People sit near a fully loaded in Madama near the border with Lybia on January 1, 2015. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian paid a surprise visit to northern Niger on January 1, to visit a base being built to combat the growing flow of weapons and jihadists from neighbouring Libya. Le Drian travelled from Chad to Madama, a desert outpost about 100 kilometres from Libya, where he saw in the New Year with troops at a French base. Madama is situated on the route used by jihadists and arms smugglers in southern Libya to reach northern Mali and Niger. (Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP Photo)

Under Exposed: Pekka Tuuri (Finland) – Great white shark, Isla Guadalupe, Mexico. “Isla Guadalupe is the world capital when it comes to observing great white sharks, but cage diving seriously limits the possibilities to take ‘fresh’ pictures. When I took this, the water close to the surface was quite milky, making photography very challenging. From out of the “mist”, I saw this great white shark lurking behind a school of fusiliers. I quickly focused on the shark and set a wide aperture to get focus blur on the fish, along with a fast shutter to avoid excessive motion blur”. (Photo by Pekka Tuuri/The Outdoor Photographer of the Year/The Guardian)

A few Catholic devotees manage to get closer to either kiss or rub with towels the cross of the image of the Black Nazarene as they take part in a raucous procession to celebrate its feast day in Manila, Philippines, Saturday, January 9, 2016. As in the past, the annual procession attracts thousands of devotees with scores being injured and saw the deployment of hundreds of police and soldiers. (Photo by Bullit Marquez/AP Photo)

“Photographer Max Ellis has become an internet star – after posting wacky photos of squirrels in hilarious situations, from being sent flying through the air in fear by a Buckaroo to lifting weights. Max places his self-made creations in his garden in Teddington, London, and then painstakingly waits hours – and sometimes days – for his subjects to get into the exact position to capture his shot. In another scene an inquisitive squirrel is sent backwards in surprise as a bottle of champagne pops its cork and in others a squirrel appears to saw his friend in half just like the famous magic trick”. – Caters News

“I bought my first dlsr camera in 2009 may. The first part of my life is gone but the other i dedicate to photography. If i try to imagine myself, i saw someone on the road, who walking straight to the light. This kind of light is the photography and the post-processing in my life. My pictures express the feelings, moods what i felt under my trip in the last few years”. – Ildiko Neer

Photo: “Path to the shine”, 2011. (Photo by Ildiko Neer)

“I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa in 1981 and grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I graduated with a degree in Acting, and after college, worked as an actor and musician for the Santa Fe Shakespeare Festival, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and the California Shakespeare Theater. I have had a lifelong passion for drawing, painting, and sculpture since I first saw Michelangelo's “Head of Leda” in a book in the library”.

While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)

“Dover Castle is a medieval castle in the town of the same name in the English county of Kent. It was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the “Key to England” due to its defensive significance throughout history. It is the largest castle in England.

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw the tunnels converted first into an air-raid shelter and then later into a military command centre and underground hospital. In May 1940, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey directed the evacuation of French and British soldiers from Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo, from his headquarters in the cliff tunnels”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The Repeater Station in the subterranean tunnels underneath Dover Castle, which has been restored by English Heritage for a public exhibition on June 3, 2011 in Dover, England. The evacuation of allied soldiers from Dunkirk was masterminded and co-ordinated from the secret command and control centre in the tunnels deep below the castle. (Photo by Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images)