It's impossible to include all of the best photos of 2012 in one gallery, but these images offer a fantastic glimpse of the year in pictures.
HuffPost photo editors curated a slideshow of serious eye candy from Getty Images and the Associated Press.
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The subjects are as varied as the emotions that these photos evoke. The gallery includes dazzling pictures from space, intimate portraits, funny moments with world leaders and heart-wrenching scenes of loss. The one thing that they all have in common is their power to convey what mere words cannot.
This summer, HuffPost Arts and Culture ran a gallery of amazing photos from the first half of the year, which was posted to one of Reddit's photography forums.
Click "fullscreen" for the best photo experience.
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