Amateur and professional photographers were asked to post the most amazing photograph that they’ve ever taken on Quora. Here’s what some of the shared, along with their explanation of the shot.“Most people react to this photo with doubt at first. Is Kent an expert at manipulating images using Photoshop? The answer is no, but the sad part is that in this day and age of digital photography, the common reaction is to ask if it’s real… The reality is that this is not Kokomo (yes, I’m showing my age with a Beach Boys reference). It’s St. Maarten, the home of the famous Princess Juliana International Airport. At only 7,980 feet, the runway is barely long enough for large jets to land. Incoming airliners approaching the island, must touchdown at the very beginning of the runway, which is just past the beach. This means they have to fly extremely low, passing only 30-60 feet over tourists and plane spotters.” -Kent Miller
“This is my best and luckiest picture. Held the camera with the other hand during a rain shower in Brazil.” -Micah Goulart
“The best photo I have taken is not of any great quality. Heck, it was taken on a mobile phone camera (Nokia N8, 12 MP). But my thought behind it and the fact that my thought was caught in the photo perfectly is what makes it the most amazing photograph I have ever taken. It was my cousin’s engagement and as she was getting ready, her mother was helping her. I was being the ‘invisible’ photographer trying to take candid pictures while trying to not disturb anyone. There came a moment when my cousin stood in front of the mirror. As I was about to take her photo, her mom ended up standing beside her. ‘Cause of where I was standing, I got a good angle shot and the result was the photo you see below… I managed to get my aunt’s reflection as my cousin looked in the mirror. ‘Well, they say a daughter is a reflection of her mother…’- I conveyed this thought across and my aunt loved it!:)”-Akshaya R. Pai
“This is one of my favourite photographs, mainly because of the perseverance required to take it, and the thrill of finally getting the right conditions. Vancouver doesn’t get temperature inversions that often, but in January we had a few days where they occurred early in the morning, with the resultant fog typically dispersing by midday. I’d been wanting to get a photograph like this for a long time, so when I saw the conditions forming, I knew that this was my chance. However, the best time to get such a shot is when the lights from the city balance the light in the sky, which typically occurs 30-40 minutes before sunrise (or after sunset).The other variable, of course, is that the fog has to be at just the right level — too high and you don’t see the buildings peeping through. I went up to viewpoints on 5 separate mornings before sunrise, and in every case, the fog layer was just too high — I would very occasionally see the top of the tallest building, but nothing else. It looked like I wouldn’t get the photo I wanted this year, as the forecast showed the conditions coming to an end. This was the last morning where there was any low fog, and the forecast wasn’t promising, but I knew that if I didn’t once again drag myself out of bed well before sunrise, I’d be kicking myself if someone else got a great photo! On arriving at the viewpoint, I could see there was a very high cloud layer that was just starting to reflect the sun, still well below the horizon from my viewpoint, but again the city was entirely hidden by fog. However, after about 10 minutes the fog descended slightly and I was able to take this photo. Five minutes after I took it, the fog had obscured the city again, and the opportunity had gone.”-Alexis Birkill
“This image consist of 3888 images taken from the same spot through one whole year. I stitched together one image from one pixel wide columns from each image. January to the left, December to the right. The image is the view from my flat in Oslo, Norway. The stitching was done with a tiny bit of code that automated the process after I had chosen the 3888 images from the approx. 17000 images that my camera snapped after standing in my window for one year snapping an image every 30 minutes.”-Eirik Solheim
“My best photo to date, taken during a trip to the Bolivian salt desert.”-Guy Nesher
“This was taken from a gondola dangling about 1000 feet over the icy crevasses of Mont Blanc. Definitely one of my favorite memories! The mountains in this photo form the border between Switzerland and Italy.”-Robert Fisher
“This one is probably the best I’ve taken in the past few years living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was shot during Loy Krathong festival.”-Daniel Nahabedian
“I took this photo at Opotiki beach, New Zealand. This dog was obsessed with chasing seagulls, and I was zoomed right in as it run up to a sitting bird, and managed to get a perfectly timed photo just as the bird took off, making it look like a flying dog!”-Megan Whiteley
“This one, a self portrait with my family.”-Martin Bennett
“It was a nice breezy shiny Sunday afternoon. We were playing in our community garden. Someone flicked the ball towards the community gardener who was watering plants and the ball got wet. After that it became a monster. The faster the ball was thrown, the more it flew like a rocket leaving trails of water behind; but the magic began when my elder brother started bowling. His bowling made the ball spin and create a whirlpool of water sprayed in mid air. The moment he delivered the first ball, the closing fielder got a lovely shower because of the spinning wet ball. I looked at the spinning ball and thought to myself that it was a moment worth capturing. I grabbed my camera and asked my brother to spin the ball as fast he could when he bowled. After a few missed shots, I finally snapped that magical moment, where the ball was in sharp focus.”-Rajat Bhargava
