“In a nutshell and to prevent my english readers from experiencing eye bleeding after having read too many syntax errors, I’m a french journalist – I work as an editor, not as photographer – who happens to be nuts about photography. Being the happy owner of too many Leica M for a man to shoot, I spend most of my free time shooting my friend and my town, Strasbourg, in b&w and sometimes in colors”. – Manuel Plantin

Photo: “Even detectives got the blues”. Strasbourg, 2011 (Photo by Manuel Plantin)

A wolf-like robot “Super Monster Wolf” stands beside a rice field to drive away wild animals that cause damages to crops in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, on August 25, 2017. The agricultural coopetative association JA Kisarazu-shi introduced the 65cm-long and 50cm-high robot recently on a trial basis which can detect wild animals such as boars and deers with an infrared ray sensor when they approach and intimidates them, flashing the red LED eyes and blaring 48 types of sounds including a wolf growl and human voice. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

This surreal metal sculpture is created by a famous sculptor, Neil Dawson in New Zealand. The masterpiece is made from steel and painted like if it’s a drawing from a cartoon. The artwork can be visited at Gibbs Farm, that is host to many other art sculptures as well.

Faruk, 17, a Rohingya refugee trader holds betel leaves which are on sale at a stall in Palong Khali refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 3, 2017. He left his village in Myanmar when the military opened fire towards the Rohingya. “I buy this betel leaf from Palong Khali market, in one bundle there are 160 pieces, I buy it for 80 taka and I sell it for 100 taka (1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.012 US Dollar). Bangladeshi's and I sell for the same rate in the camp. Outside in the local market it is 80 taka per bundle. My problem is that I don't have money so I can't buy anything to eat, I can't buy fish to eat”, he said. (Photo by Hannah McKay/Reuters)

“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)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.

“Li Wei (born in 1970, Hubei, China) is a contemporary artist from Beijing, China. His work often depicts him in apparently gravity-defying situations. Wei started off his performance series, Mirroring, and later on took off attention with his Falls series which shows the artist with his head and chest embedded into the ground. His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Love at the high place I (Photo by Li Wei)