Photographer Mihaela Noroc travelled the world from Ethiopia to the US and from Guatemala to France in search of natural and authentic beauty. She introduces some of the inspiring women she met on her journey. Here: Ecuador. “More and more tribes of Amazonia are starting to adopt modern clothes for everyday life. But they are still keeping their traditional clothes for important events. I photographed this young woman in her wedding outfit”. (Photo by Mihaela Noroc/The Guardian)

A love story with two log choppers. “In 1993, I was working on a project about life in the Olomouc region of Czechoslovakia. One day, I came to the village of Dlouhá Loučka-Křivá and went into a courtyard where I saw two old people, a husband and wife, sawing firewood for winter. They were working quietly, concentrating. I watched them fetch a beam from a wrecked barn, but they didn’t discuss how they planned to carry it to the saw. The woman faced one way, the man the other. When they realised, the woman eventually turned and followed her husband. The picture I took is the picture of many relationships – when each partner wants something different, but they have to come to an agreement, pull together eventually”. (Photo by Jindrich Streit)

Street photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili follows 16-year-old Emeer Guesmi, aka B-boy Zulu Rema, as he trains and performs breakdance moves – all without the use of his legs. At a breakdance championship in Tunisia, Casablanca-based street photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili noticed an unusual competitor: Emeer Guesmi, dancing without the aid of his lower legs. He started following him as he trained and performed. (Photo by Yassine Alaoui Ismaili/The Guardian)

“A Little Monkey on the Cliff”. “A cold front hit the Nagano prefecture. I saw a little monkey enduring the cold in Jigokudani Monkey Park. This little monkey is really cute”. (Photo by Hidetoshi Ogata/Smithsonian Photo Contest)

More than 1,500 snappers submitted their most hilarious pictures of all creatures great and small, and now 45 have made the cut. From drunken-eyed owls to embarrassed chipmunks and laughing goats – the finalists in the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are guaranteed to raise a smile. Here: 'Dancing sifaka'. (Photo by Alison Buttigieg/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards/Mercury Press)

Visitors watch as Grigory Broverman, a member of the Cryophile winter swimmers club, pours a bucket of cold water over his 6-year-old daughter Liza during a flash mob, part of a celebration of Polar Bear Day at the Royev Ruchey Zoo in a suburb of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, November 29, 2015. The air temperature was around minus 5 degrees Celsius. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)