A Brazilian drug gang member nicknamed Pilintra, 26, poses with a gun atop a hill overlooking a slum in Salvador, Bahia State, April 11, 2013. One of Brazil's main tourist destinations and a 2014 World Cup host city, Salvador suffers from an unprecedented wave of violence with an increase of over 250% in the murder rate, according to the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies (CEBELA). (Photo by Lunae Parracho/Reuters)

Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

A hippopotamus performs during a show at the circus in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, July 7, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

This year's Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention both saw passionate delegates in outrageous costumes – but that's where the similarities mostly end. Reuters photographer Jim Young gives a look at what it's like to be on the convention floor and talks to the delegates who make the conventions memorable. (Photo by Jim Young/Reuters)

Riot police fire tear gas during a protest by supporters of Dilma Rousseff in Sao Paulo, Brazil August 31, 2016. (Photo by Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)

A colorful sky at sunset over the snowy mountains in Immenstadt, Bavaria, Germany, 20 November 2014. Cloudy weather is forecast in the region on 21 November. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/EPA)

The sun rises over the River Brue on the Somerset Levels as temperatures in parts of the south west drop below freezing, on January, 20, 2015. (Photo by Ben Birchall/PA Wire)

A Palestinian man walks down snow-covered stairs after Friday prayers near the Dome of the Rock on the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City February 20, 2015. Snow covered Jerusalem and mountainous areas of Israel early Friday morning and the education ministry closed schools for the day. (Photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters)