AP Eyes on the World

Through the eyes of Associated Press photographers, the world of 2018 was always captivating, sometimes comical, often awe-inspiring _ and above all, beautiful.

They saw beauty in the disarray of clothing left behind by 450 refugees and migrants, rescued from a boat off the Libyan coast; in the clouds of smoke from a California wildfire, captured from aloft; in the toil of a Mexican farmworker, surrounded by a carpet of cabbage.

They found splendor in some of the most unexpected places. At an Israeli bodybuilding exhibition, competitors flex and glisten; at a Brazilian fashion show, sex workers shimmy and strut.

There are oddities: goats in a tree in Morocco. Painted aboriginal performers in traditional dress passing through airport security in Papua New Guinea.

But some of the most striking images mingle beauty, tragedy and even horror. We glimpse a young man in a body bag, one of thousands of migrants gone missing in South Africa. A South Carolina man, hand to his face, is battered by the winds and storm clouds of Hurricane Florence.

And a Rohingya woman takes her infant son, the product of a rape by six Myanmar soldiers, from her 8-year-old daughter as the girl looks away _ a family arrayed like the figures of a Renaissance painting, in Bangladesh, in the terror of the 21st century.

Members of a U.S.-bound migrant caravan cross a bridge between the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca after federal police briefly blocked them outside the town of Arriaga, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Thursday, March 8, 2018 photo, a security official walks through a curtained-off area during a plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A woman wearing a painted design of a hand on her face takes part in a march against sexism and gender violence in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Supporters of President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan light flares during celebrations outside the party headquarters in Istanbul on Sunday, June 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Monir al-Sharqi walks to his bed after nurses changed the dressings on his burns, at the Marib General Hospital in Yemen on July 25, 2018. Al-Sharqi, a lab technician, disappeared for a year, until he was dumped in a stream, half-naked, emaciated and bearing horrific marks of torture. He had burns from acid over his head, back and shoulders, so severe that his jacket stuck to his melted skin. Some members of his family believe he was detained and tortured by Yemen’s Houthi rebels because of his past political activism. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

The moon rises above piles of discarded life vests and dinghies used by migrants and refugees crossing from the nearby Turkish coast, at a dump on the Greek island of Lesbos on early Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Sub-Saharan refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea, wait to be rescued by aid workers of Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, in the lower deck of a wooden boat as they were trying to leave the Libyan coast and reach European soil, 34 miles north of Kasr-El-Karabulli, Libya, on Tuesday Jan. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

Refugees and migrants wait to be rescued by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, 60 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya, on Sunday Feb. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Olmo Calvo)

Russ Lewis covers his eyes from a gust of wind and a blast of sand as Hurricane Florence approaches Myrtle Beach, S.C., Friday, Sept. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

North Korean soldiers adjust their hats before posing for a photo on a viewing platform overlooking the caldera of Mount Paektu in North Korea, on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Tasha Hughes bathes her daughter, Madison, 4, as Jeffrey Dumich holds a flashlight outside their room at the damaged American Quality Lodge where they continue to live without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, in Panama City, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A contestant has his body painted backstage during the National Amateur Body Builders' Association competition in Tel Aviv, Israel on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

An unidentified man lies in a body bag after forensic examination at a mortuary in the Hillbrow neighborhood of Johannesburg on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

A flower vendor handles marigold flowers at a market in Kathmandu, Nepal, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018. During the Tihar festival, Hindus decorate their houses with marigold garlands and worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

In this Tuesday, June 26, 2018 photo, migrants rest at the port of Algeciras, southern Spain, after being rescued in the Strait of Gibraltar. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Protesters burn a mask painted as a U.S. flag during a rally in metropolitan Manila, Philippines on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

A woman makes the sign of the cross in a park during a pilgrimage in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A slum colony is decorated with lanterns and lights as they celebrate the Hindu festival Diwali in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Sex workers model creations at the Daspu fashion show, an event during the Women of the World Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

