A picture, they say, is worth 1,000 words. So we will try to use as few words as possible in this introduction to a sampling of our favorite photo posts of 2024. This year’s round up includes dramatic drone images of the world’s “foodscapes,” an intimate look at families striving to provide healthy meals for their kids and exuberant Bolivian women skateboarding in their traditional bowler hats. Toyin feeds her 3-year-old daughter, Kudirat, while her husband, Saheed, tends to their other two children. (Sope Adelaja for NPR) How 9 families cope when they can’t afford 3 healthy meals a day for the kids At a one-day workshop run by the Care School for Men in Bogotá, Colombia, male medical students at Sanitas University learn how to cradle a baby. This class of participants consists of medical students, but the usual enrollees are dads of all types. (Ben de la Cruz/NPR) Hey, guys, wanna know how to diaper a baby or make a ponytail? Try the School for Men Bolivian skateboarders at the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. (Ben de la Cruz/NPR) Indigenous pride. Bowler hats. Meet an all-female Bolivian skateboarding crew Paramedic Papinki Lebelo waits for a police escort before responding to an emergency call-out a Cape Town neighborhood. Due to a rise in attacks on paramedics, ambulance crews in large parts of the city will only go out when they have a police escort. (Tommy Trenchard for NPR) ‘There is no respect anymore’ as ambulances come under attack in South Africa The African nation of Mauritania was a land of pastoral nomads when it gained independence from France in 1960, but it has since become a nation of fishermen as well, with hundreds of pirogues lining the beach of the capital of Nouakchott. (George Steinmetz) A drone’s eye view of ‘foodscapes,’ from cattle to soybeans to shrimp An aerial photo shows horses foraging on a section of the now-demolished Agbogbloshie Scrapyard site in Accra, Ghana. (Muntaka Chasant) Stunning photos of a vast e-waste dumping ground