Father Bruno Lefevre Pontalis stands on the rooftop of Saint Francois Xavier church to bless the city of Paris during the national lockdown for Covid-19 at Easter, in Paris, France on April 12, 2020. (Photo by Nathan Laine/Bloomberg)

People walk in a field of California poppies and other wildflowers outside of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, after recent rains moved the region's second-driest winter on record up to its seventh-driest, near Lancaster, California, on April 2, 2022. The California Department of Water Resources reported that about one-third of the Sierra Nevada snowpack's water equivalency melted last week under higher-than-normal temperatures, leaving the statewide snow-water equivalent at 38% of normal for the date. (Photo by David Mcnew/AFP Photo)

A man suffering from mental illness sits chained on a bed in his room inside his family home in Curug Sulanjana village in Serang, Banten province, Indonesia March 23, 2016. In a programme launched this year, Indonesia sends teams of workers into often-remote hamlets to help free patients kept in chains and ensure they get the medical treatment they need. (Photo by Reuters/Beawiharta)

6th Place: Javier Rupérez, Almáchar, Málaga, Spain. Small white hair spider. Reflected Light, Image Stacking, 20x (Objective Lens Magnification). (Photo by Javier Rupérez/Nikon's Small World 2019)

This camel clearly didnt get the hump about having its picture taken after posing for a selfie. Pictured joining in with the group photo, the hilarious photo shows the delighted desert dweller smiling happily for the camera. Captured by friends Hossam Antikka, 20, Karem Abdelaziz, 22, and Misara Salah, 24, the group spent around half an hour feeding the camel before deciding to take a snap of their new found friend. (Photo by Karem Abdelaziz/Caters News)

Meet the real beach babes: the herd of pigs that live a life of luxury paddling in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas, on August 28, 2013. (Photo by Caters News)

Breath of an Arctic fox by Marco Gaiotti, Italy. Marco was watching this little Arctic fox as it incessantly called another nearby. Gradually he noticed the fox’s wet breath was quickly freezing in the air after each call. It was late winter in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, and the air was -35C (-31F). Photographing Arctic foxes is often frustrating, as they are normally running around fast in search of food, but this one was very relaxed and let Marco get close enough to focus on it, with the light glowing perfectly in the background. (Photo by Marco Gaiotti/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)