It's not every day that you get to take underwater photos in the clearest lake on Earth, in which nobody has before been allowed to dive. But that's just the chance that photographer Klaus Thymann got in February on a trip to Blue Lake on New Zealand's South Island.

 

After getting approval from the government and the native Maori people, who consider the lake a sacred site, Thymann put on a wetsuit and went into the water before snapping away.

 

"It was an extraordinary visual experience," Thymann told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet. "I've never seen anything that clear." [Photos: the Clearest Lake on Earth]