Firefighters of the Texas Canyon Hotshot crew fight the Sand Fire on July 23 2016 near Santa Clarita, California. Fueled by temperatures reaching about 108 degrees fahrenheit, the wildfire began yesterday has grown to 11,000 acres. (Photo by David McNew/AFP Photo)

A 40-foot sculpture of the swimmer Rebecca Adlington was unveiled at the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park on July 25, 2016 to launch a campaign by Kelloggs to encourage the public to support Team GB at the Rio Olympics. (Photo by David Parry/PA Wire/Barcroft Images)

Macaques huddle together for warmth at a hot spring in Nagano, Japan in the last decade of December 2023. Known as snow monkeys, the animals soak in the 40°C water every day during cold weather, spending their bathtime grooming, snoozing and playing on visitors’ camera tripods. (Photo by David Lazar/Animal News Agency)

Russia's Andrey Rublev tries to remove a cricket from the court during the men's singles match against USA's Sebastian Korda on day six of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 19, 2024. (Photo by David Gray/AFP Photo)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and these striking images of 2017 are no exception. The photo highlights include incredible snapshots of the natural world as well as some awesome animal and human encounters. The vibrant gallery also shows thrill-seekers pushing themselves to the limit with breathtaking stunts captured in perfect clarity. The pictures have been taken by a host of photographers from around the world. Here: The two lion cubs singing their hearts out at Antelope park in Zimbabwe. (Photo by David Jenkins/Caters News Agency)

Participants dressed as characters such as elves, dwarves, goblins and orcs from the J.R.R. Tolkien's novel “The Hobbit” re-enact the “Battle of Five Armies” in a forest near the town of Doksy, Czech Republic, June 4, 2016. Several hundred people arrived in the forest to re-enact the famous battle from Tolkien's novel that was published for the first time in 1937. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)

A boy looks at a six-metre tall luminescent puppet, operated by ten performers, during a preview of Vivid Sydney, promoted as the world's largest festival of light, music and ideas, in Sydney, Australia on May 23, 2018. “Vivid” is a major outdoor cultural event featuring light installations and projections with the annual event this year running from May 25 to June 16, 2018. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

Vitalii Sediuk (L) jumps on singer Justin Timberlake as he arrives to attend the Louis Vuitton Womenswear Spring/Summer 2020 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on October 01, 2019 in Paris, France. (Photo by David Fisher/Rex Features/Shutterstock)