Cosplay enthusiasts Alex Lawson, 20, attends the North East Manga and Anime Convention (NemaCon) dressed as Hunni Sempai at Middlesborough Town Hall on June 18, 2011 in Middlesbrough, England. Hundreds of Manga, Anime and Cosplay enthusiasts gathered for NemaCon 2011. Cosplay is short for Costume Play where players dress and perform roles from Japanese culture, Anime and Manga art characters. Many subcultures have also evolved inspired by video games, American cartoons and comics. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Photographer, Baron DaParre takes a picture of young model Danette Vega below an effigy dressed as a Wall Street banker hanging from a telephone wire on October 28, 2011 in Miami, Florida. As protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protesters continue around the country an artist known as Above, created the installation which hangs above a mural that reads “Give a Wall St. banker enough rope and he will hang himself”. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Sports have the ability to transform groups of strangers into a united community. In the celebratory spirit surrounding the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Sony and the World Photography Organisation present UNITED – a contest honouring the passion of football fans around the world. Seven inspirational photographers have been selected by Sony and WPO to capture the atmosphere and celebration of the World Cup across the globe. Photo: France – French fans cheering for their team. (Photo by Anthony Lepinay)

Shamekh Bluwi, an architect and fashion illustrator based in Amman, Jordan, creates beautiful paper cut-outs with women whose dresses become whatever you hold them up against. Besides being beautiful fashion drawings, they also seem like an excellent tool for coming up with inspiration for new fashion designs; simply hold up one of his drawings and see what sort of architectural lines, repeating patterns or images the women in his elegant cutouts would look good in.

Earlier this year, Belgian film-maker and artist Vincent Bal stumbled upon an uncanny resemblance to an elephant in the shadow of his tea cup. This gave him the idea for Shadowology, a series of doodles that interact with the shadows of simple, everyday objects: a banknote, some ice cubes and a flower, for example, can turn into a church, a woman and a hippy. “I draw a few lines and I get my image. It’s really the shadows that inspire me”, Bal says. Here: “Stonedog”. (Photo by Vincent Bal/The Guardian)

The barren landscapes of the south-western US provided inspiration for photographer David Clapp. He visited Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona as part of his project on other-worldy locations, with surreal results. Here: An infrared image at dusk of strange clay rock formations in Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness in Farmington, New Mexico. (Photo by David Clapp/Barcroft Images)

Women wearing prosthetic legs participate in a public photo session at the Hasselblad and Profoto booth, during the CP+ camera and imaging equipment trade fair in Yokohama south of Tokyo, February 14, 2015. Japanese prosthetist Fumio Usui inspired the event after collaborating with photographer Takao Ochi in the book project “Amputee Venus” that portrays 11 Japanese women with artificial legs, local media reported. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)