In 1949, LIFE magazine sent famed photographer Nina Leen to document the daily life of a sassy troupe of young women who had run off and joined the famous Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, Fla. What developed was a portrait of a sisterhood formed over acrobatics that mixed high-flying wire acts with fashionable high-waisted shorts. Sarasota was once considered “the home of the American circus”. Here: an aerialist smoking while rehearsing for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, FL in 1949. (Photo By Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

A bonnet macaque sits on consecrated idols of snakes during the Nag Panchami festival inside a temple on the outskirts of Bengaluru, India, August 19, 2015. (Photo by Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters)

World medieval jousting champion Rod Walker poses before next month’s St Ives Medieval Faire, the only solid wood lance joust tournament in the southern hemisphere in Sydney, Australia on August 26, 2016. (Photo by Dan Himbrechts/AAP)

A fisherman carries a sailfish on his head to the fish market in Hamarweyne near the port of Mogadishu on April, 4, 2016. (Photo by Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP Photo)

A trader sells mealies to commuter in Durban, South Africa, April19, 2016, as food prices continue to rise due to drought conditions. (Photo by Rogan Ward/Reuters)

Singer Paulina Rubio performs during the Latin Billboard Awards, Thursday, April 28, 2016 in Coral Gables, Fla. (Photo by Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo)

Japan is a country full of art. Much of this is housed in museums and galleries, but others are right under our feet. We speak, of Japan’s peculiar obsession with manhole covers. Almost anywhere in the country you can find manhole covers with spectacular grounds, each more beautiful and complex than the previous. In recent years, S. Morita photographer has traveled around Japan and leave us this great gathering on the beautiful and artistic Japanese manhole covers.

“The Independence day”. While on storm chasing expeditions in the Tornado Alley in USA I have encountered many photogenic supercell storms. This photograph was taken while we were approaching the storm near Julesburg, Colorado on My 28th, 2013. The storm was tornado warned for more than one hour, but stayed an LP storm through all its cycles and never produced a tornado, just occasional brief funnels, large hail and some rain. Photo location: Julesburg, Colorado, USA. (Photo and caption by Marko Korošec/National Geographic Photo Contest)