National Geographic photographer Vince J Musi is an award winning photographer whose unique take on animal photography was recognized in the 2011 PDN Photo Annual. The early deadline for the 2012 Photo Annual is TODAY at midnight PST. The image above  is from a story on wild things bred for their aggressive behavior. Scientists in Novosibirsk, Russia, are comparing these rats to those bred for friendliness to understand the connection between genetics and behavior.

Photographer Frans Lanting’s surreal landscape of Namibia’s Dead Vlei in the June issue of National Geographic magazine has many asking whether it’s a painting or photograph. Lanting took a break from his current assignment in Africa to discuss the photograph, the result of a “perfect moment” that “came when the sun reached all the way down to the bottom of the sand dune just before it reached the desert floor.”

Photographer Carsten Peter descended into the fiery center of Nyiragongo—an active volcano towering over a city of one million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—for the April issue of National Geographic magazine.  See Carsten and his team explore the depths of Nyiragongo in Man vs. Volcano on the National Geographic channel. To see more of Carsten Peter’s work click here.

A member of the expedition walks on the caldera’s cooled lava floor, turned red by the reflected glow of the lake. “Down here you feel the volcano,” says photographer Carsten Peter. “It’s a low-frequency rumbling that pulses through your body – like being inside a giant subwoofer.”

Traders ferry logs and charcoal 12 miles from the forests around Nyiragongo to Goma, which continues to swell with refugees fleeing the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s war-torn east. The plume rising from the mountain reminds residents of yet another threat: eruption.

Many of the porters were local women, who huddled in the cold at the crater rim.

Rising gas bubbles explode, splattering lava up to 60 feet in the air over Nyiragongo’s fiery lake.

Constant bubbling sends waves of lava lapping over the rim. Scientists aren’t sure of the lake’s depth, though recent lava samples indicate the magma originated in the Earth’s mantle more than 46 miles below.

Photographer Carsten Peter tests the thermal suit that Sims used to get close to the lava lake. “It can protect you from the radiant heat, but if you get hit with a lava splatter, the force will likely kill you,” he says. For 30 years Peter has explored volcanoes around the world. “Seeing at close range the primal forces that shaped the planet can be hypnotic. You cannot allow yourself to fall under a volcano’s spell, especially one as unpredictable as Nyiragongo. That can be a fatal mistake.”

Mark Leong’s photos from National Geographic’s January 2010 story, Asian Wildlife Trade, took first place in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. An investigative piece written by Bryan Christy, this project has had far-reaching impact and is credited with helping to prompt changes in enforcement of anti-smuggling laws in Malaysia.

At the Jatinegara Bird and Pet Market in Jakarta,West Java, wild-caught animals such as young long-tailed macaques are sold illegally alongside rabbits, goldfish and other legally traded, captive-bred pets. To stop them biting their owners, macaques have their sharp teeth blunted. Mark describes what happened when one pet-trader summoned him over to photograph how he did it. ‘He put his hand in the cage and pulled out one of the young macaques. It had seen what had happened to others and was squeaking with fear. Using pliers and a whetstone, the man trimmed and filed the monkey’s teeth. For many of these pictures, I shot with the focused remoteness that photography allows and sometimes requires. But for this shot I was right there with the macaque, imagining all that snapping and grinding being done to my teeth. It was excruciatingly painful to watch.’ – Mark Leong.

A remedy for impotence, liver disease, hangovers and more, bear bile is highly valued in Chinese medicine. Near Hanoi, Vietnam, a sedated Asiatic black bear is illegally pumped for bile, one of thousands of bears kept for this purpose throughout Asia. First, the bear is drugged. When it is unconscious or just partly conscious, the extractors use an ultrasound machine to find the gall bladder. They insert a long needle, attach a tube and pump 100-150cc of bile into a bottle. The whole process takes up to 20 minutes. ‘The bear looked almost human, so vulnerable,’ says Mark. ‘The market for bile is strong, and with little government enforcement of the law, this practice is pretty widespread across Vietnam. Bile is often openly advertised by the side of the road.’

