Most Powerful Photographs of 2011

Here are my picks for the most powerful and moving images of 2011. Some news agencies have their own "best of list " but they are only from the pool of photographers that they use or are affiliated with. This best of is from all the news agencies. 

A woman jumps from a burning building during the London riots in August. (Amy Weston / WENN.com)

Houses are swept away by water following a tsunami and earthquake in Natori City in northeastern Japan, on March 11, 2011.(Reuters/KYODO)

A monstrous dust storm (Haboob) roared through Phoenix, Arizona in July.

A University of California Davis police officer pepper-sprays students during their sit-in at an "Occupy UCD" demonstration in Davis, California. (Jasna Hodzic)

Lightning flashes around the ash plume above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near Entrelagos, Chile, on June 5, 2011. The volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain, dormant for decades, erupted in south-central Chile, belching ash over 6 miles (10 km) into the sky, as winds fanned it toward neighboring Argentina, and prompted the government to evacuate several thousand residents, authorities said. (Reuters/Carlos Gutierrez)

Anti-Gaddafi fighters return fire during clashes with Gaddafi forces in Sirte, Libya, October 15, 2011. 
REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih

A leopard attacks a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara, on the outskirts of Siliguri, India,on July 19, 2011. The leopard strayed into the village area and mauled several villagers, including three guards, before being caught by forest officials, according to news reports. The leopard, which suffered injuries caused by knives and batons, died later in the evening at a veterinary center. The forest guard being attacked was also injured. (AP Photo) 

A fisherman arranges a fishing net as his wife paddles their boat in the waters of the Periyar river on the outskirts of the southern Indian city of Kochi January 5, 2011. REUTERS/Sivaram V 

A black rhino is transported by helicopter in South Africa. The seventh black rhino population established by the WWF Black Rhino Range Expansion Project was released after an epic trip across the country. Nineteen of the critically endangered animals were moved from the Eastern Cape to a new location in Limpopo province. (AP Photo/Green Renaissance-World Wildlife Fund)

Police officers wearing riot gear walk past a burning building in Tottenham, north London August 7, 2011. Crowds attacked riot police and set two squad cars alight in north London on Saturday following a protest at the fatal shooting of a man by armed officers earlier in the week. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

A man wades in neck-deep water filled with debris while searching for valuable items after a fire razed some 500 houses along a coastal village in Malabon city, north of Manila April 7, 2011. The fire, believed to be caused by an exploding liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank, started before dawn on Thursday. No casualties were reported but at least 3,000 residents lost their homes. Fire fighters had a difficult time getting to the scene and putting out the blaze because the houses were close to each other and made of light materials, local media reported. REUTERS/Erik de Castro

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is seen in this still image taken from video footage October 20, 2011. Gaddafi was killed on Thursday as Libya's new leaders declared they had overrun the last bastion of his long rule, sparking wild celebrations that eight months of war may finally be over. REUTERS/Esam Al-Fetori

A U.S. Army soldier with the 10th Special Forces Group and his military working dog jump off the ramp of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment during water training over the Gulf of Mexico as part of exercise Emerald Warrior 2011 in this U.S. military handout image from March 1, 2011. The New York Times and other United States media have reported that a military canine accompanied Navy SEAL Team Six commandos into a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in a raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. REUTERS/Manuel J. Martinez/U.S. Air Force/Handout

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece, at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, June 12, 2011. REUTERS/Baz Ratner 

A demonstrator is detained by riot police during anti-austerity protests in Athens, June 29, 2011. REUTERS/John Kolesidis

December 17, 2011. Egyptian army soldiers arrest a female protester during clashes at Tahrir Square in Cairo. Soldiers beat demonstrators with batons in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday in a second day of clashes that have killed nine people and wounded more than 300, marring the first free election most Egyptians can remember.

Libya's new regime forces fire their weapons at fighters loyal to fugitive strongman Muammar Qaddafi as a comrade plays a guitar during a battle in Sirte on October 10, 2011, in a drive to control Qaddafi's hometown after a month-long siege. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

Vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi explode after an air strike by coalition forces, along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah March 20, 2011. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic  

A policeman fires a teargas shell towards protesters demanding a separate Telangana state carved out of the southern Andhra Pradesh state during a demonstration in Hyderabad January 7, 2011. Supporters of Telangana statehood say the interior region has been neglected in favour of Andhra Pradesh's dominant coastal districts. Opponents fear the loss of Hyderabad to the new state will cut off a major revenue stream for Andhra Pradesh, which has invested heavily in a city that is home to companies such as Microsoft, Google and Mahindra Satyam. REUTERS/Stringer

