Syrian President Bashar Al Assad watches as Pope John Paul II boards his plane at Damascus airport May 8, 2001 at the end of the Pontiff's four-day visit to Syria.

Nyaueth by Peter Zelewski – £2,000 third prize winner. This was taken near London’s Oxford Street as part of Zelewski’s series Beautiful Strangers. Zelewski explains: ‘The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous street portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a special inner quality’. (Photo by Peter Zelewski/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Many of the 12 million people who entered the US through New York’s Ellis Island wore traditional dress from their homelands. Here: A Ruthenian woman circa 1906 from the region historically inhabiting the kingdom of the Rus, incorporating parts of modern-day Slavic speaking countries. Her outfit consists of a shirt and underskirt made from linen embroidered with traditional floral-based patterns. (Photo by Augustus Francis Sherman/New York Public Library/The Guardian)

Grand Rapids (Michigan) based illustrator and artist Scott Gundersen creates his portraits from thousands of used and recycled corks. Starting with a large photograph that’s transferred to a drawing, Gundersen pins each cork to the canvas, creating a correlation between the hues of the wine-stained corks and the value of light or shadow in the portrait. Scott Gundersen has made these incredible portraits, one using 3,621, 3,842 and the other using 9,217 natural wine corks.

The visual artist Olivier Lefebvre wanted to accomplish with his representation of Steve Jobs’ portrait made entirely out of apples – the landart tribute expresses the impact Steve Jobs had on modern technology and the apple silhouette.

#Petheadz – is an Instagram series by Zach Rose, a 23 year old photographer/filmmaker from Toronto. (Photo by Zach Rose)

“Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress, author and model. Some of her better-known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle”.