”On August 19, a suicide bomber attacked a mosque in the town of Jamrud, Pakistan, 16 miles from Peshawar. The bomb killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 100. Depending on one’s viewpoint, the results could have been worse: The mosque was packed with more than 500 people when the bomb exploded. In this photo, local residents mop up the blood of the dead and injured.” Photo by A. Majeed/AFP-Getty Images, ”Lightbox”, Time

”Three days after the suicide bombing, on August 22, 2011, a column of 19 tanker trucks delivering oil to NATO troops in Afghanistan were attacked by gunmen on a highway near Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, Pakistan.” Photo by Tarnaras Khan/AFP-Getty Imges, “Lightbox,” Time

”In this photo by Oma Faruk, a Somali soldier in Mogadishu is seen executing two of his former comrades, who themselves had been found guilty of murder. The execution took place on August 22, the same day the NATO oil tankers were attacked in Pakistan.” Photo by Oma Faruk/Reuters, “Lightbox,” Time

”On September 1, a rally in Istanbul to mark World Peace Day became unpeaceful when pro-Kurdish demonstrators clashed with police, who took cover behind their shields.” Photo by Osman Orsal/Reuters, “Framework”, Los Angeles Times

”On August 29, photographer Jonathan Ernst photographed refugees fleeing famine in Somalia as they rushed to load their belongings onto a truck that would transport them to a newly opened camp near Nairobi, Kenya.” Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters, ”Lightbox”, Time

”The tidal bore in the Qiantang River, in China’s Zhejiang province, occurs annually when an exceptionally high tide forces sea water into the river, causing large waves—very, very large, as these spectators learned. What is it that makes this picture interesting, the awesome power of nature, or the black comedy of people caught up in a mess of their own making?” Photo from AP, “Framework”, Los Angeles Times

”Pool photographers take note: Even the best-planned photo ops will feature moments when the choreography breaks down into real human behavior, and those moments may be humorous, symbolic, or both. Photographer Dmitry Astakov was alert enough and lucky enough to capture such an instant when he photographed (from left) Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who appeared together after meeting in Tajikistan. The four leaders signed a joint statement pledging to fight terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime, though President Zardari apparently wasn’t one-hundred-percent with the program when the picture was taken.”Photo by Dmitry Astakhov/Pool

”The symbolism here is rather unmistakable: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seen entering the courtyard of his home in Paris on September 4, no doubt more than ready to close the door on the past few months of media attention. Strauss-Kahn had just returned from New York, where he had been arrested and perp-walked for photographers after a hotel maid accused him of attempted rape. Prosecutors dropped charges after the maid proved untrustworthy.”, Photo by Claude Paris/AP, New York Times

U.S. President Barack Obama visited Wayne, New Jersey last week to view damage from Hurricane Irene, which caused flooding when it struck the East Coast late last month. Given the number of political and economic issues the president has straddled in recent months, standing astride a mud puddle probably seemed effortless. Jim Watson caught the commander-in-chief’s decisive moment.” Photo by Jim Watson/AFP-Getty Images, The New York Times

”Here, U.S. soldier Private Freymond Tyler of D-Company, 2-87 Infantry Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team finds moments of peace on his cot at an outpost in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, his laptop booted up and his gun nearby. The next day, August 14, it was back to war: D-Company launched an assault against in nearby Malwand district. According the Army, eight Afghans were captured, including two suspected Taliban leaders.” Photo by Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images, “In Focus”, The Atlantic

”Damon Winter’s black-and-white portfolio of ironworkers building the 104-story One Work Trade Center in lower Manhattan, is all muscle and sinew. Symbolically, the images, which appeared in The New York Times Magazine’s September 1 issue, may represent the rebuilding of the city in the ten years since 9/11. (This photo features ironworker Tim Conboy, 22, whose father was a fireman on 9/11.) But the pictures also reveal a more current concern with jobs and work. With an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and a sputtering economy, emblems of old-fashioned American industrial brawn are a welcome sight.” Photo by Damon Winter, The New York Times Magazine

”Kim Kardashian is another American obsession, no matter what the unemployment rate happens to be. People magazine spent $1.5 million for the exclusive rights to photos from Kim’s wedding to pro basketball play Kris Humphries, and the investment proved wise, given the relatively weak newsstand performance of the magazine in recent months. The wedding issue, which cost a dollar more than regular People issues, sold some 1.5 million newsstand copies, a 31-percent increase over People’s 1.15-million average, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which also noted that Kardashian and Humphries sold the international rights to their wedding photos to British magazine Hello, and exclusive rights to their honeymoon photos to US Weekly for a sum rumored to be anywhere between $30,000 and $100,000.” Photos by Michael Simon; Albert Ferreira/Startracks; Nick Saglimbeni, People Weekly

”Carter Smith captured the many faces of dream-girl Gwyneth Paltrow, and American Elle ran them all. The appeal of old-fashioned contact sheets continues in our digital age.” Photos by Carter Smith, Elle, September 2011

”Samuel L. Jackson has achieved a rare level of cool—the kind of cool associated with actors like De Niro, Pacino, and Nicholson, as writer David Keeps points out in a New York magazine profile. Photographer Marc Baptiste rightly kept his accompanying portrait simple—steel-gray suit, white shirt, gray tie, and piercing gaze. You look at the picture, and you can hear Jackson uttering his signature expletive: motherx*&%#*. How cool is Jackson? He’s set to portray Dr. Martin Luther King on Broadway, and, as Keeps notes, he will be the voice behind the audio-book version of the best-selling childrens’ book Go the Fuck to Sleep. Which is mother*$%#*ing great.” Photo by Marc Baptiste, New York