Containers on the stern deck of the 47,230 tonne Liberian-flagged Rena hang precariously, about 12 nautical miles (22 km) from Tauranga, on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island October 20, 2011. The recovery of fuel oil from a stricken container ship grounded off New Zealand resumed on Thursday as salvage teams worked to minimize the damage in the country's worst environmental disaster in decades. REUTERS/New Zealand Defence Force/Handout

A Buddhist monk walks on a flooded street in central Bangkok October 24, 2011. Thailand is struggling with its worst flooding in 50 years, which has affected a third of its provinces and could swamp more of its densely populated capital, Bangkok, if water flowing from the north and heavy rain cause canals to burst their banks. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

Police charge at a man they suspect of creating trouble during celebrations of the Red Machindranath chariot festival in Lalitpur May 15, 2011. The festival is one of the main festivals observed by both the Buddhist and Hindu communities of Kathmandu valley. It honours the deity Lord Machindranath, who is credited with saving Nepal from a prolonged drought in ancient times. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Vehicles at a Honda car factory are submerged in floodwaters in the Rojana industrial district in Ayutthaya province, central Thailand on October 16, 2011. (Sakchai Lalit/AP) 

FDNY see the announcement of bin Laden's death Photo by New York Times' Michael Appleton

Wingwalker Todd Green falls from John Mohr's Stearman aircraft to his death, after losing his grip while trying to perform a transfer to the helicopter during Selfridge Air Show, less than 30 miles from Detroit, August 21, 2011. REUTERS/David Angell

 A miner climbs on excavated rocks after a giant drill machine broke through at the final section Sedrun-Faido, at the construction site of the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel March 23, 2011. Crossing the Alps, the world's longest train tunnel should become operational at the end of 2016. The project consists of two parallel single track tunnels, each of a length of 57 km (35 miles). REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

A levee protects a home surrounded by floodwater from the Yazoo River, on May 18, 2011 near Vicksburg, Mississippi. The flooded Mississippi River was forcing the Yazoo River to top its banks where the two rivers meet near Vicksburg causing towns and farms upstream on the Yazoo to flood. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Seattle activist Dorli Rainey, 84, reacts after being hit with pepper spray during an Occupy Seattle protest, Nov. 15, 2011 at Westlake Park in Seattle. (AP)

Australian Scott Jones kisses his Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas after she was knocked to the ground by a police officer's riot shield in Vancouver, British Columbia. Canadians rioted after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins.

Anti-government protesters gather by the thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square in February of 2011, calling for an end to Hosni Mubarak's 30 years of dictatorship. (Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

 Mohammad Azam, 56, sits injured in front of a dead child, at the site of a double suicide bombing in Quetta September 7, 2011. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed


A distressed bride attempts suicide in China after her fiance abruptly called off their marriage. Still in her wedding gown, she tried to kill herself by jumping out of a window of a seventh floor building. Right as she jumped, a man managed to catch and save her.

Desperate ... a police officer rushes to douse a man who set himself on fire outside a bank in Thessaloniki, Greece. The man was taken to hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. Photo: AFP

 A protester gets sprayed in the face with pepper spray at an Occupy Portland protest. (Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian)

 A woman rebel fighter supporter fires an AK-47 rifle as she reacts to the news of the withdrawal of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces from Benghazi on March 19. (Reuters / GORAN TOMASEVIC) 

 Police spray Ugandan opposition party leaders with coloured water during demonstrations in the capital Kampala on May 10. They use coloured water to mark the demonstrators so police can easily spot them if they flee the scene.  (Reuters / James Akena)

This sightseeing boat, Hama Yuri, was pulled 1300 feet from the coast and somehow balanced itself on a two story house during the tsunami in Japan.

 A wave approaches Miyako City from the Heigawa estuary in Iwate Prefecture after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the area March 11, 2011. The earthquake, the most powerful ever known to have hit Japan, combined with the massive tsunami, claimed more than 15,800 lives, devastated many eastern coastline communities, and triggered a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station.(Reuters/Mainichi Shimbun)

 A protester stands in front of a burning barricade during a demonstration in Cairo, Egypt, on January 28, 2011. Police and demonstrators fought running battles on the streets of Cairo during four days of unprecedented protests by tens of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule. (Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)

A motorcycle policeman is engulfed in flames as his colleague tries to help him after protesters threw a petrol bomb in Athens, Greece, on February 23, 2011. Scores of youths hurled rocks and petrol bombs at riot police after clashes broke out during a mass rally taking place as part of a general strike. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)