Photos of the Year
 
 
Originally published in The Blade on Sunday, December 28, 2008
 
 
 
We’ll never forget what happened in 2008, but we’ll never quite be able to remember every detail either.
 
More likely, we’ll be stuck somewhere in between, with a head full of fuzzy highlight reels of politicians, athletes, and other celebrities.
 
But the year was much more than that. It was full of small yet epic moments connecting every one of us.
 
While Michael Phelps was busy breaking world records in Beijing, the Blue Dolphins synchronized swimmers — all women over the age of 60 — were making underwater magic here in Toledo.
 
While the economy was falling apart, a group of friends came together to prove that teens can be constructive in their creativity, building a gigantic 2,000-square-foot haunted attraction in one of their Sylvania Township backyards for Halloween.
 
And while politicians made headlines arguing about how to fix America’s health care system, all you needed to understand the real story was the single, heartbreaking image of a teenager covering his face with his hand as his father underwent dialysis in Oregon.
 
 
This is what photographs do. They steal moments and make them human.
 
What was missed in a crowd of fleeting moments — the excited smile of a 5-year-old as he sees his soldier father, the look of revulsion in a second-grader’s eye during a lesson on dissection — is captured forever.
 
Long after the events have passed, these pictures remind us what made them so special, so heartrending, so fun.
 
Yes, this year was epic. Let’s not forget it. Hopefully these pictures, selected as the favorites of 2008 by the Blade’s photo staff and running the gamut of our daily lives from politics to sports to everyday living, will help preserve them forever.
 
 
In the spirit of the Olympics this August, Nelgene Randall, 70, and the rest of the Blue Dolphins synchronized swimmers spent much of their time underwater. (ANDY MORRISON/THE BLADE)
The Blade’s photographers captured some exciting and touching moments