"During an engineering flight test of the Cloud-Aerosol Multi-Angle Lidar (CAMAL) instrument, a view from NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center’s ER-2 aircraft shows smoke plumes, from roughly 65,000 feet, produced by the Thomas Fire in Ventura County, California, around 1 p.m. PST on Dec. 5th, 2017."

"And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south,
Yes, if I ever lose my mouth, oh if, I won't have to talk..."

"Niaz Uddin is a photographer, director, and filmmaker that explores a variety of natural landscapes from high above. His color-saturated photographs explore crowded beaches and remote tide pools, capturing each of the scenic environments from a bird’s eye view."

You need to check this guy's Flickr feed out, and STAT! It's amazing, and could well restore your faith in humanity. Or in humanity's ability to recognize the beauty of Nature, at the very least.

This is stunning stuff, but it actually took me a while to figure out what I was actually seeing. The size and scope of the image is so huge, I didn't even see the islands at first.

Photographer George Steinmetz is probably best known for his mind-bending image of camels crossing the desert dunes of Arabia's Empty Quarter "on their way to graze near Wadi Mitan" that was featured by National Geographic in February, 2005—an image so disconcerting (and implausible) that it's got its very own Snopes page. But his Instagram account suggests he could be known for a whole lot more.

"Landmannalaugar in the Icelandic highlands. While there, we were lucky in that the weather, which had started out with a dense and low cloud cover, eventually cleared up: a touch of sunlight really brings out the colors in the landscape (which however no photo can really do justice)."

As of the writing of this post, it has over 76,000 "likes." And that's nowhere near enough.

"Unbelievable fog bow (otherwise known as a white rainbow) down on Rannoch Moor near Glencoe in Scotland on Sunday. I was so lucky to be shooting this wonderful isolated tree at the time as the Fog Bow framed it beautifully."

"What are those specks in front of the Moon? They are silhouettes of the International Space Station (ISS). Using careful planning and split-second timing, a meticulous lunar photographer captured ten images of the ISS passing in front of last month's full moon."

"This is Lake Erie as you’ve never seen it. Majestic, roiling, angry, exquisite. Eight-metre waves rising like leviathans under a red sky. Wind-sculpted liquid mountains crashing into a furious maelstrom."

"From an octopus beneath the sea, to mayflies in the sky, insects camouflaged against the leaves of a tree, Velella velella stranded on a beach and the microscopic image of a seed pod, we received over 1000 entries across dozens of countries demonstrating biological phenomena in a range of environments."

Today, thanks to a Bored Panda post, I've been exploring the visually-stunning feed of Russian photographer Daniel Kordan. BP was particularly fired up by his recent work on the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (the world’s largest salt flat) in which he "managed to capture the Milky Way being reflected on the flooded salt flat at night."

...but I have something for you to look at, thanks to photographer Allard Schager. (This and subsequent images are all from the "Breathtaking Images" section of 500px.com. Definitely seems like the right adjective toCancel use, if you ask me.)

That image comes from Michael Blanchette, a "New England photographer specializing in landscapes." And while it features a few of my favorite photographic things -- mountains, and reflections, and reflections of mountains -- it's the incredible vibrancy of the red shack that really sticks out to me.