I took this from a helicopter, after the storm in New York, as we flew over Manhattan. It was essentially the water that knocked out the power. I thought it was important to show it in that way – it made us realise how fragile we are against nature and water. Photograph: Iwan Baan

The ¬situation was quite strange: the creaking of twisted metal, the debris after the tornado, and everything closed and empty. It was so bleak. I exchanged a few words with the man in the picture; he said that they had lost everything. Photograph: Pedro Armestre

“Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.” On his way down, he broke the sound barrier, at one point travelling at 833.9 miles an hour. Photograph: Red Bull Stratos

The horses are not scared – or at least they don’t look scared. They are kept wet so they don’t catch fire. While I was ¬shooting I saw the horse was going to go straight through the fire, and I knew the -moment was good and it would make a great image. He looks so brave. Photograph: Jasper Juinen

I like it because it’s the story of those three athletes. I think you can see the relief in their faces, after the ¬effort. It’s the emotional side of sport. Photograph: Olivier Morin

This was shot at the end of Obama’s speech during the election night party – you can see the confetti coming down. The crowd were mesmerised by his words. Photograph: Matthew Rourke

It is hard to keep political photographs interesting. I took this when Michelle Obama had just introduced the president at a campaign event in Iowa. It shows a personal side of them that you don’t get to see very often, but this ¬embrace seemed very genuine and real to me. Photograph: Jim Watson

I took this picture in February this year. I had been working on a project about Afghan women’s poetry and was trying to find images that were not the usual misery pictures of women in Afghanistan. Photograph: Seamus Murphy