“Falling Back To Earth” promises to be both spectacular and meditative, and presents a beautiful, thought-provoking vision of our relationship with the earth and with each other. (Photo by Dave Hunt/EPA)

Using body paint and a woodland like location, Gesine appears to have created a model to look just like a red panda, Dortmund, Germany, October, 2016. An artist brings animals to life using body paint and contorted models. At first glance, these images could be mistaken for portraits of wildlife in their natural habitat were created with paper and paint. However, they are actually the incredible works of illusion by talented body painter Gesine Marwedel, who paints models to creates realistic animals. (Photo by Gesine Marwedel/Barcroft Images)

In Weronika Gęsicka’s unsettling images, American archive photography gets distorted into scenes that are both nightmarish yet somehow entirely plausible. Gęsicka is a guest artist at the Circulations festival for young European photographers, Paris, until 5 March. Here: “Untitled #5”. (Photo by Weronika Gęsicka/The Guardian)

Urban photographer Roman Robroek spent five years scouring the continent for the grandest examples of forgotten architectural beauty. Here: Watch your step on this Polish spiral staircase. (Photo by Roman Robroek/South West News Service)

An employee controls the arms of a manned biped walking robot “METHOD-2” during a demonstration in Gunpo, South Korea, December 27, 2016. It stands 13-feet (3,96 m) tall, weighs 1.3 tons and wields a pair of 286-pound (129,73 kg), motion-tracking metal arms. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Group of clowns protested in the old center of Sao Paulo, Brazil on October 24, 2016. They are against false clowns scare people. They say they are clowns good and that people who dress to scare clown clowns are false. The wave of evil clowns started in the US and has spread to many countries. (Photo by Cris Faga via ZUMA Wire)

Nyaueth by Peter Zelewski – £2,000 third prize winner. This was taken near London’s Oxford Street as part of Zelewski’s series Beautiful Strangers. Zelewski explains: ‘The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous street portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a special inner quality’. (Photo by Peter Zelewski/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Convicts showcase creations during a fashion show at female penal colony No 10 in the village of Gornoye, Primorye Territory, Russia on June 7, 2017. Prisoners of the colony sew clothes at a garment factory and every year they celebrate Day of Light Industry by presenting the clothes they made. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)