What makes a great picture?
The answers are many.
As 2025 comes to an end, the El Paso Times wants to share some exceptional work by our visual journalists.
These photos of the year are great pictures in our minds because they capture moments that are historic, they inform beyond words, they touch our hearts and they demand, if only for an instance, our readers’ precious attention.
The photos in this collection are only a small sampling of the thousands of photos our journalists took in 2025. The work was done down the block, high above the borderland and thousands of miles away.
These photos were taken on the practice fields, in the heat of battle and in the aftermath of great suffering and tragedy.
The thing they all have in common is that they freeze moments experienced by people with connections to our community.
The pictures are also a record of some of the biggest stories in El Paso over the past 12 months.
Agony at the closed U.S.-Mexico border. The making of a boxing superstar who happens to be a remarkable mom and community servant. Mother Nature’s force took the lives of two El Paso children camping in Ruidoso.
But our community is defined by more than struggle in 2025. The pictures show how our military teens work to fit into high school, reveal our beautiful Native American history and highlight of old ties to the old west.
We know these pictures don’t tell the whole story. As we start a new year, we hope there will be more time for that.
Thank you for reading the El Paso Times.
Explore all our photos of the year at elpasotimes.com and enjoy these special moments.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso Times’ year in pictures captured defining moments of 2025
Reporting by Staff report, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
