When you think about it, every photo captures something one-of-a-kind, a unique confluence of events, shot from a specific angle, that would be impossible to re-create. While this may be true, some photos are more memorable than others.
Tanned.
When humans spend too long in the sun, it tans our skin and eventually leads to skin cancer. But when half a playing card, for whatever reason, is left out in the sun, the results are fascinatingly different.
RELATED STORIES
Party mode.
Why, oh why, would an elevator have a ‘shuffle’ button? When you’re listening to music it’s nice to hear a random track, but have you ever gone into an elevator and said, “Surprise me?”
Cities within the city.
I’m not really sure of the details here, but apparently some of the streets of Hong Kong feature glass ‘bricks’ containing intricate and detailed miniature models of rooms.
Complete the set.
This is an industrial cooling system on a rooftop. But in the winter it comes with the added bonus of looking exactly like gigantic bricks of snow-covered Lego.
Thematically appropriate.
What may look like crosswalks drawn by someone with poor balance are in fact crosswalks designed to look like DNA double helixes. It all makes sense, as this is on a biotech campus.
Smooth.
I’ve never seen this effect in the flesh before, but examples can be seen all over the internet. When conditions are right, a blanket of snow behaves like an actual blanket and can smoothly slide off of surfaces.
That’s where you keep the expensive stuff.
If you disregard that old-school vault door, this looks like the counter at a used video game store, which is exactly what it is. The vault is a bonus from this building’s time as a bank.
Window into the past.
This guy stumbled across this wall of ancient-looking engravings while he was hiking. I wonder how old these drawings are, or which people drew them in the first place.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
These are Turkish garbage collectors perusing a library stocked entirely by books they’ve found in the trash. I have no idea why the library is in a batcave.
Tesla does it all.
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. That does appear to be a Tesla hearse. I’m not sure if Tesla is actually marketing these or if it’s an aftermarket addition.
Too perfect.
These concentric circles of trees in the Japanese wilderness aren’t a natural phenomenon. They’re the result of a long-running experiment that goes back more than a century.
Keep your distance.
This plane passed right by an erupting volcano. It’s a good thing the volcano appears to be some distance away, because I can’t imagine the ash and soot would play nice with propellers.
Seems safe.
Way back in the day, Fiat needed a test track near their factory. Since space was at a premium, they decided to plunk the track on their factory’s roof.
Stealth mode.
This is an immensely satisfying picture once you realize what’s going on. The photographer is wearing two-toned leggings that blend in to the gym floor so well they’re almost invisible.
I like turtles.
So these turtles won’t get squished by an oncoming freight train, the construction crews who built these train tracks also built tunnels under the tracks to allow turtles to safely go about their business.
It’s just a light switch.
A grand lever like this should reveal a hidden room or a sliding bookshelf or something, but no, it’s just a cool 3D-printed deal designed to liven up a boring light switch.
You couldn’t pay me to take this car back.
The vehicle sat unused for a month before anyone realized there was a small water leak. Even if the whole thing was gutted and bleached, I’d never trust that all the mold spores were gone.
It technically works.
It’s a receptacle with a door, on a post, with a house number on the side. Technically, it ticks all the mailbox boxes.
Plus, you can fit larger packages in it.
A bit cluttered.
Can he even see the road through all the stuff on the dashboard and hanging from the ceiling?
I applaud the attempt.
It’s great when developers try to preserve old trees and this looks cool, but it’s also shortsighted. A bad storm or earthquake could cause a lot of damage, and then there’s the fact that trees continue to grow.
Every sign has a story.
So how many random guys got lost in the bathroom before the building managers decided a sign was required?
You know, for kids!
Yes, this is a crane game filled with packs of cigarettes. Maybe it’s an effective quitting aid, since I know I’d run out of quarters long before I’d get that pathetic claw to pick up anything.
Next stop, please!
If I saw my bus driver on his phone, I’d disembark ASAP (and then report him), but this guy is even pinching and zooming for extra insanity points.
Meow.
Those aren’t actual cats bursting through the wall. They are pretty awesome and lifelike stickers.
Pigeon feet.
I’m not sure if all the tracks are from the same pigeon, but I like to imagine him pacing absently through the snow while contemplating life’s mysteries.
I itch in solidarity.
That’s not a subtle rose tattoo, but actually an allergic reaction to henna.
Tip: once in paste form, henna is perishable. So if you’re buying those little pre-filled cones or bottles off the shelf, they are likely chemical dyes and not real henna.
If it looks like this box is filled with weird pebbles, then you’ve got some insight into how these things survive.
The truth is that we’re actually looking at members of an African plant species known as lithops.
That resemblance to pebbles is supposed to keep grazing animals from eating them because who’s trying to eat rocks?
It turns out that ranch dressing is a more uniquely American thing than we might have realized.
At least, that’s how Doritos marketers in the Netherlands seem to see it, as the name of Cool Ranch Doritos is swapped out for “Cool American” over there.
It’s not a bad signature.
These Mammatus clouds look a lot more intimidating than they really are.
As Forbes reported , they’re often seen as a warning sign for tornadoes or hail, but they just occur when air from a cloud layer droops down into clear air below.
When this happens, that air cools faster than normal and drags down some of the cloud.
This water fountain’s L-shaped design actually makes a lot more sense than it might seem.
After it’s used, the design allows the water that doesn’t make it into our mouths to run off behind the fountain and water those plants.
It was designed this way because they couldn’t add a drain, but it makes sense to do it this way even if nobody has to.
It’s understandable if you think this is a group of jellyfish, but there’s actually no sea creatures in this photo.
Instead, we’re looking at a shot of a rat’s tail under a microscope. Magnify the little guy’s tail about 60 times and this is what you can expect to see.
Despite how it looks, everything in this picture is happening as it’s supposed to.
Rather than the aftermath of a terrible accident, this X-ray is just showing us what a gymnast’s spine looks like while they’re doing a particularly stretchy floor exercise.
At first, it may be hard to tell why someone put these two photos of tortoises together.
However, the reality that the first photo from 1886 and the second one from 2020 capture the same tortoise.
It’s honestly staggering how long they can live.
This may look like some bizarre art installation, but it didn’t happen on purpose.
While it’s unclear why there was once a brick wall here, this was simply what happened when the ocean lapped at it enough.
Erosion has a way of smoothing things out.
It’s probably hard to tell what we’re even looking at here, but this isn’t just some plastic garbage someone pulled out of the water.
Instead, it’s actually a transparent fish known as a Salpa Maggiore. I imagine that the disconnect between how it feels and how it looks would take some getting used to.
This is supposed to represent a much bigger area than it may seem to.
What we’re looking at here is an image portraying a distant universe. To get a sense of how cosmically massive that is, each of those little dots is an entire galaxy.
Hopefully, they let you out again.
I’ll leave you one guess as to what the former purpose of this library building was. It’s kind of a fun touch, so long as those cells don’t lock anymore.
These are tires.
“Customer refused all 4 tires on a rainy day, she also had to sign a waiver before releasing the car,” wrote the original poster. I didn’t even know tires could get this bald.
Must be a glitch.
This cloud, shaped perfectly like a ball, was seen in the skies over Japan back in 2016. It’s a rare phenomenon — have you ever seen a cloud so spherical?
Flying another way.
If you look close at the area above the baggage compartments, you’ll see the tiny head of a bird. I’m sure this flight was pleasant for everyone involved.
