Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

People watch as lava flows from an eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland late on Monday, March 29, 2021. Iceland's latest volcano eruption is still attracting crowds of people hoping to get close to the gentle lava flows. The eruption in Geldingadalur, near Iceland's capital Reykjavik, is not seen as a threat to nearby towns and the slow flows mean people can get close to action without too much harm. (Photo by Marco Di Marco/AP Photo)

Revellers hit the town on Saturday, February 19, 2022 for a pub crawl despite the snow in Leeds, United Kingdom. The UK capital was placed under its first ever “red” weather warning, meaning there is “danger to life”. The same level of alert was in place across southern England and South Wales, where schools were closed and transport paralysed. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

A genetically engineered featherless rooster struts around the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Department of Agriculture May 22, 2002 in Rehovot, Israeli. After two years of research, departmental scientists announced the naked chicken, as it has been dubbed, as a low calorie bird because the lack of feathers means the chicken has less fat. It also matures earlier than its feathered counterparts. (Photo by Moshe Milner/GPO/Getty Images)

French artist Julien Breton aka Kaalam started calligraphy in 2001 by copying Arabic calligraphers. Self-taught, he began to incorporate long exposure photography to create incredible light paintings around the world. All of the images in this gallery were created in-camera, meaning there is no Photoshop trickery or post-production manipulation involved in creating these works of art.

Shortlisted images in the running to be crowned Photobox Instagram photograph of the year range from furry friends to the Holi festival to the meaning of love. Judges, including the Guardian’s former picture editor Eamonn McCabe, have whittled down 180,000 submissions to unearth a shortlist that celebrates the best of social media. Winners will be announced October 3, 2018. Here: Najac, France. Travel shortlist. (Photo by Aaron Jenkin/@aaronjenkin)

All throughout history of mankind people were fascinated by time, its flow, and how to measure it. Thus, the science of horology can into being, as people invented more and more sophisticated ways of measuring the passage of time. Truly, it’s one of the most profound characteristics of being a human, to feel and to ponder the meaning of time, its properties, and will we ever be able to move through it, not with it. Now, however, horology is mainly referred to the art of mechanical watchmaking. (Photo by MB&F)

The essence of the “masterpieces” created by Giuseppe Lo Schiavo is in taking a famous architectural landmark placing it on a rock, and making it float over some body of water. Well… that’s pretty much it. Of course there will be some people who will look deep within these works of art, and catch the true meaning and intentions of the mastermind who created them, and maybe even purchase them for unreasonable amounts of money. But the rest of us, the common folk, will stare at it for a while, cringe, and move on without a second thought. (Photo by Giuseppe Lo Schiavo)