This is my favorite black skimmer photo that I have taken in all the years following a little-known colony. Every year I select a nest when the parent is on eggs, then follow that same nest until they fledge. I choose one nest because colonies are chaotic; you will miss some shots by pointing the lens at hundreds of birds. One morning I got into position and lay there for an hour until sunrise when a parent flew in directly to feed the baby. The baby was inches away from me, so I couldn’t get the feeding photo. However, after the baby gobbled down the fish, I captured it running up to the parent and displaying the behavior pictured.

A seal pup enjoys the morning breeze on Düne Island in Germany.

A spotted deer stag on a cold winter morning in the forest

Decoratively dyed bundles of incense dry in Quang Phu Cau, a commune in Hanoi, Vietnam. In Buddhist countries like Vietnam, incense is an irreplaceable part of traditional festivals and religious ceremonies.

Sardines emerge from a coral wall in cobalt waters just a few yards from the shores of Cebu Island in the Philippines. They move in a single undulating cloud of silver that twists, turns, shrinks, expands and wraps itself around any object that gets in its way. At times, it becomes a thundercloud, blocking out the sun or clapping violently as it suddenly flips its formation to evade a predator.

This brown bear successfully captured a salmon in Kuril Lake. There is no happier bear than a bear with a fresh salmon in his mouth! The bears at Kuril Lake are in a state of hyperphaghia, meaning they are always hungry. They must gain weight before the winter’s hibernation and catch up to 40 salmon a day to achieve that.

On New Year’s Eve in 2016, a sea cliff collapsed near Kalapana on Big Island, Hawaii. A dramatic stream of lava, called a fire hose, started to shoot out of the cliff. Before the sunrise, I captured this dramatic picture, where the lava cascaded into the ocean, creating steam and lava bombs. The lava stream stopped in March 2017.

During my stay at a Costa Rican hotel, I noticed that red-eyed tree frogs flooded the gardens. As I approached this frog, it climbed into one of the holes in a leaf, as if it were sticking out a window.

Countless chili peppers surround laborers in the Bogra district in the north of Bangladesh. More than 2,000 people work in almost 100 chili farms in Bogra in Bangladesh to supply local spice companies with chilies for use in their recipes. Chili peppers are a major part of the Bengali cuisine popular in Bangladesh and are used as part of a combination of spices for various meat dishes, including chicken and beef.

Energy travels hundreds of miles across the ocean and comes to a dramatic end when it reaches our shores.

Hippocampus denise, one of the smallest seahorses in the world, clings to the branches of a gorgonia along with shrimp that are well hidden.

A boatman enjoys the leisure of reading a newspaper on his boat.

There are about 600 rhinos in Chitwan National Park. It was a pure adventure to follow wild rhinos in their natural habitat. The main instructions, in case a rhino ran in my direction, were to climb a tree; if there was no tree, to run zigzags. The red color of the grass comes from my imagination.

A lion’s mane jellyfish is lured by a rich plankton soup.

This picture was taken during the New Year holiday in NYC from the Roosevelt Island aerial tramway. Despite the rain, there is a festive mood in the frame. Raindrops resemble Christmas balls.

Niloofar is an Iranian nomad girl living in the Babanajm nomad region south of Shiraz city in Fars Province, Iran.

These are women who work in a salt field in Vietnam. I altered the image to black and white and made the background black to emphasize the women.

I took this shot at Gangasagar Mela. The Gangasagar Mela is one of the biggest religious festivals of India. The patterns formed by the drying saree in the wind, as well as the light and shadow play, attracted my attention. I was able to complete it by adding the presence of a lone man.

Care goes beyond gender. I went to the small slum near to my house in the morning, and I saw that this man was feeding his grandchild while his daughter, the infant's aunt, held him. It shows me something different than my society. In Bangladeshi society, care work is usually done by a female member of a family.

Gulls soaring over a beach cast precise shadows over the sand and water, seeming to double their numbers.

Griffon vulture portrait

A sculptor shapes a statue from stone using his professionalism, strength, concentration, art and time.

This ship just docked, and the man started cleaning the hull.

When I went to take photos of an apartment, I saw a woman through market umbrellas.

At the end of the night—after the after-party and the after-after-party—in, yes, the hotel lobby, the bride and groom finally retire to their room. This is the last glimpse of the bride before the door shut.

Every summer I visit a village where I have two nice "girlfriends." This photo is from a long series called "Simple Motions," where the two Russian "babushkas" have fun with the hula hoop, play football or do their gym.

A woman carrying a striped black and white umbrella passes some gates.

