Here are the bravest of the brave in 2016. Weve gathered some of the finest images showing daredevils taking their lives into their own hands and going to the very brink this year. Whether they are perched hundreds of feet up on a high wire, courageously clinging to a rockface or taking on a volcano, these adventurers take the breath away. Here: Morgane Choquet and Samuel Cobb relax in a vertical campsite on the slopes of El Capitan, Yosemite National Park. (Photo by Alexandre Eggermont/Caters News)

This photo of an elephant seal and Gentoo penguin shot by Andrew James in Yankee Harbour, Antarctica. (Photo by Andrew James/Travel Photographer of the Year)

While most people head for cover at the first sign of a storm, this man runs straight toward it. Storm chaser and father of three Mike Olbinski is addicted to photographing extreme weather and regularly takes on tornadoes and supercell thunderstorms in a bid to capture extraordinary images. The photographer, from Phoenix, often travels hundreds of miles a day to reach the eye of a storm. He first became hooked on the unusual hobby almost a decade ago, following the birth of his daughter. Here: A stunning monsoon sunset coupled with intense lightning creating an amazing scene on August 26, 2017. (Photo by Mike Olbinski/Caters News Agency)

A small section of the expanding remains of the Veil Nebula, a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/ESA/Hubble)

Tourists in traditional costumes visit a rose garden during a rose cultural festival on April 27, 2021 in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Dressed a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, Stephane Delage carries a Canadian flag while on stilts as he entertains the crowd during Canada Day festivities in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday, July 1, 2013. (Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

A British photographer has captured life at the “edge of the world”. Timothy Allen, best known for his work on BBC's Human Planet, trekked through the freezing Siberian wilderness for 16 days as he joined part of an 800km migration of reindeer in the Yamal-Nenets region – a name that roughly translates to “edge of the world”. The stunning pictures feature the nomadic Nenets tribe, who drink blood to survive in -45°C temperatures. Timothy's epic journey, which will be revealed in an eight-minute documentary on Animal Planet USA, saw him travel across the bleak terrain of the frozen Ob River with the Nenets people in December last year. Here: An empty camp is shown beneath a colourful sky in Siberia, December 2016. (Photo by Timothy Allen/Barcroft Productions)

Night lovers; Hormozgan province, Iran. “In this picture, you can see the Milky Way rising on a fascinating spring night on the Persian Gulf coast. The stunning cliffs of this area make every viewer imagine and even talk to them! The light pollution from a faraway city was quite strong, so it was a challenging post-processing process. I’m a nightscaper who tries to achieve an artistic look in my images, and in this image, I tried to convey and capture the magic of this location”. (Photo by Mohammad Hayati/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)