The Stone Forest or Shilin is a notable set of limestone formations located in Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China, near Shilin approximately 120 km (75 mi) from the provincial capital Kunming. The tall rocks seem to emanate from the ground in the manner of stalagmites, with many looking like petrified trees thereby creating the illusion of a forest made of stone. Since 2007, two parts of the site, the Naigu Stone Forest (乃古石林) and Suogeyi Village (所各邑村), have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites as part of the South China Karst.

The essence of the “masterpieces” created by Giuseppe Lo Schiavo is in taking a famous architectural landmark placing it on a rock, and making it float over some body of water. Well… that’s pretty much it. Of course there will be some people who will look deep within these works of art, and catch the true meaning and intentions of the mastermind who created them, and maybe even purchase them for unreasonable amounts of money. But the rest of us, the common folk, will stare at it for a while, cringe, and move on without a second thought. (Photo by Giuseppe Lo Schiavo)

Women grieves near a bodies covered by tarp at the site of a landslide in Xinmo village in Maoxian County in southwestern China's Sichuan Province, Sunday, June 25, 2017. Crews searching through the rubble left by a landslide that buried a mountain village under tons of soil and rocks in southwestern China on Saturday found bodies, but more than 100 people remained missing. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Teeming with images of spectacular underwater scenes from around the world, Call of the Blue is the culmination of a five-year project by the photographer and ocean conservationist Philip Hamilton. This groundbreaking book includes contributions from acclaimed scientists and ocean “guardians”, who reveal what drove them to answer the call of the blue. (Photo by Philip Hamilton/The Guardian)

A protester spits fire during a protest to mark the second anniversary of months of civil unrising against social inequality, in Santiago, on October 18, 2021. The social-justice protests that rocked Chile in October 2019 led ultimately to the decision to create a new constitutional convention to draft a constitution to replace the one written during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). The new 155-member the new body is in charge of writing a new constitution meant to pry power from the hands of the elite and spread it more equitably in the South American nation. (Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP Photo)

A woman promotes a go-go dance bar in Pattaya, Thailand March 25, 2017. With mascots dressed as smiling fish and a police rock band, Thai authorities launched a “Happy Zone” at the weekend to improve the image of a city notorious for sеx tourism. Stung by foreign headlines portraying the seaside resort of Pattaya as “Sin City” and “The World’s Sеx Capital”, Thailand’s junta has begun a new effort to re-brand it. Businesses in the Happy Zone are asked to make the area feel safer, there are increased security patrols, police launched a mobile phone app for visitors to summon them if an emergency occurs. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

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)

Highly commended, mammals: Gelada after the storm – Marco Gaiotti (Italy). “Gelada baboons are the only monkey species in the world that feed on grasses. They are native to the tableland of Ethiopia. Every morning large family groups wander from their sleeping places in the steep rock face, up to 1,000 metres high, to the feeding grounds at the tablelands. This image clearly depicts their feeding strategy: they pull out bunches of grass, sort the stalks and then lift them to their mouth. This shot was taken towards the end of the rainy season after a heavy storm”. (Photo by Marco Gaiotti/2019 GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year)