A tomtit bird flies past a squirrel running on a fence after a snowfall in a park in Almaty, Kazakhstan, January 12, 2016. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Pop culture is the inspiration for many great artists. From music to movies, all of it provide great amount of ideas for people to do great, even witty pieces, like these, by American painter Hillary White.

Highly commended birds : Crested guan by Tim Hunt (UK). ‘This photo shows a crested guan in the cloud forests of Costa Rica as it pauses while foraging on a lone branch. Due to the clouds that are so typical for this habitat, I could often only photograph the bird’s silhouette against a grey sky. But then, for a short moment only, the sun broke through the clouds, and I overexposed the image by over two stops in order to blow out the background and allow this beautifully marked bird to stand out’. (Photo by Tim Hunt/GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015)

“7584 Fish”. On a windy day right after a Cyclone passed the far northern Great Barrier Reef i took some friends out to the reef. Never before i saw that many glass fish on this particular coral “bommie”. Just when i setup my camera, this Napoleon Wrasse swam right through the school of fish building a living frame. Photo location: Cairns, Great Barrier Reef, Flynn Reef, Australia. (Photo and caption by Christian Miller/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, Expedition 40 flight engineer, attired in a Russian Orlan spacesuit, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) in support of science and maintenance on the International Space Station on August 18, 2014. During the five-hour, 11-minute spacewalk, Skvortsov and cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev (out of frame) deployed a small science satellite, retrieved and installed experiment packages and inspected components on the exterior of the orbital laboratory. (Photo by NASA)

Todd Bretl specializes in underwater photography, and is able to capture striking photos of aquatic life big and small. His photos of sharks are particularly striking; though he rarely faces hostility from the animals, he tries not to spend too much time looking through his viewfinder and many shots are framed by educated guesses and impeccable timing. What follows are photographs taken over the past several years on trips to the Bahamas and Isla Guadalupe, an island off the coast of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. (Photo by Todd Bretl)