You don’t need to be a professional photographer to take a truly unique picture. A really creative image is singled out because it was caught at the right moment — whether it’s lightning, a cute snout of a cat, or a perfect shadow. You can be the best photographer in the world, but sometimes in order to take a really decent picture, you need to be in the right place at the right time with your camera.
Smalljoys presents 30 of the most impressive photos that are the result of the creative ’’eye’’ and vision of the photographer.
1. Son Doong Cave in Vietnam.
2. Slipstream of the strategic bomber Tu-95MS.
3. Winner of Surfer Magazine’s ’Photo of the Year’ contest. Photographer — Zak Noyle
4. A forest after an accident at an aluminium plant in Hungary; the trace level of red mud is clearly seen from the picture.
5. Jacob’s well. Texas, USA.
6. Mandrill portrait. Photographer — Wolf Ademeit.
7. ’The face of an iceberg.’ The photo was taken by the user ‘strummingmusic’ during an expedition in Antarctica
8. Camouflage clothing from the American company Realtree.
9. An old boat at the bottom of a drained channel in the Czech Republic.
10. A boy puts red chilli peppers in a heap for making powder on a farm. Ahmedabad, India.
11. The six-foot jump of an antelope saves her from death. Kariega Reserve, South Africa. Photographer-Jacques Matthysen.
12. Tea plantations in the province of Corrientes, Argentina. Photographer-Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
13. The North Korean military and civilians at the stadium of Kim Il Sung.
14. Zhangjiajie National Park, China. All the sketches for the landscapes of Pandora for the movie ‘Avatar’ were made here.
15. Buddhist monks’ ritual before starting the paper lanterns. Pathum Thani province, Thailand.
16. Lake Sameranger with beautiful clear water. Tyrol, Austria.
17. A crane operator captured Shanghai from above.
18. Children ride on a boat on a crystal clear lake in Sabah, Malaysia.
19. Resort Porlamar on Margarita Island, Venezuela.
20. Bamboo forest in Japan.
21. Baatara Gorge Waterfall, Tannourine, Lebanon.
22. Winter landscape in Grabovica, Serbia.
23. The shadow of the surface of the table on her leg.
24. Chinese artist Liu Bolin, more widely known as the Invisible Man, works with the technique of ’creative camouflage.’
25. Spider-peacock (Maratus volans).
26. Fog over San Francisco, USA.
27. A witty goose is taking advantage of the situation.
28. Lava from Kilauea volcano is poured into the sea, creating a huge escape of steam. As it rose, multiple vortices began spinning off of the huge plume. Hawaii.
29. While diving in Australia.
30. I am so hidden right now!
Frozen waves on the shores of the island of Nantucket.
A turtle riding a jellyfish.
Hyperion, the tallest tree in the world. It’s 379 ft tall, and approximately 700-800 years old.
The Fukang meteorite, a precious gift the universe brought to Earth, is believed to be some 4.5 billion years old.
What a solar eclipse looks like from space.
Birds, lit up by a fire raging below, find their way through thick black smoke.
A temple in Kyoto, Japan, hidden by snow.
Shadows thousands of miles long cast by clouds on Earth’s surface.
Extreme kayaking near molten lava, Hawaii.
The highest resolution photos ever taken by a telescope of the Orion Nebula.
A fire opal — it really looks like sunset inside a rock!
Thor’s Well, Oregon. Also known as ’the gates of the dungeon.’
The sun, shot in ultraviolet.
The fury of a thunderstorm.
A close up of a human eye reveals in remarkable detail the structures of the iris.
A frozen pond in Switzerland.
The footprints of a monk have become worn into the floor after he prayed at the same spot every day for years on end.
This is what the Earth looks like from an unfamiliar perspective — from that of the Pacific Ocean.