There is a lot of skill to taking a good photo, just having professional equipment isn’t enough, no matter how hard a rich amateur might try. But there is also some degree of being in the right place at the right time, moments where just a few seconds difference could ruin something iconic.
So we’ve gathered some of the best “once in a lifetime” photos that folks across the internet have shared online. Get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own thoughts in the comments section down below.
#1 Found The End Of A Rainbow
Image source: xCnuty
#2 This Bird Looks Like It’s Standing Midair
Image source: shartoberfest
#3 My Drive In To Work This Morning (I-90 In The Berkshire Mountains, MA)
Image source: the-crooked-compass
Picture a family lining up for a portrait on a stargazing night in Northumberland, with the northern lights glowing behind them. Photographer Wil Cheung pressed the shutter, and at that very instant a big shooting star streaked right over their heads. The other guests gasped, yet the family held perfectly still and missed the whole thing until they saw the picture.
Cheung says he normally spots only a couple of meteors an hour, so getting one in a neatly framed group shot was a one in a million moment. The family planned to print and frame it right away, which seems like the only sensible move.
#4 Baby Hummingbird Drinking Juice From A Raspberry
Image source: Nadeesha Sonali Fonseka
#5 Oh No There’s A Hole In The Cat
Image source: SamMac62
#6 Finally Found Them, Thumper And Bambi
Image source: Nadeesha Sonali Fonseka
Then there is the granddaddy of lucky snapshots. In December 1968, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders was supposed to be photographing the lunar surface, and nothing in the mission plan covered an Earthrise. So he hollered for a roll of color film, and crewmate Jim Lovell scrambled to find one while the view slipped away. Anders still got two color frames, and one of them became Earthrise, a picture that has been called one of the most influential ever taken.
#7 A Square Cloud
Image source: Monsur_Ausuhnom
#8 You Can See The Cold Front Moving In
Image source: dandee93
#9 Took A Perfectly Timed Photo Of My Brother Shooting A Basketball. It Blocked Out The Sun To Make It Look Like A Solar Eclipse
Image source: MDPPatrick
Weather can ruin a photo session, but sometimes it crashes the party in the best way. In August 2022, photographer Danika Camba was shooting what looked like a regular couples session on a mountain in British Columbia. It was really a surprise proposal from Liam Duncan to Alisa Hemming, with friends and family waiting nearby. Just as the couple embraced, a bright bolt of lightning struck in the background, and Camba later found three frames that caught it. They hurried off the mountain as the storm kept rolling.
#10 Unusual Rock Formation In Norway
Image source: outroversion
#11 Kummakivi Is A 500-Ton Rock In Finland That Has Been Balancing On Top Of Another Rock For 11,000 Years
Image source: Cheryl Andersen
#12 The Endangered Wrinkled Peach Mushroom
Image source: Mericanjoe1776
Some lucky shots have a lot of patience baked in. Fernando Braga lives in Rio de Janeiro with a view of Christ the Redeemer from home, and he had spent plenty of stormy days failing to catch a lightning strike on the statue. On February 10, 2023, he waited out another storm for hours and fired off hundreds of frames until one bolt landed right on the statue’s head. He called the result a dream come true, and the photo traveled around the world.
#13 🔥 This Is A Rare Phenomenon, Called ‘Cross Waves’
Image source: crinnoire
#14 Stunning Kauai
Image source: Perfect_Gas
#15 🔥 Feathers On Display By A Barn Owl
Image source: JalenNico
The sky loves a photobomb too. During the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, NASA photographers caught the International Space Station crossing the face of the sun as a tiny dark silhouette, racing along at roughly five miles per second with six crew members on board. The moon and a few sunspots made it into the frame as well, which is a lot of cosmic cooperation for one picture. Seven frames were stitched together to show the whole crossing, and the result looks like a little trail of space station silhouettes.
#16 🔥 Meteor Over Mount Fuji
Image source: Gavin_beast13
#17 🔥 This Supercell Over East Texas Looks Like The End Is Nigh. Photo By Laura Rowe
Image source: child-of-old-gods
#18 Fly, Puppy, Fly!: Lifting Off With The Power Of Good Timing
Image source: Ukulele_Henry
Look even farther out and things get wild. In June 2010, Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley was visiting a friend in Broken Hill and had set a video camera to record through his telescope while it was pointed at Jupiter. He caught a flash that lasted only a couple of seconds and quickly realized something had slammed into the giant planet.
#19 Bride Of The Owl: Flying Perfectly Into Frame
Image source: [deleted]
#20 I Saw A Piebald Buck On My Walk Today
Image source: JohnnyNapkins
#21 This Souvenir Shop In Brussels Had Everything Lined Up So Perfectly That I Thought My Vision Got Blurry
Image source: thetanager
Christopher Go, another stargazer in the Philippines, checked his own footage and found the same flash. Wesley had also been the first to spot the dark scar from a Jupiter impact in 2009, so he has had a remarkable run of luck with that planet.
#22 Was Cutting Down A Tree At A Golf Course And Found A Golf Ball Wedged In It
Image source: el_tobleronie
#23 Just A Pic That My Friend Took Down At The Beach The Other Day
Image source: sophielola_
#24 This Shadow That Perfectly Lined Up With The Light Pole
Image source: caitwcam
#25 Cloud Looks Like A Dinosaur
Image source: NovaRogue
#26 These Trees Look Like Two People Kissing
Image source: anna70773
#27 This Photo I Accidentally Took Of My Cat’s Optical Nerves
Image source: weirdestjacob
Wildlife photography has its own flavor of luck, and this next one is gloriously weird. In April 2018, photographer Doc Jon was strolling along Madeira Beach in Florida when he snapped an osprey flying far above him, assuming it had a fish in its talons. Back home, he zoomed in and found the bird was actually carrying a small shark, and the shark had a fish in its mouth. That is an entire food chain in a single frame, and he says he is not sure how he will ever top it.
#28 New York City During A Storm
Image source: CuriosityKilledTheKittyCat
#29 The Water That This Elephant Is Washed With Looks Like An Elephant Itself
Image source: [deleted]
#30 The Cantalloc Aqueducts, Built By The Nazca People In The Peruvian Desert 1,500 Years Ago, Are Still In Use Today
Image source: Nadeesha Sonali Fonseka
Finally, here is a bird that knows how to pose. Paul Gregory sat patiently for two hours at the Attenborough Nature Reserve in Nottinghamshire, never expecting what came next, when a kingfisher flew straight at his lens with its wings spread wide. Wildlife experts called it a once in a lifetime shot, and some people said the bird looked angelic. Gregory himself credits being in the right place at the right time, which might as well be the motto of every lucky shot out there.
#31 🔥 The Golden Plover Is A Bird That Hatch With The Power Of Camouflage Fully Activated. These Fluffy Birds Match The Mossy Arctic Nesting Site Perfectly
Image source: Scientiaetnatura065
#32 🔥 Newborn Hedgehog Puppies
Image source: therra123
#33 This Agate Stone Looks Like The Ocean
Image source: [deleted]
#34 🔥 Highlands Of Iceland 🔥
Image source: Zordack
#35 Basketball To The Face
Image source: LucilleSluggers
#36 Who’s Talking Stuff?
Image source: AllAnusMorissette
#37 A Building’s Reflection On The Chicago River
Image source: PlentyCheetah7653
#38 Great Blue Heron
Image source: Jacksonmatt7367
#39 Uber Driver Hair Formed A Perfect 25
Image source: Steln
#40 Water Forms “Ha” Perfectly On My Glasses After Rinsing Them
Image source: KaitouSky
#41 The Time An Arrow Absolutely Ruined Everyone’s Day
#42 My Lasagna Steam Was Straight As An Arrow
Image source: whayd
#43 Odd-Shaped Clearing
Image source: WonkaTXRanger
#44 Fog Over La Makes It Look Like Badly Rendered Video Game
Image source: donbbqq
#45 The Way The Snow Melted On My Walkway
Image source: yassismore
#46 This Pic Of London Looks Like It Should Be A Video
Image source: hey_watti
#47 Captured A Perfect Snowflake In My Dog’s Mouth
Image source: georgetteemariaa
#48 Found A Perfect Salt Crystal In My Sea Salt Packet
Image source: c3r3n1ty
#49 Perfect Heart Shaped Strawberry
Image source: beanyways
#50 Unusual Web
Image source: mizkovi
#51 Rain , Rain
Image source: Kosoy6rub
#52 The Japanese Have Been Producing Wood For 700 Years Without Cutting Down Trees
Image source: Nadeesha Sonali Fonseka
#53 Sailfish Have Been Clocked At Speeds In Excess Of 68mph/112km, Some Experts Consider The Sailfish The Fastest Fish In The World’s Oceans
Image source: rosseepoo
#54 Big Boy Polar Bear On Barter Island, Alaska
Image source: [deleted]
#55 🔥 The Kakapo Also Known As The Owl Parrot, Is The Only Non-Flying Member Of Its Species Alive Today
Image source: amonaloli12
#56 🔥 Lorestan, Iran
Image source: SoggyConclusion4674
#57 🔥 The Mossy Lava Fields Of Iceland Extend As Far As The Eye Can See
Image source: baiqibeendeleted17x
#58 Remember When I Told Y’all About The Philippines Having Human-Sized Bats? Yeah, This Was What I Was Talking About
Image source: Nadeesha Sonali Fonseka
#59 Noooo!!
Image source: sloppyFarts
#60 Flying Cat
Image source: SuperKozz
#61 Bird Lady [x-Post From /R/Pics]
Image source: Phydeaux
#62 Once In A Lifetime Photo
Image source: Eclipse_nova99
#63 My Once In A Lifetime Shot
Image source: dklassic
#64 A Once In A Lifetime Shot For Me
Image source: Yaherd_Meigh
#65 This Spider-Web Looks Like Spider-Man
Image source: nephelodusa
#66 My Chairs Shadow Looks Like A Bald Man With A Goatee
Image source: nonabelian_anyon
#67 My Girlfriends Dad Went To Apply Some Sunscreen And Accidentally Squeezed Out A Perfect Miniature Duck
Image source: PromptAndReceive
#68 The Formation Of ‘Ice Flowers’ Is A Beautiful Natural Phenomenon In The Great Lakes Region Of North America
Image source: Nadeesha Sonali Fonseka
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