A folk artist performs a stunning fire-pot performance on October 18, 2024 in Guangzhou,Guangdong Province of China.Huohu (fire pot) is a traditional folk performance art.Performers put well-burned charcoal into iron meshes on both sides and shake the meshes up and down so that the charcoal will flare up and blazing sparks will burst out of the meshes and light up the sky just like fireworks. (Photo by John Ricky/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A member of the Boi Bumba Garantido association performs during the Boi Bumba folklore festival at the Bumbodromo in Parintins, Amazonas State, Brazil, on June 28, 2024. Parintins is well-known internationally for its Boi Bumba folklore festival, which lasts for three days in late June and whose themes, costumes, and songs are based on indigenous cultures of the Amazon rainforest. (Photo by Michael Dantas/AFP Photo)

The Historic Photographer of the Year awards celebrate historic places and cultural sites across the globe, from national treasures to hidden gems. Entries were judged on originality, composition and technical proficiency as well as the story that inspired the submission and its historical impact. Here: Overall winner. Mont Saint-Michel by Daniel Burton. (Photo by Daniel Burton/The Guardian)

With temperatures soaring and summer well underway, countless Americans will be spending their Independence Day weekend at the beach. Here we revisit some classic images from the turn-of-the-century to the 1930's of vacations by the sea, from Coney Island to Santa Monica.

Artist Amber Wheeler of Minneapolis, Minn., has given her 2-month-old boy just that. All she used was some Photoshop and well-timed photos. Using simple black lines – much like the ones in this series of cat Instagram portraits – Wheeler transformed her son into an astronaut, a superhero, and a cowboy without spending one dollar on costumes.

Photographer Howard Schatz had an idea: place actors in a series of roles and dramatic situations to reveal the essence of their characters. Such was the premise behind his book, In Character: Actors Acting, which captures some of Hollywood’s most emotive stars in the act of, well, making faces. Luckily for us, he continued the tradition for Vanity Fair. Here are some of the best.

A visitor to ''The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900'' exhibition at The V&A Museum looks at sculptures by Thornycroft (L) and Watts on March 30, 2011 in London, England. This exhibition brings together for the first time many masterpieces in painting, sculpture, design and furniture as well as fashion and literature and runs from April 2nd to July 17th 2011.

A broken picture frame is left in the tsunami-hit Arahama area, three months and two days after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on June 13, 2011 in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. Japanese government has been struggling to deal with the earthquake and tsunami as well as the troubled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The fear on outbreak of virus infectious disease are mounting due to the humid rainy season on the corner and delay of the clearing the debris. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images)