Photos

A whale shark swims through a school of fish in the Gulf of Thailand, near a popular diving spot called Sail Rock. Your Shot photographer Dan Charity says, "The brief encounter was captured whilst diving the remote reef, which the graceful giant was using as a cleaning station, a sort of car wash for big fish."
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN CHARITY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Red fox kits play in a field on Prince Edward Island, Canada. There are on average four to six kits in a litter, and they stay with their parents for about seven months.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRITTANY CROSSMAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A brown bear catches a salmon in its mouth while hunting for food in Russia's Kurile Lake. The lake, located in a volcanic crater, is host to one of the largest salmon spawns in Europe.
PHOTOGRAPH BY FABRIZIO MOGLIA, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Your Shot photographer Matthew Smith photographed this stunning close-up of a newly hatched hawksbill turtle in the Bismarck Sea. He said, "Elders in the villages of Northern Papua New Guinea told me of the sad decline in numbers of these turtles, noticeable in their lifetime. A small project has been set up there on the island of Lissenung to educate locals about the vulnerability of these animals and to protect nests from poachers."
PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTHEW SMITH, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

In Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, a cub raises a paw to avoid a lioness that has sprung into action. The near miss was a small price to pay for the treat that followed: Minutes after this adorable image was taken, explains Your Shot photographer India Bulkeley, “the same lioness took down a wildebeest to share with her four cubs.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY INDIA BULKELEY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Your Shot photographer M. Cormican creates a close-up portrait of a flamingo, taken at the Los Angeles Zoo. "Flamingos are very social with one another, but I have also noticed a great deal of interest and eye contact towards me while I photograph them. I am endlessly fascinated with what they may be thinking when their gaze is on me."
PHOTOGRAPH BY M. CORMICAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A young humpback meets the lucky photographer’s gaze in the waters around Vava‘u, Tonga. Mother humpback whales and their young swim close together, even touching one another often with their flippers in apparent gestures of affection. “We had been observing this young calf … for perhaps 10 minutes when [it] decided to leave [its] mum’s side and swim over,” Your Shot photographer Michael Smith says. “I could clearly see [its] beautiful eye staring right into my soul.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL SMITH, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

In this magnified image submitted by Your Shot photographer Swaroop Singha Roy, a spider casts a sinister-looking glance from its hiding spot beneath the petals of a Madagascar periwinkle in Kolkata, India. Some spider species lie in wait in flowers, where their prey, pollinating insects, are likely to land.
PHOTOGRAPH BY SWAROOP SINGHA ROY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A tree frog hides in a canna leaf. Your Shot photographer Yuan Minghui remarked, "It's like the frog came to me from another world."
PHOTOGRAPH BY YUAN MINGHUI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

An African lion waits out the rain. Sadly, in the past 20 years, the African lion population has decreased by 42 percent. Much of this decline can be attributed to humans encroaching on lions' territory and hunting them for sport.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALI ALSHAMSI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Your Shot photographer Kitty Kono captured this penguin parade on South Georgia Island, a British territory in the Atlantic Ocean, just north of Antarctica. If you look to the far right, you'll see a wounded penguin. Kono notes that it had survived a leopard seal attack earlier in the day.
PHOTOGRAPH BY KITTY KONO, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A male orangutan makes eye contact with the camera. The cheek pads, called flanges, make male orangutans more desirable to females. Recent studies show that the flanges can sometimes take 20 years to appear, but their growth is directly related to testosterone levels.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PEDRO JARQUE KREBS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A bird inspects the offerings of a cherry tree before all the blossoms are in full bloom. Every spring, the iconic trees, known as sakura, usher in Japan's busiest tourist season.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HAYASHIDA MASAYOSHI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Two bear cubs play in a forest of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine. Your Shot photographer Volodymyr Burdiak says he wasn't expecting to see them emerge from the bushes, and he had only a few seconds to get this photograph before they ran back into the woods with their mother.
PHOTOGRAPH BY VOLODYMYR BURDIAK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

