20 stunning photos that were taken at the perfect time

These pictures were timed perfectly with fascinating and often poignant results.

Keep scrolling to see 20 photos that were taken at exactly the right moment.

This perfectly-placed ping pong ball was caught on camera mid-play at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia.

Lightning strikes require split-second timing to capture in a photo.

An average lightning strike lasts about 30 microseconds. Reuters photographer Stefan Wermuth managed to snap a photo of a bolt of lightning illuminating the Swiss Federal Palace in Bern, Switzerland.

A statue on the roof of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris looks like it's reaching out to touch the supermoon.

The moon's orbit around the Earth isn't a perfect circle — it's an ellipse, which means its distance from the Earth varies. A supermoon happens once or twice a year when the moon's orbit brings it closest to the Earth.

Photographing a supermoon properly can take years of planning, and on December 14, 2016, Reuters photographer Christian Hartmann angled his shot perfectly to show a statue atop the Notre-Dame in Paris appearing to touch the large, looming orb.

In a photo worthy of a gold medal, the full moon rose through the Olympic Rings hanging beneath Tower Bridge during the London 2012 Olympics.

This photo of the moon creating a sixth ring in the Olympic logo went viral during the 2012 Olympic Games in London, garnering thousands of retweets. Many also joked about the International Olympic Committee's strict policies about protecting the Olympic logo.

"Moon taken to court by IOC for violating Olympic brand ban," Twitter user Jon Holmes wrote.

This photo of Usain Bolt smiling as he raced ahead to win the Men's 100-Meter Semifinals at the 2016 Rio Olympics became one of Reuters' most-liked Instagram photos of the year.

The water splashing in the air onto the elephant looks exactly like an elephant head.

These tourists at an elephant sanctuary were helping an elephant cool off by splashing water on it. Little did they know that the splash took the shape of the elephant's head.

Reddit user RailTieYardGame posted the photo, which went viral.

The advertisement on the back of this truck lines up almost perfectly with its real-life surroundings.

An ad on the back of a camper van appears to show the same mountains and trees as the actual surroundings.

They are, in fact, two different places, but they look incredibly similar. The image on the van is of Moraine Lake, and the location of the photo is Icefields Parkway (both in Canada), according to Reddit user tomboski who posted the photo. They also posted a few failed attempts to capture the matching scenery in order to prove that the photo is authentic when some claimed it was Photoshopped.

This photographer got the timing just right to capture celebrations of Holi, the Festival of Colors, in India.

Holi is a Hindu celebration of colors that takes place every spring. It's celebrated in India and around the world. People throw paint in powder and liquid form and cover themselves in vibrant colors from head to toe.

This photo by Shailesh Andrade was one of Reuters' most beautiful photos of 2017.

In Spain, revelers are covered from head to toe in tomatoes at La Tomatina festival.

The crowds filling the streets of Bunol, Spain, for the annualLa Tomatinafestival are hungry for tomatoes. Not to eat them, but to toss them at each other in an epic food fight that takes a squad of fire trucks to clean up.

This past year, around 22,000 people gathered in the town square to throw tomatoes at each other. The photos are pretty epic, but this one captured the moment an enormous bucket of tomatoes completely covered festival-goers.

A competitor in Scotland's Tough Mudder race also made a splash.

The world-famous Tough Mudder is military-style endurance event with 10 to 12 miles of various obstacles designed by British Special Forces.

This participant in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 2013 took a tumble into a pool of sludge, and photographer Jeff J. Mitchell caught the moment just before he was covered in muck.

There were only a few precious minutes to photograph the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017.

The total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017 was the first time in 99 years that a solar eclipse crossed the US from coast to coast. It lasted just an hour and 33 minutes, beginning in Oregon and ending in South Carolina. That left photographers in the path of totality with mere minutes to capture the moon blocking the sun's light completely.

"A woman standing calmly, her long dress moving in the breeze, two police officers in full riot gear make their move," Reuters photographer Jonathan Bachman said of capturing this snapshot from a demonstration in Baton Rouge.

Former White House photographer and author of "Obama: An Intimate Portrait" Pete Souza captured this iconic shot of a young African-American boy seeing himself in the first black president.

Jacob see for himself.

"And at that moment President Obama bent over and Jacob touched his head. The president said, 'Go ahead and touch it.' And I snapped that one picture," photographer Pete Souza told NPR. "I have one picture of this brief moment, and it kind of took on somewhat of an iconic status in years to follow."

Obama also appeared to be holding a glowing orb on a campaign stop in 2012 (it was just a stage light).

On a three-day campaign bus tour during the 2012 presidential race, Obama spoke at Bayliss Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa. AP photographer

Chinese diver Hu Jia competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney with a perfectly-positioned dive.

Reuters photographer Yannis Behrakis focused on combining the right angle, moment, and background for this shot:

At the all-around rhythmic gymnastics final of the London Olympics, Marcelo Del Pozo captured this surreal moment mid-routine.

Rhythmic gymnast Izzah Amzan of Malaysia also appears momentarily headless in this photo by William West.

Amzan was competing in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Queensland, Australia, in 2018.

This Saudi man looks like he's balancing a car on his head.

People thought this perfectly-timed shot of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their wedding day was taken by a drone, but it was photographer Yui Mok.

These flamingos formed a heart with the curves of their long necks.

At the Madrid Zoo, Reuters photographer Paul Hanna took a photo of two flamingos in an embrace that happened to form a heart shape.

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