The week of Newsweek writers picking their favorite photos continues! Here’s Andrew Romano on the infamous “Situation Room” shot. 

The thing that always gets me about this image is the intimacy of it. The event itself is a geopolitical earthquake: the killing, finally, of Osama bin Laden. And yet the scale of Pete Souza’s photograph is so personal. Outside the frame, unseen, is the planet’s most wanted fugitive, with only seconds left to live; inside the frame, in full view, sits the planet’s most powerful man (and his most powerful associates) witnessing the raid in real time, when it could still go terribly wrong. (Check out Hillary Clinton’s eyes.) History can seem like a clash of titanic forces, far too vast to glimpse or grasp. But here it is, as it happens—to a handful of people clustered in a couple of tense, cramped rooms, half a world apart. Presidents, generals, even terrorists: they’re just like us.

Find your favorite in our Pictures of the Year issue. [Previously]