Amid triumph and tragedy, private moments of grief and public spectacles of joy, Mercury News and East Bay Times’ photojournalists captured the resilience of the human spirit across the Bay Area this year. The powerful and poignant images recorded our losses – from wildfires and shootings to COVID and abortion rights – and our gains, in sports arenas, playing fields and parades. There were deaths and funerals and festivals that documented the sorrow of the year and also the elation. The astonishing and the sublime also were captured – sometimes in the same frame. Such was the retirement of a...