A tourist kicks up her heels as she and a friend wait for the driver of a hot pink private taxi, a classic American Chevrolet convertible, before they take a driving tour of Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Masked guests attend the "Grand Bal Christian Dior" during the Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2018 fashion collection presented in Paris, Monday, Jan. 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Helen Solcberg plays a video slot machine at the public opening of Resorts World Catskills in Monticello, N.Y., Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A group of girls stand next to photos of Russia's President Vladimir Putin during the opening of the Sports House, set up to support the Russian delegation of the 2018 Winter Olympics, in Gangneung, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

People clap during the Flamenco In Fire Festival on a street in the old city of Pamplona, northern Spain, Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

A father and son spend time together over breakfast at a cafe in the North Beach Section of San Francisco on Monday, Dec. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

A woman has an English-style breakfast during a viewing party of the royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry of Wales at the Plaza Hotel in New York on Saturday, May 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Women wearing rose color hats cover their faces during a wine-tasting on the street to promote Spanish wine on a sunny spring day, in Pamplona northern Spain, on Saturday, May 19, 2018. Spanish rose wine is a typical wine of this region of Spain. (AP Photo/ Alvaro Barrientos)

A boy dressed as a dancing devil stands against a wall during a traditional celebration in Naiguata, Venezuela, Thursday, May 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

A spectator waits for the start of the Jeremy Scott show during Fashion Week in New York, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Contestants participate in the final round of the National Amateur Body Builders' Association competition in Tel Aviv, Israel on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Members of the Uzbekistan delegation gather, left, as two women sit in a public space near the United Nations headquarters during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

A dog walks past a mural by street artist Alex Martinez outside a shop in the Psiri area of central Athens, on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A girl and a woman walk past a swimming pool at Ruben F. Salazar Park, Wednesday, June 27, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Skeletons of a human and a monkey await installation at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, Israel on Monday, Feb 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Los Angeles Rams' Lamarcus Joyner runs onto the field before an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Chargers Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Performers in traditional clothing pass through a security screening at Jacksons International Airport in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, before a visit by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Supporters of President Donald Trump cheer as he speaks during a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Members of Ethiopia's Jewish community hold pictures of their relatives in Israel, during a solidarity event at the synagogue in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene)

A woman manually separates wheat from the chaff in a field on the outskirts of Gauhati, India, Wednesday, May 9, 2018. More than 70 percent of India's 1.25 billion citizens engage in agriculture. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

In this Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018, file photo, a mule stands next to color patterns painted on a school wall in New Delhi, India. (AP Photo/R S Iyer)

This aerial photo shows competitors crossing sand dunes as they take part in in the 33rd Marathon des Sables in the Sahara desert near Merzouga, southern Morocco, on Wednesday, April 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

This March 27, 2018 photo shows a dragon fly floating on a pond of oil at an oil field controlled by a U.S-backed Kurdish group, in Rmeilan, Hassakeh province, Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A resident walks past the shattered window of a room at a damaged motel, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in Panama City, Fla., where guests continue to stay in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A wooden boat used by 450 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea, remains abandoned off the Libyan coast after they were rescued by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, 34 miles north of Kasr-El-Karabulli, Libya, on Tuesday Jan. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

Farmworker Elias Solis, of Mexicali, Mexico, picks cabbage before dawn in a field outside of Calexico, Calif., on March 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

A phone displays an image of Pakzat Qurban, now 18, who was imprisoned in China when he was 16, sits on a table surrounded with plates of watermelon and nuts at the home of his parents in Istanbul, Turkey, on Aug. 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)

Palestinian protestors are seen through mirrors used to reflect sunlight towards Israeli soldiers during a protest next to the Gaza Strip border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Monday, April 2, 2018. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Plumes of smoke flow towards the Pacific ocean as seen Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, from a helicopter over the Malibu section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Candelaria Cabrera plays with a soccer ball in Chabas, Argentina on Sept. 8, 2018. "Cande," as she is known by friends and family, is the only girl playing in a children's soccer league in the southern part of Argentina's Santa Fe province, birthplace of stars including Lionel Messi, Gabriel Batistuta and Jorge Valdano. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A woman closes her eyes as she holds an unloaded weapon during services at the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, Wednesday Feb. 28, 2018, in Newfoundland, Pa. Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles participated in a commitment ceremony at the Pennsylvania-based church. The church's leader, the Rev. Sean Moon, said in a prayer that God gave people the right to bear arms. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)

