When a French politician remarked that a monument should be raised in honour of American independence at a dinner party in 1865 he probably didn't imagine that the result would become an international icon of freedom. ...

Myanmar national award second-place winner: Kyaw Win Hlaing. “Mount Bromo is an active volcano in East Java, Indonesia. The name Bromo derives from the Javanese pronunciation of Brahma, the Hindu creator god”. (Photo by Kyaw Win Hlaing/Sony World Photography Awards 2018)

“Cub”. In the colony of penguins in South Georgia. (Photo and caption by Ondrej Zaruba/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

A woman crowd-surfs in front of the main stage at the Woodstock Festival in Kostrzyn-upon-Odra, close to the Polish-German border, August 2, 2014. Some 500 thousand people attended the festival that is the brainchild of Polish journalist and social campaigner Jerzy Owsiak. He initiated the event to say thank you to those who donated money to his GOCC charity organisation that delivers medical care for children. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

“Sperm whale opening it's huge mouth, Ogasawara Islands, Japan. Sperm whales are the biggest carnivorous animals on the planet. Each teeth in the mouth of adult specimen weights more than 1 kilogram. Interestingly enough that modern marine biologists believe that these teeth despite being fearsome play little role in capturing and eating giant squid – with their main function being mainly ritual aggression between males!”. (Photo by Alexander Safonov)

For France, the trauma of the Algerian War (1954-1962) was not unlike the experience of the Vietnam War for the United States. But, unlike the conflict in Vietnam, few photographic documents exist from that period in Algeria: it is as if the French responded with collective amnesia. Marc Garanger’s Algerian Women is one of the few photographic essays dedicated to that painful period... Photo: A 1960 photograph of an Algerian woman in a French regroupment village. (Photo by Marc Garanger)

“These eerily stunning images taken using infrared lighting reveal the landscapes of Iceland in all their natural glory. Andy Lee, 45, uses a special technique which blocks out light from some visible wavelengths and picks up light from others invisible to the naked eye”. – Caters News. Photo: Location: Kirkjufell. These eerily stunning images taken using infrared lighting reveal the landscapes of Iceland in all their natural glory. (Photo by Andy Lee/Caters News)