Our planet is constantly carved by the flow of wind, water, and ice. These images, all shortlisted by the International Aerial Photographer of the Year competition, highlight those forces. From meandering rivers and spreading deltas to cracked valleys and windswept dunes, flow is all around us. (Image credit: Various Artists/IAPOTY, see images for details; via Colossal)
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of fountain pens. They’re just one way I like to have little celebrations of fluid physics in my everyday life. That said, I don’t typically use anything with a monster flex nib like what you see here. This is extra. But it’s also an incredibly cool glimpse of fluid physics.
Just check out that sheet of fluid stretching between the tines! To keep the liquid sheet intact to that kind of width you need the perfect balance of surface tension and flow. The ink needs to cling to the tines, cohere to itself (despite some impressive stretching), and make its way down from the reservoir and through the feed quickly enough (but not too quickly!) to replace the ink being laid down on the page as the nib moves. Gorgeous stuff. (Video and image credit: Flexperiments)
Photographer Barbara Brown captured these striking aerial views in Namibia. Coastal dunes and saltworks feature in the photos from Walvis Bay, where wind, waves, evaporation, and humankind have shaped the landscape. The colorful and dendritic dune images come from Sossusvlei, where the ephemeral Tsauchab River ends in the Namib Desert. Recent flooding left its mark on the dry landscape. (Image credit: B. Brown/IAPOTY; via Colossal)
A supercell thunderstorm in New Mexico appears almost otherworldly in this photo from Dennis Hualong Zhang. Glowing from within and stacked like a layer cake, the storm menaces the nearby road and fields. Lightning in the distances completes the composition. Images like this are a reminder that our atmosphere–despite frequently seeming calm and ordinary–harbors incredible turbulent energy. (Image credit: D. Zhang; via ILPOTY)
Iceland’s Múlajökull glacier is prone to sudden surges, where rapid ice flow is interspersed between periods of quiescence or retreat. The isolated nature of the glacier and its marshy surroundings make approaching on foot almost impossible, but photographer Dani Guindo captured gorgeous aerial images of the glacier’s many rivulets ribboning about the landscape it’s carved. (Image credit: D. Guindo; via Colossal)
Life in Venice Beach lends itself to wave-watching, or so it seems for photographer Craig Hubbard. His portraits of waves and surfers are ethereal, every swell capped by a cloud-like swath of spray. Somehow, every photographer seems to capture breaking waves a little differently! (Image credit: C. Hubbard; via Colossal)
Amphibians like toads are often indicator species for their ecosystem because they are vulnerable to changes on both land and water. In this short film, videographer Maxwel Hohn follows the migration of western toad tadpoles in British Columbia, showing their daily underwater journey from deep waters, where they can hide, to warmer, shallow waters, where they eat. Over the days and weeks of their early life, millions of tadpoles make the journey, their bodies morphing as they do. Eventually, they will hop away as toadlets. (Video and image credit: M. Hohn et al.)
Though we rarely notice their movement in the moment, plants, and especially their flowers, are frequently on the move. Here, retired engineer Jay McClellan captures a thymeleaf speedwell flower as it opens, then pushes a stamen toward its pistil, thereby pollinating itself. Like much of the motion executed by plants, these movements come from pumping water between different cells, swelling and shrinking them as needed to execute the overall motion. (Video and image credit: J. McClellan; via Colossal)
Years ago, photographer Ernie Button discovered an intriguing stain left behind in his whiskey glass after the last drops evaporated. That discovery led both to beautiful images and an entire scientific paper analyzing how the alcohol, surfactants, and polymers in the whiskey combined to leave such a uniform stain. Over the years, Button continued investigating liquor stains, looking at gin, rice whisky, and aging effects. Here, he’s turned his lens to cognac, producing stains that look like oil slicks, aerial landscapes, and even cartoonish faces! (Image and submission credit: E. Button)
Nothing showcases the incredible power of our atmosphere like storms, and no one does stormchase photography like Mike Olbinski. In this vignette, he shows a stunning line of supercells caught near sunset on July 17, 2022. The high shear–combined with the setting sun–put on an incredible show. Dust blown up in a haboob, microbursts and downpours in the distance, and lots of churning, roiling turbulence. (Video and image credit: M. Olbinski)
