Stunning Photos Snapped At The Right Moment

A wave tumbles towards shore at a public beach in Sydney. From above the view is commonplace, but under the surface, the world is in chaos. A cylindrical tsunami of foam roars towards the shore, pushed down by gravity, held up by the water below, rolled into a tube by the opposing pressures. Invisible forces rip sand off the seabed and spin it in a vortex, filling the void as the wave dances onward in search of dry land.
 
For a photo of two glorified fish flopping out of the water, this picture is surprisingly gripping. It was taken by Dan Callister off the coast of South Africa on Seal Island, otherwise known as the Ring of Death. At a certain point every year, seal populations on the island bloom, and with them come their most tenacious predator—the great white shark.
No, this photo isn’t Photoshopped. Those are actual beads of water, suspended on the strands of a spider web so thin you can barely even see it. The photo was taken by Andrew Osokin, a Russian photographer who specializes in macro shots. His gallery has an entire series of water droplets delicately balanced in nature, along with some pretty incredible photos of insects. The site is in Russian, but fortunately the beauty of his photography doesn’t need to be translated. During Yi Peng, however, the floats take a different form—tiny balloons made from rice paper and heated by a candle. The hot air from the candles makes the balloons light enough to float into the air, resulting in thousands upon thousands of bright orange lights filling the night skies. At first as they rise they resemble an army of luminescent jellyfish, and as they float higher they become tiny points of light, a sea of man-made stars. The precarious balance between life and death is a stark reality in the wild. One moment you’re foraging for food, the next moment a pair of talons digs into your back and you’re lunch. This photograph of a snowy owl swooping in for the kill by Michel Roy perfectly captures that balance. The mouse is still calm, unaware that death is coming in fast, only inches away. Waterspouts are a relatively rare phenomenon, but capturing one on film isn’t necessarily difficult—you just have to be there when a waterspout forms. On the other hand, snapping a picture of a waterspout at the exact moment a bolt of lightning streaks out of the sky is a little more impressive. On the southern coast of Wales sits a sleepy little town known as Porthcawl. With its beaches and fishing spots, Porthcawl is a fairly popular tourist destination, and one of the historic attractions is the Porthcawl pier and lighthouse, erected in 1860. In reality, the pier is not actually a pier—it’s a breakwater, which is more structurally sound and used to defend coastal towns from crushing waves. And when a storm sets in, those waves can reach epic proportions. The Porthcawl pier is a real testament to its builders, since it’s been battered by the sea for a century and a half and it’s still standing. The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, and currently holds the record for being the tallest building in the world. At a breathtaking 2,722 ft. (829.8 m), it stands head and shoulder above anything else in the city, and that makes it the perfect target for one thing: lightning. In 2011, South Sudan became independent from Sudan. In 2012, it then became a refugee camp for more people fleeing from the war in Sudan. It’s estimated that over 35,000 people relocated to South Sudan every month, but there simply weren’t enough water resources to go around. By June of 2012, it’s estimated that as many as 10 people were dying a day from sheerdehydration, and entire camps would often have to trek over 15 miles (25 km) to reach a water source. The common housefly beats its wings between 200 and 300 times every second. When they find food, they walk around on it first because the tiny hairs on their legs taste it to make sure its good. While doing this, they’re constantly in motion to make themselves a more difficult target for predators, and their eyes—which can see in 360 degrees at once—stay on the lookout when they finally settle in to eat, because that’s when they’re most vulnerable.