American sculptor Michael Alfano has been sculpting for over fifteen years. A native of New York, he now lives and works in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. His major influences are Salvador Dali, Jo Davidson, and Jean-Antoine Houdon, as well as Buddhist, Taoist, Sufi and other eastern philosophy and literature. He first studied at the Art Students League of New York, with an emphasis on life-size sculpture from the model. His formal education continued at Boston University and was augmented by internships with several prominent sculptors.

Boards stand lined up at the Rocinha Surf Association, ASR, headquarters at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, July 2, 2015. ASR has given free lessons to over 2,000 children from Rio's shantytowns in the hopes of keeping the boys, who are mostly in their early teens and a few girls occupied by the sport and off the streets. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A bonnet macaque sits on consecrated idols of snakes as it drinks milk offered by a devotee during the Hindu festival of Nag Panchami, which is celebrated by worshipping snakes to honour the serpent god, inside a temple on the outskirts of Bengaluru, India, July 27, 2017. (Photo by Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters)

A model wears a creation for the Thom Browne ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2023 fashion collection presented Monday, October 3, 2022 in Paris. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP Photo)

The Öresund or Øresund Bridge is a double-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel across the Øresund strait between Scania (southernmost Sweden) and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 km (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm, which lies in the middle of the strait. The remainder of the link is by a 4 km (2.5 mile) tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager. The Øresund Bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe, and connects two major metropolitan areas: Copenhagen, the Danish capital city, and the major Swedish city of Malmö. It connects the road and rail networks of Scandinavia with those of Central and Western Europe.

“As you can see I love the Icelandic Horse. Born and raised with them, I love to work with them and watch them ... they have unbelievable network of communication and energy I can´t explain with words”. – Gigja Einarsdottir. Photo: “Runners”. (Photo by Gigja Einarsdottir)

Miners carry a goats head for burial in the crater as part of an annual offering ceremony on the Ijen volcano on December 17, 2013 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The ritual is performed by the sulfur miners of Mount Ijen who slaughter a goat and then bury the head in the crater of mount Ijenn. The sacrifice is performed to ward off potential disasters for the next year. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)