This Thursday, January 22, 2015 photo made with a long exposure shows the glow from a Noctiluca scintillans algal bloom along the seashore in Hong Kong. The luminescence, also called Sea Sparkle, is triggered by farm pollution that can be devastating to marine life and local fisheries, according to University of Georgia oceanographer Samantha Joye. Noctiluca itself does not produce neurotoxins like other similar organisms do. But its role as both prey and predator tends can eventually magnify the accumulation of toxins in the food chain, according to R. Eugene Turner at Louisiana State University. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

Mount Sinabung looks calm as seen from Karo, North Sumatra at dawn on August 8, 2021. (Photo by Tibta Nangin/AFP Photo)

A volcanic eruption at Mount Etna’s Vorgaine crater in Sicily, Italy on December 3, 2015. (Photo by Marco Restivo/Barcroft Media)

The Mount Bromo volcano erupts in the Bryce Canyon, Utah. (Photo by Reynold Dewantara/2016 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

A man looks at a pyroclastic flow during the eruption of Mount Semeru in Lumajang, East Java, on November 19, 2025. (Photo by Agus Harianto/AFP Photo)

Mount Sinabung releasing volcanic ash, on February 04, 2017 Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia. (Photo by Albert Damanik/Barcroft Images)

Tengger tribe people make their way to the summit of Mount Bromo volcano to make offerings in Probolinggo, East Java province on July 7, 2020, as part of the Yadnya Kasada Festival. During the annual Yadnya Kasada festival, the Tenggerese climb Mount Bromo, an active volcano, and seek the blessing from the main deity by presenting offerings of rice, fruit, livestock and other items. (Photo by Juni Kriswanto/AFP Photo)