Photo by George Steinmetz geosteinmetz | Alexis Peltier’s plane casts a shadow over Lake Natron, Tanzania. The lake has an unusually high pH of 10, similar to pure ammonia. Under the sun of the Great Rift Valley, it can reach 120°F, giving rise to blooms of red algae. I was flying over it with my paramotor earlier that morning, and felt uncomfortable being so far offshore, as paramotor engines are notoriously unreliable. So I wimped out and went back to the beach, only to discover that my carburetor was messed up and I was a few minutes from running out of fuel. If I had gone for it that morning, I would've landed in that red soup, which is so caustic that it burns your skin. So, feeling lucky to still be walking, I asked Alexis to take me up over the lake in his Cessna, and got an even better picture! If I had to choose being smart or being lucky, I’d take lucky! To explore more of our world from above, follow geosteinmetz.

Photo by Keith Ladzinski ladzinski | A fleeting beam of sunlight draws out a prismatic rainbow on a stormy day in Grindelwald, Switzerland. This rainbow lasted mere minutes, dominating the landscape among a scene of dramatic storm clouds that shrouded the tall peaks of the valley. To see more photos of the please visit ladzinski.

Photo by estherhorvath | Angela Yu, from Qingdao, China, visits her parents in New York for Chinese New Year. She wears a dress called hanfu, in the Dunhuang style and featuring a nine-color deer, for the celebration in Chinatown, at Sara D. Roosevelt Park. January 25, 2020.