Afghan children buy breads from a bakery in Fayzabad of Badakhshan province on February 7, 2024. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

People watch as workers inflate a near-10 metre high giant spider by Singaporean artist Jackson Tan in Singapore's Marina Bay financial district on February 6, 2017. The spider is one of several inflatable creatures that will form the Art-Zoo, a section created by Singaporean artist Jackson Tan for the iLight Marina Bay annual light-art festival in the city-state. (Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP Photo)

Hidden Britain category winner. Garden Spider by Alan Smith from Reading, Berkshire. (Photo by Alan Smith/British Wildlife Photography Awards/PA Wire Press Association)

A juvenile specimen of the recently-discovered Australian Peacock spider, Maratus Albus, sits on the nib of a pencil in this undated picture taken in Western Australia's Nuytsland Nature Reserve. (Photo by Jurgen Otto/Reuters)

Ten finalists capture the theme of “through young eyes” in this young photographers’ competition that aims to engage youth around the world in wildlife conservation. Here: Heavy bodied jumping spider by Md Rashuidul Rabby, age 23, from Bangladesh. (Photo by Md Rashuidul Rabby/WWD2017)

In this handout photograph received from Sumukha J.N on December 15, 2016, the newly-discovered spider Eriovixia Gryffindori sits on a leaf in the Kans in India's Western Ghats. (Photo by Sumukha J.N./AFP Photo)

Camila Hormazabal, a 24-year-old sеx worker, uses a laptop to connect to the web and keep an online erotic meeting with a virtual customer in Concepcion, Chile on April 7, 2020. Hormazabal reinvented herself offering sexual services online after the nightclub where she had worked was closed due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). (Photo by Juan Gonzalez/Reuters)