Residents evacuated their homes as Hurricane Polo approached Puerto San Carlos in Mexico’s Baja California Sur state on Monday, September 28. The Associated Press gallery records the storm’s approach and people leaving home, but doesn’t say who coordinated the evacuation or what support residents received. The people facing the immediate disruption appear in a photograph. The machinery behind their departure does not.
The people in the frame
AP photojournalist Ramón Espinosa curated the gallery in Havana, and AP updated it at 8:19 p.m. UTC on October 1, 2026. The images span Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay and Panama. They bring together moments of danger, campaigning, celebration and ordinary public life, while offering only brief captions about the conditions surrounding them.
Near Puerto Madryn, Argentina, seabirds perched on the carcass of a southern right whale off El Doradillo Beach on Wednesday, September 30. The photograph shows a dead animal with birds feeding or resting nearby; the gallery doesn’t explain how the whale died. On Thursday, September 24, rains left a carpet of flowers across the Atacama Desert near Copiapo, Chile. The image captures a striking natural change, but the caption identifies rain without claiming it caused anything beyond what it describes.
Residents also gathered in a communal area at Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Buenos Aires on Thursday, September 24. The home serves people with disabilities and was scheduled to receive Pope Leo XIV in November. The caption names the residents and institution, but says nothing about the home’s funding or services, or the residents’ own views. There’s no basis here for dressing an institutional visit up as mutual aid, or claiming what residents receive beyond what the gallery reports.
Campaigns and public life
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was running for reelection, greeted supporters at a campaign rally in Sao Paulo on Saturday, September 26. Opposition presidential candidate Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro campaigned in the same city on Monday, September 28. The gallery records both candidates’ appearances, but doesn’t describe their policies, campaign promises or what either would change for people living under the institutions that govern them. A campaign image shows a bid for office. It can’t, on its own, show power shifting to the people.
Elsewhere, visitors attended the international art fair ARTBO in Bogota on Thursday, September 24. A reveler appeared at a Pride parade in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Friday, September 25. In Ecuador, competitors raced guinea pigs during celebrations marking the 107th anniversary of the canton of Salcedo on Saturday, September 26. On Sunday, September 27, a man sat on the black sand of Chame beach in Panama. These captions document gatherings, leisure and public expression, but they don’t describe organizing structures or collective response.
The gallery’s frame is broad, but its details are limited: people evacuating, residents gathered, candidates greeting supporters, visitors and revelers in public spaces. It reports no election results, legislative action, grassroots relief effort or institutional funding details. For Puerto San Carlos residents, the central fact remains that a hurricane approached and people left their homes. The photographs make that displacement visible. The account stops there.