An egret looks for breakfast at sunrise. Egrets eat everything from fish, to rodents, to grasshoppers.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TAHIR ABBAS AWAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A trio of curious hyena cubs approached Your Shot photographer Ryan Green's remote triggered camera in the Mombo concession of the Okavango Delta.
PHOTOGRAPH BY RYAN GREEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A chance encounter with a fearless parrot at a garden in Brentwood Bay, Canada, drew Your Shot photographer Aaron Cawsey closer. "I couldn't use a flash without blinding my feathered friend but it turned out for the best anyways," he says. "I was admiring the aperture of his eye and I'm sure he wondering what was up with the aperture of my camera."
PHOTOGRAPH BY AARON CAWSEY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

While visiting the Chocoan Foests in Ecuador, photographer Sebastian Di Domenico came across what looked like a Hypsiboas picturatus. It's bulging eyes glistened while Di Domenico shot it from below.
PHOTOGRAPH BY SEBASTIAN DI DOMENICO, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

In the Azores, an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal, a curious blue shark decides to get a close look at Your Shot photographer Mike Harterink’s camera. This “curious,” metallic-coloured shark got as close as it could to its human observer, bumping into the camera with its snout. “Just after he touched the dome with his snout we looked each other in the eye for a brief moment,” Harterink writes.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE HARTERINK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

"At -39 degree Celsius, you can hardly feel your fingers," says Your Shot photographer Nigil H. "Everything exposed just goes numb." At Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, he captured this coyote mid-hunt as it braced against a blustery snow day.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NIGIL H., NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Icelandic horses have a distinctive look and Your Shot photographer Peter Izzard fell for the creatures saying, "they are the most gentle, inquisitive and approachable horses I'd met, and they looked super cool with their fantastic hairdos."
PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER IZZARD, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Your Shot photographer Ceresi Claudio captures a clownfish poking its head out of an anemone. "I love that small bit of light that is touching the clownfish's face. Such a nice, small detail that can make a big impact on an image," says Your Shot photo editor Matt Adams.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CERESI CLAUDIO, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

As a storm rolls in behind him, a white rhino gets a drink of water at a watering hole in South Africa. Your Shot photographer Alison Langevad captured this incredible shot with a 35mm lens, meaning she had to be pretty close to her subject. She says the experience was "exhilarating."
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALISON LANGEVAD, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

In Inuvik, Canada, two reindeer lose their footing while being herded across the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk ice road. Your Shot photographer Weronika Murray says, "Not all the animals are eager to cross the road, and some of them gave the herders a run for their money." This spring, 4,500 reindeer crossed the road to their calving grounds, in keeping with the annual tradition.
PHOTOGRAPH BY WERONIKA MURRAY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A whiskered walrus swims in the Otaru Aquarium in Hokkaido, Japan. Walruses can have 400-700 whiskers, which they use to find clams and shellfish on the ocean floor.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MAC SO, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Gelada baboons huddle together after an icy night in the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia. The geladas are only found in this part of the world, where the temperatures are often described as “summer every day, winter every night."
PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER DVORAK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

It was very dark in the Rainforest of Manuel Antonio as Your Shot photographer Barbara Seiberl-Stark watched for Costa Rica's famously diverse wildlife. "The only light was the bright orange colour of the flowers along the way," she recalls. Also drawn to the light was a hummingbird who dove into the flower for a sugary breakfast.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BARBARA SEIBERL-STARK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

Sometimes art requires sacrifice. Your Shot photographer Katherine Henderson tells the story behind this beautiful and simple picture: "I found this gorgeous tomato horn worm eating away at my tomato plants and allowed him to stay so I could photograph him. The problem is this plant was in full sun. So, I had to wait for the perfect conditions to get the best shot. A day or two later the sun was behind some clouds, there was no wind blowing him every which way, and I took my shot. I lost all the tomatoes and leaves on my plant, but this shot was worth it."
PHOTOGRAPH BY KATHERINE HENDERSON, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

A crocodile cruises by Your Shot photographer Fabrice Dudenhofer in Cuba's Jardines de la Reina, or "Gardens of the Queen." Named by Christopher Columbus, the group of islands is one of Cuba's largest protected areas.
PHOTOGRAPH BY FABRICE DUDENHOFER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT