In Beirut, a photographer's frozen moments slow down time and allow the contemplation of destruction

We watch video after video, consuming the world on our handheld devices in bites of two minutes, one minute, 30 seconds, 15. We turn to moving pictures — “film” — because it comes the closest to approximating the world that we see and experience. This is, after all, 2024, and video in our pocket — ours, others', everyone's — has become our birthright.

But sometimes — even in this era of live video always rolling, always recording, always capturing — sometimes the frozen moment can entrance the eye like nothing else. And in the process, it can tell a larger story that echoes long after the moment was captured. That's what happened this past week in Beirut, through the camera lens of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and the photographs he captured.

When Hussein set up his camera outside an evacuated Beirut apartment building Tuesday after Israel announced it would be targeted as part of military operations against Hezbollah, he had one goal in mind — only one. "All I thought of," he says, “was photographing the missile while it was coming down.”

He found a safe spot. He ensured a good angle. He wasn't stressed, he said; like many photographers who work in such environments, he had been in situations like this one before. He was ready.

When the attack came — a bomb, not a missile in the end — Hussein swung into action. And, unsurprisingly for a professional who has been doing this work for two decades, he did exactly what he set out to do.

The sequence of images he made bursts with the explosive energy of its subject matter.

In one frame, the bomb hangs there, a weird and obtrusive interloper in the scene. It is not yet noticed by anyone around it, ready to bring its destruction to a building that, in moments, will no longer exist. The building's balconies, a split-second from nonexistence, are devoid of people as the bomb finds its mark.

These are the kind of moments that video, rolling at the speed of life or even in slow motion, cannot capture in the same way. A photo holds us in the scene, stops time, invites a viewer to take the most chaotic of events and break it down, looking around and noticing things in a strangely silent way that actual life could not.

In another frame, one that happened micromoments after the first, the building is in the process of exploding. Let's repeat that for effect, since even as recently as a couple generations ago photographs like this were rare: in the process of exploding.

Pieces of building are shooting out in all directions, in high velocity — in real life. But in the image they are frozen, outward bound, hanging in space awaiting the next seconds of their dissolution — just like the bomb that displaced them was doing milliseconds before. And in that, a contemplation of the destruction — and the people it was visited upon — becomes possible.

The technology to grab so many images in the course of little more than one second — and do it in such clarity and high resolution — is barely a generation old.

So to see these “stills,” as journalists call them, come together to paint a picture of an event is a combination of artistry, intrepidity and technology — an exercise in freezing time, and in giving people the opportunity to contemplate for minutes, even hours, what took place in mere seconds. This holds true for positive things that the camera captures — and for visitations of violence like this one as well.

Photography is random access. We, the viewers of it, choose how to see it, process it, digest it. We go backward and forward in time, at will. We control the pace and the speed at which dizzying images hurtle at us. And in that process, something unusual for this era emerges: a bit of time to think.

That, among many other things, is the enduring power of the still image in a moving-picture world — and the power of what Bilal Hussein captured on that clear, sunny day in Beirut.

Ted Anthony is the director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://x.com/anthonyted

Smoke rises from a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION People duck down as a bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Smoke rises from a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Smoke rises from a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

People react as smoke rises from a building that was hit by an Israeli missile in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The World Series is averaging 14.55 million viewers through two games, the best start for the Fall Classic since 2017.

Saturday's 4-2 victory by the Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Yankees averaged 13.44 million on Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming. That is a 65% increase over last year's Game 2, which at 8.15 million was the second least-viewed World Series game on record.

It was the most-viewed Game 2 since 2018, when the Dodgers-Red Sox matchup averaged 13.51 million.

According to Nielsen, Saturday's audience peaked at 16.35 million during the ninth inning.

The game had a 17.3 rating and 55 share in Los Angeles and 10.3 rating and 32 share in New York.

The rating is the percentage of television households tuned in. The share refers to a percentage of the audience viewing it at the time.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Los Angeles Dodgers Chris Taylor (3), Tommy Edman (25) and Mookie Betts celebrate after Game 2 of the baseball World Series against the New York Yankees, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Los Angeles. The Dodgers won 4-2. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)