This is Maggie. She has two rare chromosome duplications, one of which she's the only child on record to have. This photo captures not only her vulnerability, but also the magnitude of the science for which we are so grateful. A little girl and her "Gigi" already way too familiar with hospitals and doctors offices than any child should be.

A man cycles past Tatsuo Miyajima’s "Counter Void" installation in Tokyo.

There are not many other animals as productive as sheep. They give us wool, milk, meat. Their memoirs are usually short. The pool of names is repeated every two years on our farm. We have already had two Queens, three Theos and four Fables.

This was shot in a pool and inverted upside down.

A man is going home after attending the Meyboom festival in Brussels.

A refugee of the Democratic Republic of Congo swims on his back in the waters of Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro.

A vendor at a fun fair in The Meadows, Edinburgh

In northern Vietnam, people come to the weekly market to exchange goods and culture. They usually wake up very early to go to market and have breakfast here.

Kids beat the heat of summer by enjoying the water play area in a mall in Cebu City, Philippines.

Ronja grew up as the only girl on the remote and enigmatic island of Mykines, the westernmost of the Faroe Islands and home to some of the richest bird cliffs in the world. Her confirmation was the first to be celebrated in Mykines since 1962 because no young people had lived permanently on the island since then.

Industrial ponds, property of Waste Management, Inc., New Mexico. Aerial image (shot from a plane at 1,000 feet).

The Paul Loebe House is a government building in the Reichstag area of Berlin worth seeing. I had to wait a while for someone to come down the stairs, but the wait was paid for by this shot.

"I can cry in front of them, I can tell them my secrets. I buy them things and they calm me down. I just feel comfortable around them,” says twenty-six year old Lisa Schalm as she poses for a portrait inside of her bedroom in Brockport, New York, on Oct. 11, 2017. Lisa suffers from depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder and said that these reborn dolls are the only solution to help calm her symptoms. A reborn doll is a manufactured skin doll that has been transformed by an artist to resemble a human infant with as much realism as possible.

A woman at work on the street near a leather factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. These pieces of leather will become wallets, belts or parts of shoes and sell throughout the world.

A girl swings in summer.

This photo was taken right after Hurricane Irma hit Miami. This is my 5-year old son walking through our neighborhood.

Mountaineers witness totality of the 2017 eclipse on the highest mountain in its path, 13,809′ Gannett Peak. Deep in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, reaching the summit requires two days of backpacking, a 12+ hour climb day, and crossing two glaciers.

This stand is set up near Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta and caters to the tourists lined up to look through the keyhole that hosts a view of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Cuba, Havana. I wandered through downtown. The city was slowly coming to life after Christmas celebrations and was preparing for the New Year. Suddenly I found myself at a small market. When I saw this butcher, sitting among large red pieces of meat dangling from acid-green counter, I pressed the shutter button automatically.

Curtis, Kate and Jude, siblings, lie in their backyard in Watford, North Dakota. 6 July 2017. The Long family has five children whom they homeschool. Western North Dakota attracted families from across the nation during the recent oil boom. Watford, like other rural towns in the region, is now facing unemployment and overdevelopment since the decline of the oil industry.

A couple of ladies are passing in front of graffiti.

At one of white limestone quarries in Minya, Egypt. It’s the shaping phase. There’s a machine called “El fasalah” that the laborers here are using to cut and partition the mountain into stone blocks.

This photo took place in Washington, D.C., during the Women's March on January 21, 2017. Officer Dixon is seen on duty, serving and protecting, during the event. The scarf she is wearing belonged to her late grandmother, affectionately referred to as "Boots" by those close to her.

Suburbia neighborhood swimming pool in Santa Fe, New Mexico

I listen to the sounds that surround me. I do not hear voices, the mist surrounds me, I just feel.

A wrestler does a backflip off the ropes of a wrestling ring in an attempt to defeat an opponent.

This photo was taken in Playa Tarará, Havana, Cuba at 5:30 pm. I was going to the beach with my family. It was really hot. I saw people playing squash. Oh my god I thought! How can they manage! The colors were really bright, and I was attracted by the shadows.

ATVs driving fast and furious in the deserts of Southern California. Aerial image (photographed from a plane at sunset).

A barbershop in Maramba, Livingstone, Zambia

El Clot (The Hole), is an apartment block in Valencia’s historic El Cabanyal neighborhood that has been under threat of demolition for 20 years. Gypsy families have occupied and restored some of the empty apartments in El Clot, where they live in poverty and under threat from law enforcement.

Three girls stand with their bows outside of Travis Archery in Woodbourne, New York.

Local hunters look for a fallen mourning dove during their weekly Wednesday hunt in Taylor County, Texas.