Twenty-four-year-old Maryam Aghayee makes hyper-realistic baby dolls acting as surrogates for some Iranian families who are apprehensive of having more children. “It has been about three or four months since I started this work”, says Maryam in Tehran, Iran on October 7, 2020. “After making my second doll, many orders have been coming in. The second doll was much more realistic than the previous one. After making my second doll, I said that from now on I can take customer orders. I did not intend to start a business from the beginning because it was a hobby, but after the second doll, the demand for these kinds of dolls increased, customers want to have such dolls”. (Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

Professional conceptual category winner. Greetings from Mars, by Julien Mauve, France. Mauve says: “I have always wondered what it would be like to discover a totally different world ... and to photograph it for the first time as if I was Ansel Adams. So I came up with this project, which is about space exploration and discovery. But it’s also about our behavior in front of landscapes and how we create pictures that will share our personal story with the world”. (Photo by Julien Mauve)

Kyaiktiyo, Burma, 1978. The Golden Rock at Shwe Pyi Daw (the Golden Country), the Buddhist holy place. Hiroji Kubota writes: “I was desperate to keep a distance from America for a while; luckily, I found Burma and its gentle and compassionate people. In the spring of 1978, on the top of the hill where I took this photo, I had two Leica bodies: the one with Tri-X and the other with Kodachrome 64. Soon after, I realised that the colour one looked very colourful and was more powerful. That was my decisive moment, to become a colour photographer”. (Photo by Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos)

Zed Nelson has photographed the same family, once a year on the same day, for 20 years. I take hundreds of photo’s of my extended family all year round, some just languish on my computer screen unseen by anyone, some get printed, some framed. What is really interesting about this project is not only the obvious time scale but his “ analytical approach“. The same plain background is used for each session and he chooses only 1 frame to represent that years image. My many photographs are a mishmash of family events, his create a family history unfolding . Perhaps less really is more.

“Hello! My name is Kindra, and photography, over the last six months has become a happily all-consuming activity for me. Through my photos and creation of them, I escape into another world entirely, and then share that world with others. It brings me unending amounts of joy, and I never plan to stop!”. – Kindra Nikole

Photo: “Where the Summer Grass Leads”. (Photo by Kindra Nikole)

A praying mantis, a huddle of butterflies, Galician horses and an alpine sunset are the winners of this year’s European Environment Agency’s “Rediscover Nature” photo competition. Here: Nature on My Doorstep, finalist. I Want That Pomerade Grain by Biagio Alberto Scalia, taken in national park of Circeo, Latina, Italy. (Photo by Biagio Alberto Scalia/REDISCOVER Nature/EEA)

“Hi! I'm Joel, I live in a valley in British Columbia's Rocky Mountains, as close to the forest as I could possibly be! I love to run, bike, jump, eat and create and I hope that you enjoy my work as much as I enjoy creating it!” – Joel Robison.

Photo: “Under Peaceful Skies”, 2011. (Photo by: Joel Robison; Source: Flickr)

We received intriguing letter: “Hello! My name is Glenda Lissette, I am an 18 year old photographer from Chicago, IL. I produce surreal and conceptual photographs. I am currently working on a project where I take a photo a day for an entire year”. Well, let's look!

Photo: “If I Only Had a Brain” (365 project). (Photo by Glenda Lissette)