“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)

Cast member Ana de Armas poses during a photocall for the film “Hands of stone” out of competition at the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 16, 2016. (Photo by Regis Duvignau/Reuters)

The Leshan Giant Buddha, a 71-metre tall stone statue, is carved out of a cliff face in the southern part of Sichuan province in China. (Photo by Suchet Suwanmongkol/500px)

A student protester throws a stone against a riot police vehicle during a demonstration to demand changes in the education system in Santiago, Chile, April 21, 2016. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

An anti-extradition bill protester throws a stone at a police station in Tseung Kwan O residential district, in Hong Kong, China, August 4, 2019. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

In northwest Russia, in a small village called Alekhovshchina, Nadia Sablin's aunts spend the warmer months together in the family home and live as the family has always lived, chopping wood to heat the house and making their own clothes. Sablin's book of photographs, “Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila”, is published by Duke University Press. Here: “Two-Handed Saw, 2014”. (Photo by Nadia Sablin)

Serra da Aboboreira Megalithic Set (Meninas do Crasto) on September 24, 2023 in Baiao, Portugal. Since 1978 that Serra da Aboboreira (Aboboreira Mountains) has been the scene of a systematic study of its archeological values, among which are the monuments known as megalithic. These are funerary monuments designing the landscape. These dolmens were constructed with stones (lithos) of medium or large dimensions (mega), which were laid in a, more or less, vertical position. Over these, it was still placed a lid, also of stone. These containers were covered by an artificial mound of earth and stones (dolmen). (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images)

A Palestinian youth throws a stone at an Israeli military vehicle during an Israeli army raid in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus, Saturday, May 13, 2023. the Israeli military raided the Balata refugee camp in the northern city of Nablus, sparking a firefight that killed two Palestinians. (Photo by Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo)