This week: National Geographic photographer and Explorer Brian Skerry captured a rare image of a great white shark. Plus, we've got Nat Geo's greatest elephant shots.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN SKERRY

As soon as National Geographic Explorer and photographer Brian Skerry locked eyes with the enormous animal, he knew immediately what was staring back at him. “There’s no mistaking that face,” he says. A nearly 10-foot long great white shark was just four feet away.

PHOTOGRAPH BY EXPLORER SRIRAM MURALI

X-ray artist Hugh Turvey is obsessed with the inner workings of things. For his photographs in our story on how shells get their shape, the London resident combined two techniques. To see inside the shells, he layered x-ray film, which exposes interior densities, with cyanotypes. Avoiding inverted images was a challenge. Turvey found himself ditching the digital world for the darkroom and playing with chemicals, which he hadn’t done in years. It was quite slow going, he says, but the “old school, analog process was just a joy.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS JOHNS, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION 

FROM THE ARCHIVE: A baby elephant takes a sand bath in Zambia in this image published in May 1996. The photograph by Chris Johns is one of a number selected for a feature on some of the most iconic shots of elephants in National Geographic’s history.

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