Each year, a photographer is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their efforts. I use the word effort loosely here because the winning photos are rarely set up, meaning they aren’t artsy and don’t involve a lot of gear or planning.

Sometimes, the winners are amateurs who happen to be in the right place and time to capture significant moments of history.

These images, as simple as they are, tell powerful stories. The stories they tell are often shocking, tragic and heartbreaking — they provide a temporary glimpse into a world that so many of us have no connection.

It’s journalism in raw form. Scenes are captured in the moment as events unfold. There is rarely time for thought, political bias has no time to rear its head.

And it’s why we have such a visceral reaction to some of these images, why we feel an air of malaise when we look at them.

We’re seeing a part of the world we desperately wish didn’t exist — reality without the sugar coating.