. Days Later, They Lost It.

for Southern Foodways Alliance: Offsides Fowl

for Anglers Journal: End of an Era

for Bloomberg: ‘Market’s Wrong, I’m Not’: Mike Mayo Loves Playing a Provocateur

for Brooklyn Vegan: Glassjaw celebrated 30 years with career-spanning Brooklyn shows

for The New York Times: Kendra’s Law Was Meant to Prevent Violence. It Failed Hundreds of Times.

for The New York Times: A New Push to Improve Mental Health Care for Homeless New Yorkers

for Bloomberg: The Other Side of Greenwich: Hunger Among the Hedge Funds

for CULTURED Magazine: At 25, Artist Oscar yi Hou Has Already Had a Solo Museum Show—And Written a Memoir

for The New York Times: Behind 94 Acts of Shocking Violence, Years of Glaring Mistakes

for The New Yorker: What Will It Take to Win Brooklyn’s First Majority-Asian District?

for The New York Times: New York Is Rebounding for the Rich. Nearly Everyone Else Is Struggling.