Every day, workers in Rantau Prapat, Sumatra, slaughter and skin hundreds of reptiles brought to them by trappers. ‘There were masses of tied-up sacks full of live pythons and monitor lizards,’ says Mark. ‘The men kill or at least stun each animal with a blow to the head. Then they fill the snake with water and air to make it easier to slit open, gut and skin.’ The dried skins are sold to the international leather-goods industry, to be made into luxury and fashion items such as wallets, belts and boots. The gall bladders go to Chinese traditional medicine dealers. ‘I wanted to convey both the volume of the processing as well as the hellish element of this assembly line, to get across the message that this is an industrial-scale wild-animal trade.’

Every day, animals at the Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Park of Guilin, Guangxi, China, perform in circus-style shows – an easily accessible tourist attraction near the city’s airport. The park, which owns more than 400 bears and 1300 tigers, claims to be working for conservation by keeping them safe in captivity. But it has also lobbied for lifting regulations on the tiger-trade ban, especially when it comes to tiger-bone wine (the park has an attached distillery). DNA tests on food from the park restaurant subsequently revealed that it was illegally serving tiger meat. ‘There has been speculation that some so-called zoos or parks may be stockpiling animals in anticipation of a change in the law, which would allow them to utilize captive-bred tigers legally,’ says Mark.

Orangutans confiscated from circuses, sideshows and private owners in Kalimantan, Indonesia, are taken in by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. The orphans go to ‘forest school’ – the rainforest – where they can practise skills such as climbing and learn which plants are edible. Mark included the shot to show that not all interaction with Asian animals is consumptive. ‘The hardest part of this shoot,’ says Mark, ‘was resisting the urge to play with the little ones, because they are so social, curious and adorable.’ It was important that he didn’t, though, because there’s one more crucial skill these orphans must learn if they are ever to be released back into the forest: to be wary of humans. But, of course, they can only ever be released if there is forest rather than oil-palm plantations for them to live in.

Since 2002, Robert B. Haas has focused exclusively on aerial photography in a quest to capture the grandeur of all Earth’s large landmasses from the air. “Through the Eyes of the Vikings,” released today, is the third book in his collection. Hass, who previously transformed vistas of African and Latin American landscapes and cityscapes, has focused his lens on the regions that transect the Arctic Circle—Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland—which he photographed over a three-year period. This book tells a story about an endangered, raw region whose astonishing beauty is worth preserving for its own sake, and whose precarious fate will impact the entire planet.

Industrial by-products form a swirling palette at a waste-treatment facility on Langøya Island south of Oslo in Norway.

Dark clouds encroach upon the sweeping ice and snow in western Iceland.

A moose and its calf provide intersecting tracks along nearly pristine snow cover south of Inuvik in the Mackenzie River Delta, Canada.

Bay of Bothnia, Sweden. Recycling pools beside a lumber facility near the port city of Karlsborg pock the landscape like shots through tempered glass.

Snowmobile tracks crisscross the surface of a melting pond in Kiruna, Sweden.

A clam digger pokes away in search of supper along Cook Inlet in Clam Gulch, Alaska.

In Alaska, sunlight sparkles along the Neacola River’s banks and its tidal flats.

Mount St. Helens, flanked by Mount Adams (far left) and Mount Hood, is settling fitfully back into the volcanic landscape. Three decades ago the mountain’s eruption killed 57 people and destroyed more than 200 square miles of forest. The cover of the current issue of National Geographic shows Mount St. Helen’s erupting on the morning of May 18, 1980. Photographed by Roger Werth for the Daily News.

©Diane Cook and Len Jenshel/National Geographic

Early colonists bloom on a hill near the volcanic monument’s Coldwater Lake: foxglove, lupine, pearly everlasting, red alder. The tree stump is a reminder of pre-1980 logging operations

Grass is not an option in Salton City, which survives on water pumped in from the Colorado River. With 20 million more residents expected in California by 2050, the quest for water is never over. This image is part of a new exhibition organized by National Geographic and the Annenberg Space for Photography. The exhibition is based on “Water: Our Thirsty World,” the current issue of National Geographic. Read more about the photography in the issue and exhibition in PDN’s April Exposures feature here.

After six years of drought, measuring sticks are useless at the Ziglab Dam in Jordan, built to catch water flowing west into the Jordan River for irrigation. Its reservoir has shrunk to a fifth capacity and hasn’t filled since 2003, forcing Jordan to ration water. This image is part of a new exhibition organized by National Geographic and the Annenberg Space for Photography. The exhibition is based on “Water: Our Thirsty World,” the current issue of National Geographic. Read more about the photography in the issue and exhibition in PDN’s April Exposures feature here.