Some are in it just for the money, others to help buy a meal. Then there are those who trade for fun or to spend time among friends. Millions of investors – pensioners, security guards, high-school students – dominate China's stock markets, conducting about 80 percent of all trades. Retirees gather in brokerage houses dotted around China also to enjoy some company and savour the air conditioning on hot days. Some start as young as 13, trading from home with an eye on future careers in finance. Winning isn't guaranteed. This year, among the most turbulent in China's financial history, its stock markets more than doubled in the six months to May, only to crash amid concerns that growth in the country, which makes everything from cars to steel, is slowing faster than previously thought. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

“Strike Through The Mothership”. Every May for the last 3 years I have driven down to Tornado Alley to capture some amazing storms. This supercell held so much promise to drop a tornado but one small shift in the atmosphere and all that it produced was an extreme lightning show. Photo location: Broken Bow, Nebraska. (Photo and caption by Vanessa Neufeld/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Fighting Infections (single image) | Fighting Pandemic by Sudipto Das. “It’s exhausting. A tram conductor in Kolkata, India, wears protective clothing from head to toe even in the heat of a summer afternoon. This was when restrictions were easing after India’s first Covid-19 lockdown – public transport was running, but staff were advised to suit up like this. We’ve all grown used to saluting the efforts of healthcare workers, but plenty of other people in public-facing jobs have performed gruelling duties too to keep people safe”. (Photo by Sudipto Das/Wellcome Photography Prize 2021)

A student of the Orchestra of Recycled Instruments of Cateura holds an instrument made from recycled material by craftsman Nicolas Gomez, in Cateura, near Asuncion, May 9, 2013. The orchestra is the brainchild of its conductor Favio Chavez, who wanted to help the children of garbage pickers at the local landfill, and the instruments are made from salvaged materials by craftsman Gomez. The orchestra now involves 30 schoolchildren who have toured countries in Latin America, North America and Europe to play music ranging from Beethoven and Mozart to the Beatles and Paraguayan folk songs. (Photo by Jorge Adorno/Reuters)

“Jimi Hendrix made it shriek. Buddy Holly made it swing. Stevie Ray Vaughn made it snarl. Some of the most legendary guitarists in music history have elicited unforgettable sounds from the Fender Stratocaster, the distinctive double-cutaway guitar born in a small Fullerton, Calif., workshop 60 years ago this month”. – Associated Press. Photo: A finished Fender Stratocaster is adjusted by Kenneth Maas in the Fender Custom Shop in Corona, Calif. on Tuesday, October 15, 2013. Leo Fender developed the instrument in a small workshop in Fullerton, Calif. six decades ago. (Photo by Matt York/AP Photo)

A sculpture of Don Quixote shows him wearing the basin he mistook for the enchanted helmet of the fictional Moorish king Mambrino in Alcazar de San Juan, Spain, April 5, 2016. The arid central Spanish region of La Mancha is the setting for “Don Quixote”, the seventeenth-century novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Four hundred years after his death, references to the characters of Don Quixote, his loyal squire Sancho Panza and his beautiful lady Dulcinea abound in the surrounding villages from sweet treats to theatre productions involving livestock. Cervantes did not give away the name of the birthplace of Don Quixote, a middle-aged gentleman who becomes obsessed with chivalrous ideals. But many identify the village of Argamasilla de Alba as his hometown. The anniversary of Cervantes’ death is marked on the 23 April. (Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)

“Fly cap for a vine snake”. A fly lands on the head of a vine snake in the Choco of Colombia. (Photo and caption by Robin Moore/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

Portraits single nominee: Dakar fashion, by Finbarr O’Reilly. Curious residents and a street vendor selling material look on as models Diarra Ndiaye, Ndeye Fatou Mbaye and Malezi Sakho wear outfits by the Senegalese designer Adama Paris in the Medina neighbourhood of Senegal’s capital, Dakar. (Photo by Finbarr O’Reilly/World Press Photo 2019)