Australian professional boxer Ebanie Bridges during the weigh in at The Queens Hotel, Leeds, United Kingdom on Friday, March 25, 2022. (Photo by Nigel French/PA Wire)

Singer Liam Payne’s girlfriend, model Maya Henry, 21, posed in a slashed red gown as she attended an event at The Ritz in the French capital on October 4, 2021. (Photo by Beretta/Sims/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

French aircrafts of the Patrouille de France spray colored smoke during a performance on the opening day of the Dubai Airshow in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, November 17, 2019. (Photo by Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo)

French television personality Iris Mittenaere poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the film “Alpha” in competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 19, 202. (Photo by Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters)

A French Cancan dancer performs in front of the Moulin Rouge cabaret during celebrations marking the restart of its iconic windmill with red sails, in Paris, France on July 10, 2025. (Photo by Tom Nicholson/Reuters)

What do superheroes do when they’re not busy fighting bad guys and saving the world from destruction? Perhaps they’re drawing strength alone in the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. That’s the premise of French photographer Benoit Lapray‘s photo-manipulation series “The Quest for the Absolute.”

“Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Nicknamed the “Bronze Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, and even the “Créole Goddess” in anglophone nations.

Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture and to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre”.

Photo: American entertainer Josephine Baker in costume for her famous “banana dance”. Baker was an overnight sensation when she arrived in Paris in the mid-1920s. (Photo by Walery/Getty Images)

A French farmer leads her cow through the livestock area as preparations continue on the eve of the opening of the International Agricultural Show in Paris, France, February 26, 2016. The Paris Farm Show runs from February 27 to March 6, 2016. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)