“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.

In this July 12, 2007 file photo, a two-day-old piping plover runs along a beach in the Quonochontaug Conservation Area in Westerly, R.I. (Photo by Steven Senne/AP Photo)

Photographer Howard Schatz had an idea: place actors in a series of roles and dramatic situations to reveal the essence of their characters. Such was the premise behind his book, In Character: Actors Acting, which captures some of Hollywood’s most emotive stars in the act of, well, making faces. Luckily for us, he continued the tradition for Vanity Fair. Here are some of the best.

A massive sand storm cloud is close to enveloping a military camp as it rolls over Al Asad, Iraq, April 27, 2005. (Photo by Cpl. Alicia M. Garcia, U.S. Marine Corps/Reuters/U.S. Department of Defense)

The rarely seen blue sharks photographed by Saeed Rashid in British waters. Elusive blue sharks have recently been spotted off the south coast of England, having moved to the UKs warmer waters to hunt. The carnivorous sharks have been lurking off the coast of the popular British holiday destination, Penzance, in Cornwall. (Photo by Saeed Rashid/Caters News)

Hillary Clinton waves to a selfie-taking crowd at a recent campaign event in Orlando, Florida on September 26, 2016. (Photo by Barbara Kinney/Hillary for America)

A plane belonging to U.S. missionary group Agape Flights burns after it was set on fire during protests demanding that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry do more to address gang violence including constant kidnappings, in Les Cayes, Haiti on March 29, 2022. (Photo by Duples Plymouth/Reuters)

Visitors were able to pick their own flowers on this sunflower trail at Gloagburn Farm near Perth, in Scotland on September 13, 2021. Crawford Niven, a farmer, said he was inspired to make the trail, which is made up of nearly 200,000 plants, after seeing similar ones in America and Australia. (Photo by South West News Service)