Fashion models Darien Leigh and Valerie Drew play leap-frog on the beach. 2nd July 1956. (Photo by Harry Kerr). P.S. All pictures are presented in high resolution.

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)

A couple passes the sculpture “Transformer” by Chinese artist Bi Heng during snowfall in Kassel, central Germany, Tuesday March 12, 2013. Frankfurt airport closed, a quarter of flights out of Paris were canceled, Belgium suffered record traffic jams and high-speed trains were stuck in stations – all because of a sudden dump of oddly late snowfall on Western Europe. Less prepared for the kind of heavy snow that regularly hits northern and eastern neighbors, France, Britain and Belgium struggled Tuesday to keep moving amid the frosty, blustery conditions. (Photo by Uwe Zucchi/AP Photo/Dpa)

Members of the Women's Fire Brigade with their Chief Officer, March 1916. (Photo by Topical Press Agency)

The main church in the town of San Damian Texoloc, Mexico stands in front of the Popocatepetl volcano as is spews ash and vapor early Tuesday, July 9, 2013. Last Saturday, Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention raised the volcano alert from Stage 2 Yellow to Stage 3 Yellow, the final step before a Red alert, when possible evacuations could be ordered after the Popocatepetl volcano spit out a cloud of ash and vapor 2 miles (3 kilometers) high over several days of eruptions. (Photo by J. Guadalupe Perez/AP Photo)

Taylor Swift performs “All Too Well” at the 56th annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision)

In this February 4, 2016 picture a masked participant of the traditional carnival parade poses in the streets of the village of Kippel in the Loetschental valley, southwestern part of Switzerland. During this sinister carnival, participants wearing wooden masks and animal furs, crowd the streets of the villages to scare the people. (Photo by Dominic Steinmann/Keystone via AP Photo)

The Screamin' Sasquatch jet powered Waco Biplane sits on display during media day for the Canadian International Air Show at Billy Bishop Airport, Toronto, Ontario, September 4, 2015. (Photo by Louis Nastro/Reuters)