A woman takes pictures with the Kawazu cherry blossom trees, one of the earliest blooming cherry blossoms in Japan, in Tokyo's Sumida district on March 11, 2024. (Photo by Philip Fong/AFP Photo)

Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)

A sifaka lemur eats leaves at the Berenty Reserve in Toliara province, Madagascar, February 15, 2022. (Photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

Indian security personnel adjust a uniform during full-dress rehearsal ahead of the 74th Republic day celebrations in Bangalore, India, 24 January 2023. The Republic Day of India marks the adoption of the constitution of India and the transition of the country to a Republic on 26 January 1950. (Photo by Jagadeesh N.V./EPA/EFE)

A woman visits the exhibition “Pop Air” at the Balloon Museum in Madrid, Spain, 22 March 2023. The exhibition, dedicated to balloons and inflatable arts, opened to the public in Madrid on 18 March and runs through 23 July 2023. (Photo by Alejandro Lopez/EPA)

Squirrels are seen on a tree branch at a park as temperatures rise with the arrival of spring season in Ankara, Turkiye on March 27, 2024. (Photo by Evrim Aydin/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A mechanical horse-dragon made of wood and steel is presented to the public in Nantes, western France on August 26, 2014. This horse-dragon, created by the French artist Francois Delaroziere of “Les Machines de l'île” (The Machines of the Isle), is the hero of the show "Long Ma" which will be presented in Beijing on October 17, 2014 as part of the fiftieth anniversary of the relationship between France and China. (Photo by Jean-Sebastien Evrard/AFP Photo)

This close-up image – of a Holi Festival celebrant in Vrindivan, India, coated in neon-colored powder – was submitted to National Geographic’s Your Shot in the last week of March. On April 1 we published it on our Daily News site, along with seven other bright scenes captured during the Hindu spring Festival of Colors. (Photo by Tinto Alencherry/National Geographic)