Kourtney Roy makes eerie self-portraits in desolate yet dramatic locations – with wigs and wardrobe straight out of 1950s melodrama. In these shots, from her “Enter as Fiction – California” series, she plays characters caught in desolate, often abandoned settings. (Photo by Kourtney Roy/Galerie Catherine et André Hug/The Guardian)

“Magician David Blaine's latest stunt boasts lots of high-voltage snap, crackle and pop – but experts say he'll be safe from electrocution as long as he wears his chain-mail suit and metal headgear”. – NBC News. Photo: Blaine stands inside the apparatus, surrounded by a million volts of electric currents streamed by tesla coils. The stunt, sponsored by Intel, is the latest of daredevil endeavors by the magician whose previous stunts included being encased in ice for over 60 hours in Times Square, on October 5, 2012. (Photo by John Minchillo/Associated Press)

“A skydiver has made history by smashing the world record for the highest skydive after leaping from 128,097ft (39,044m). Daredevil Felix Baumgartner ascended to the edge of space in a pressurised capsule suspended beneath a giant helium balloon. He then jumped out, freefalling for four minutes and 19 seconds before opening his parachute”.

Photo: Baumgartner celebrates after successfully completing the jump. (Photo by Balazs Gardi/Red Bull Stratos)

A niqab-wearing Salafist protester takes a selfie as she attends a demonstration against the ban on the sale and manufacturing of the full-burqa in Rabat January 15, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Sunrise over a moor viewed from Littaford Tor, Dartmoor, UK, 2016. Autumn visits the windswept moors and granite tors of Dartmoor earlier than the rest of the south-west. While there aren’t many trees here, autumn shades appear in golden ferns and tan heather. Littaford Tors, near Two Bridges and a mile from Princetown, is a short walk and can be combined with a visit to the adjacent Wistman’s Wood. (Photo by Stuart Holmes)

October winner. “A burst of the aurora borealis over Kirkjufell, taken in September 2016. This shot has been a holy grail for me and was finally captured after many trips”. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: Iceland is a hotspot for aurora photography and this composition of the symmetric, free-standing Kirkjufell and the trident waterfall is much-sought after. If you can time your visit when the aurora “kp” index is high and know the settings for nighttime aurora images, you may end up with a beautiful photograph like this. (Photo by DВ/The Guardian)

16-year-old panda, Ye Ye, rests in an enclosure at the Wolong Nature Reserve, a conservation center that trains pandas for release into the wild. This image was published in the August 2016 National Geographic magazine as part of the “Pandas Gone Wild” story. (Photo by Ami Vitale/National Geographic Creative)

A lynx cub that followed a villager in the forest, is fed by a mother and her son for 2 days at the Koyulhisar district of Sivas, Turkiye on October 4, 2023. After 2 days, the lynx cub was taken under protection by the Sivas Department of Nature Conservation and National Parks teams. (Photo by Serhat Zafer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)