Revelers play in and around a huge burning papier mache bull full of exploding fireworks, in the Santiago Teyuhalco neighborhood of Tultepec, Mexico on July 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Ragpickers ride a garbage truck before it unloads in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Aug. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

A woman walks past the a mural by British street artist My Dog Sighs in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Hessah al-Ajaji drivers her car down the capital's busy Tahlia Street after midnight for the first time in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, June 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Anthony Torres poses for a photograph at his brother's home in Atco, N.J., Monday, Sept. 17, 2018. Torres says he was the rider caught shaving on a New Jersey Transit train in a video that went viral. Torres said he was just trying to clean up after days spent in a homeless shelter. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

A migrant who was expelled from Algeria sits in a transit center in Arlit, Niger on Friday, June 1, 2018. The only certainty about the man is that he was expelled from Algeria with thousands of others before ending up in this transit camp in a decaying mining town in the heart of the Sahara. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

M's daughter, right, hands over her baby brother to their mother in their shelter in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. M was raped by six soldiers from Myanmar's security forces after they strangled her 2-year-old son to death. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Maribel Julio Meneses weeps over the body of her son, Daniel Julio Julio, a "community police" vigilante in the village of Huamuchapa, near Tecoanapa, Guerrero state, Mexico, Feb. 8, 2018. The 22-year-old vigilante was ambushed and killed while on duty. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Muslim Shiite women mourn during the holy day of Ashoura, at the Sadat Akhavi Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Sept 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Seen from the Tijuana, Mexico side of the border wall, Honduran migrants who jumped a wall wait on the U.S. side for U.S. Border Patrol agents after surrendering, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

In this July 29, 2018 photo, a young participant of the "Temper of will" summer camp, organized by the nationalist Svoboda party, takes position with her unloaded AK-47 riffle during a night exercise in a village near Ternopil, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Rohingya refugee boys greet each other as girls ride in a ferris wheel, specially brought in to the camps for Eid al-Adha celebrations, at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Holocaust survivor Galina Gurevitch, 82, has her hair done during a Beauty Heroines event in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, April 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

A temporary worker using a lantern collects white asparagus from a field in Caparroso, around 85 km (52 miles) from Pamplona, northern Spain on Thursday, May 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

Rows of parked cars are covered by the first snowfall at a shopping center in Moscow, Russia on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

Two members of the New York City fire department look towards One World Trade Center through an opening in the ceiling of the Oculus, part of the World Trade Center complex in New York, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, the anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Tree-climbing goats feed on an Argania Spinosa, known as an Argan tree, in Essaouira, southwestern Morocco, Wednesday, April 4, 2018. By eating the fruit and spitting out the seeds, the goats help in the process of manufacturing Argan oil. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A tranquilized elephant lies on the ground during an operation to attach a GPS tracking collar in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania on Wednesday, March 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A thoroughbred horse walks off the track after a race before the 150th running of the Belmont Stakes horse race, Saturday, June 9, 2018, in Elmont, N.Y. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

A church and remains of an ancient village which are usually covered by water are seen inside the reservoir of Sau, in Vilanova de Sau, Catalonia, Spain, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A diver carries lobsters during a fishing journey near Cay Savannah, in the Miskito coast, Honduras on Sept. 9, 2018. A diver receives 75 lempiras (three dollars) per pound of lobster. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Germany's Alexander Zverev serves to Italy's Thomas Fabbiano during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara )

Spectators watch the women's quarterfinal between Ukraine's Elina Svitolina and Belgium's Elise Mertens on Rod Laver Arena at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Paratroopers drop into the Mediterranean Sea before an air show during Independence Day celebrations marking 70 years since the founding of the state in 1948, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, April 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Text from the AP news story, AP’s photographers captured a world of awe and beauty.

Curated by Wong Maye-E, Nat Castañeda and Enric Martí in New York City.