Photographer Andy Hall joins the thousands of fans from west Africa who have gathered for Baaba Maal's annual Blues du Fleuve festival in Senegal. Here: Dancers wait to perform on stage. (Photo by Andy Hall/The Observer)

Clark was the guy who was photographed dropping into stupidly heavy Waimea shorebreak a few years back. Always admired him for that. I've swum in that shoredump and it's fu*cking heavy!
I also contracted some crazy tropical disease digging out Waimea river, but that's another story altogether!

'The Dutch charity organization Mensen in Nood (people in need) hits the streets with a remarkable campaign. People in need are posing with the typical attributes of consumer culture. The price of a designer handbag (€32) is compared with the price of a whole week of food (€4), The price a pint of beer (€4.50) with the price of 50 liter clean water (€1.50). The pictures were taken by Swedish fashion photographer Carl Stolz.' - Occupy Design UK

This latest photo series by Anelia Loubser, a photographer in Cape Town, reminds us that even the simplest change in perspective can change how things look drastically. By selectively cropping and flipping the dark portraits in her “Alienation” series, Loubser makes basic human portraits look like creepy alien close-ups.

Photographer’s Pol Ubeda Hervas perspective in his “I’m not There” series, is going against the flow. While the focus of modern photography is set on the human interaction with his surroundings, Hervas changes thing up by capturing the human absence from said surroundings. The concept behind the series is deeply metaphorical, visual food for though reflecting the situations where the change is irreversible and we cannot even recognize ourselves.

German photographer Martin Klimas, who you may remember from his exploding porcelain figure series, creates breathtaking photos of flowers exploding into a million beautiful pieces. To achieve this effect, he soaks the petals in liquid nitrogen to make them brittle and hits the flower with an air gun.

A Spanish photographer has created a collection of pictures featuring animals dressed in human clothing. Miguel Vallinas who is based in Madrid, has called the project Segundas Pieles which means Second Skins. But rather than just creating a collection of funny pictures, Vallinas tries to imagine which clothes the animals would choose for themselves if they could.