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A good magazine cover is meant to attract potential buyers and get them to read the contents of publication. Some covers are just so good that they tell the whole story by themselves. Here's a taste of Time Magazine's best photographic magazine covers for 2012.


In choosing their top magazine cover picks, the Time magazine editors and directors looked at the whole package, from the way the photo is cropped and framed, to the typhography and colors used. The chosen photographers and editors are then asked how they managed to come up with the photo in the first place.

For example, here's how photographer Iwaan Baan captured the dramatic landscape of a blacked-out Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy: "All of the circumstances perfectly lined up to make this picture possible. I was sort of unconsciously prepared for something like this — I had a car, I had the contact of the only helicopter that could fly that night over Manhattan. I had the right equipment that could shoot in the circumstances because it was pitch black. 

And then of course I was in town. I arrived the day before and I thought that was sort of the only way to show Manhattan in that stressful moment. You really saw two cities — one completely alive and vibrant as it’s always been, and then the whole downtown, completely dark and suddenly a completely different world. 

I've flown many times over Manhattan by helicopter to produce aerial shots. So in a way I sort of had this picture in mind already. I think I only realized the true impact of the photo after it was published on New York Magazine's cover and got such an incredible response. The picture was literally sort of the perfect storm. It’s a strange moment — of course a terrible thing — but the picture has an eerie beauty at the same time."


The entire list of Time Magazine's Best Photographic Magazine Covers of 2012 can be found on the Time Lightbox website.