“This is one of my favorite photo, taken from an hot air balloon in Cappadocia (Turkey). Well, I’ve printed big at home and every time reminds me of the amazing experience of flying with a balloon. It’s my favorite also for the publications on a couple of magazines.”- Alessio Andreani
“This would have to be mine. Certainly the most popular. Shot it on Botany Bay Road, Edisto Island, SC”-Michael Woloszynowicz
“Perfect timing! Bhutanese friend farewell [party]. Partied all night. Next morning, started [for] fun but [it] ended up being one of our best pics!”-Shashank Jha
“Whenever I’m flying home into LaGuardia Airport, I request a window seat and willfully disobey the flight crew by keeping my point-and-shoot turned on. On this particular September afternoon, there was high cloud cover with one rogue cloud hovering ominously above Midtown Manhattan. I timed this exposure so that you can see straight down 42nd Street, all the way to the Hudson River. Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Long Island City, Queens are visible in the foreground, separated by Newtown Creek. Other than adjusting some levels and adding a bit of a vignette, I didn’t manipulate or ‘shop the original capture.”-Jeff Weston
“One of my favorites, and probably the luckiest image I ever took. This was taken at a Beach Soccer tournament in San Francisco. The sand kicked up by the 3 players fighting for the ball created what looks like a profile of a face. I still find it hard to believe how lucky I got. If this was taken a split second earlier or later this image would have ended up in the thrash bin.”-Maciek Gudrymowicz
“I think this is my amazing one till today. Beautiful Peacock at Bandung’s Zoo.”-Muhamad Reda G. Pangestu
“Took this photo on one of my runs across the Golden Gate in 2012, on the way to the Marin headlands. Shot with my iPhone, holding it out over the water pointing up between the cables. The fog was just the right density to give a beautiful sense of depth. Only adjustment is a slight vignette and crop.”-Nathan Spady
“I was in a marine cruise in Walvis Bay, Namibia, watching dolphins, seals, mola molas, cormorants, not paying so much attention in taking pictures. But then, the captain threw a piece of fish from the boat and I had the privilege of picturing a pelican at the exact moment he grabbed the bite. I love the perfection of the pelican in this action shot: the wings and beak wide open, and the fish ‘frozen’ in time before being swallowed… I also like the presence of other birds giving sense of atmosphere to the picture.”-Romulo Rejon
“This is by far the best picture I’ve taken. I wish I could say it was due to skill and careful planning, but this one is pure luck. Photography is my favourite hobby, but I doubt I’ll ever get another picture that comes close to match this one. It’s taken in my favourite place in Norway, our cabin deep in one of the fjords on the west coast. We went outside early in the morning to blow giant soap bubbles to amuse our kids. At the same time the sun came up over the mountain behind the cabin, creating the reflection in the bubble. The hardest part was to get the focus on the bubble just right, the contrast with the grey background did not help.”-Odin Hole Standal
It’s a photo of the Northern Lights I took recently when I was travelling in Oldervik, a remote village in Norway within the Arctic circle. It was 1 AM in the morning with snow up to my knees and a temperature of -13 degrees, but totally worth it!-Reno Luo
“My transition from amateur to professional commercial and fine art photographer had a number of steps and projects, including the one that allowed me to take this photo. This is the view from the top of the south pylon of the 25 de Abril bridge, that links Lisbon to Almada in Portugal. It was taken during one of the visits for the SAPO Panoramas project, on which I was the lead photographer, responsible for setting up and programming the panoramic robots, the photographic settings, and producing quite a few of the panoramas by myself. Suspension bridges are amazing feats of engineering, and this one is no exception. It’s a living structure, being continuously repaired and upgraded, day after day, since 1966.”-Pedro Moura Pinheiro
“It was January 2012, I was recently unemployed, pacing around at home, the weather was perfect for black and white film, which I love, so I popped a Fuji Neopan 1600 on my camera and went downtown for some shooting. This picture was inspired by a friend’s picture very much like this, and I thought I would give it a shot. It came out just perfect, and is my personal favorite.”-Persio Pucci
“Took this a few years back during my visit to one of the hill tribe villages in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Seeing him reaching out helplessly from his cage broke my heart. Shot with my Nikon F2.”-Samantha Choong
“Maybe not such an amazing picture, but what was amazing to me was that this photo was picked up by the British newspaper THE TELEGRAPH and subsequently published by newspapers around the world as the PICTURE OF THE DAY on March 18, 2009. They liked the juxtaposition of the large bison with the smaller car in Yellowstone National Park. Of course, whenever you are this close to one of these magnificent animals, they do seem AMAZING.”-James Perdue
“My eldest son Dan took this when he was about 14. We were at a crocodile farm just North of Cairns. That’s about six feet of snapping predator above the water. He or she has another six feet of length below the surface.” -David Urquhart
“Took this within hours of my daughter’s birth. Those are our wedding bands on her cute tiny toes:)”-Chaithra L Prasad
