Is it strange to party in a cemetery, do you think? Thousands, many elaborately dressed and made up, thronged the Hollywood Forever cemetery on October 30th to celebrate the Day of the Dead with music, dancing, food and artistic renditions of family altars, all among the graves of Rudolph Valentino, Marion Davies, Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks and Johnny Ramone.

“A snapshot from mountaineer's life”. Have you ever wondered how does a mountaineer's day start? I will give you a hint: you wake up at 3 am, set the stove, wake up your partner, pretend it is warm, quickly consume a high-calorie breakfast, watch your friends slowly ascending the icy slopes of your dream summit with their tiny head torches glimmering against perfectly blue ice, and hope for the good weather. One would ask: why all this trouble? The answer is easy: for the love of the adventure and the unknown. Location: Chamonix, Haute Savoye, France. (Photo and caption by Kamil Tamiola/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

Two Chinese farmers got more than they bargained for when they pulled up the root of a fleece flower – and came face-to-face with the doppelganger of Homer Simpson, on May 17, 2013. The large root appears to have two bulging eyes and a prominent nose – giving it an uncanny resemblance to the famous cartoon character. With two offshoot roots shaped like arms, it even looks like it is pondering or confused – just what you would expect from the real Homer. (Photo by ImagineChina)

You rarely get the opportunity to get up close and personal with a tiny insect. Indonesian photographer Nordin Seruyan helps us to look past the creepy-crawlies of insects and focus on their delicate beauty. In brilliant color and sharp focus, Seruyan captures the insects in his garden. From butterflies and mantises to beetles and snails, the creatures of Southeast Asian get your full focus. (Photo by Nordin Seruyan)

“The harp seal or saddleback seal is a species of earless seal native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean. Newborn pups weigh around 11 kilograms (24 lb) and are 80–85 centimetres (31–33 in) long. After birth, the mother only feeds that pup. During the 12 day nursing period, the mother does not eat, losing up to 3 kilograms (7 lb) per day. Harp seal milk contains up to 48% fat, so pups gain over 2.2 kilograms (4.9 lb) per day. During this time, the juvenile's “greycoat” grows in beneath the white neonatal coat, and it weighs 80 pounds (36 kg)”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A harp seal pup lies on an ice floe in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence March 24, 2008 in Charlottetown, Canada. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A wild elephant eats garbage containing plastic waste at a dump in Sri Lanka's eastern district of Ampara on June 3, 2023. Sri Lanka is set to launch a nation-wide clean up of plastic waste ahead of new laws banning the sale of single use plastics, the Environmental ministry said, after a spate of deaths of elephants and deer in the island's northeast after foraging at open garbage tips filled with plastic waste, whilst shrinking habitat has led to jumbos raiding villages looking for food. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

It would seem to be something you'd see only in a cartoon or at a Phish concert, but according to park rangers in New South Wales, Australia, dozens of giant, fluorescent pink slugs have been popping up on a mountaintop there. The eight-inch creatures have been spotted only on Mount Kaputar, a 5,000-foot peak in the Nandewar Range in northern New South Wales. Scientists believe the eye-catching organisms are survivors from an era when Australia was home to rainforests. A series of volcanoes, millions of years of erosion and other geological changes “have carved a dramatic landscape at Mount Kaputar”, the park service wrote on its Facebook page, and unique arid conditions spared the slugs from extinction. (Photo by Michael Murphy/AFP Photo/NSW Environment Office)

IT'S a relatively simple idea – set up a mirror so you can capture the reflection of a dramatic landscape in a single photograph. Photographer Daniel Kukla, from New York, created a spectacular series of artworks called The Edge Effect using the technique. He clamped the mirror onto an easel and placed it in various settings in the Joshua Tree National Park, California.