A flash of lightning lights up a raincloud hovering over a township in Dharmsala, India, Sunday, April 19, 2020. (Photo by Ashwini Bhatia/AP Photo)

These kaleidoscopic images are the work of one persistent photographer’s efforts to capture vibrant hues at the exact moment a wave breaks. Ryan Pernofski‘s stunning shots feature brilliant yellows, reds, blues and purples as an array of sunlight hits the water at the perfect time. What’s even more impressive: Ryan, a 27-year-old Australian, began shooting his popular masterpieces without using a professional camera, taking his iPhone out into the water instead. Ryan began experimenting with this method in 2012, using an underwater housing to protect his phone, as he could not afford a professional camera. (Photo by Ryan Pernoski/Caters News Agency)

A picture taken on October 5, 2018, shows a general view of Migingo island which is densely populated by residents fishing mainly for Nile perch in Lake Victoria, the continent's largest lake, on the border of Uganda and Kenya. More than 500 people live on the island, which is barely 2,000-square-metres. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

The Tree Projects team spent 67 days documenting one eucalyptus regnans in the Styx valley of Tasmania. Using a combination of tree-climbing and elaborate arboreal rigging techniques, they produced an intimate portrait from an impossible perspective of one of the world’s largest individual flowering trees, which goes by several common names. These photos document the process that resulted in an extraordinary ultra high-definition photograph. Here: Haley nears the top of the tree. (Photo by Steven Pearce/The Tree Projects/The Guardian)

A newly-hatched baby sea turtle makes its way into the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, as part of the Israeli Sea Turtle Rescue Center's conservation program, at a beach near Mikhmoret north of Tel Aviv, Israel September 9, 2019. Green turtles are endangered worldwide, the World Wildlife Fund says. Among other hazards, they are threatened by hunting, human encroachment on the beaches where they nest, and pollution of their feeding grounds offshore. According to the Israeli rescue center, only about 20 female green turtles nest along the Israeli Mediterranean coast during a breeding season that usually lasts from May until August. (Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters)

Elena Ivanov, visiting from San Jose, Calif., walks across the field covered poppies in full bloom near the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, Calif., Wednesday, March 30, 2022. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

The sun rises over the Baltic Sea and a pier with a tea house in Timmendorfer Strand, Germany, Sunday, August 7, 2022. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Pedestrians fight wind and rain as they cross Hollywood Boulevard during Tropical Storm Hilary, Sunday, August 20, 2023, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/AP Photo)