AP PHOTOS: Photographers reflect on single shot of pandemic

ROME (AP) — The images show the intimacy of husbands and wives saying goodbye for the last time, or reuniting after months apart. They honor the courage of nurses, funeral workers and clerics who risked their own health to do their jobs. They witness life slipping away, and being snatched back from death.

To mark the milestone of 3 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide, The Associated Press asked 15 photographers in 13 countries to pick the single image they shot that had the greatest impact, and explain why.

Their selections document the staggering human toll as COVID-19 robbed people of their lives, basic freedoms and day-to-day routines over the past year. But their reflections tell a deeper story, guiding the viewer to see and understand a once-in-a-century pandemic through the eyes of people who had the privilege and horror of witnessing it first-hand.

Just like their subjects, the AP photographers were terrified they might get infected and bring the virus home. Just like their subjects, they remain haunted by what they saw. Just like their subjects, they found moments of hope.

Alexander Zemlianichenko still stays in touch with the Russian Orthodox priest who made house calls to bless the sick and dying in Moscow, saying accompanying him was “an experience that transformed me, helping overcome my own fear” of the virus.

“It’s both very intimate and deeply symbolic,” he said of his photo of the priest bending over an elderly COVID-19 patient in Moscow, “an image of empathy and self-denial in the face of mortal danger.”

Natacha Pisarenko in Buenos Aires allowed herself to join the laughter when Blanca Ortiz threw her arms up in victory after she beat COVID-19 at age 84 and was told she could go home from the hospital.

But Ebrahim Noroozi, AP’s Iran-based photographer, remembered he was so...