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.”

A man dressed as Santa Claus sits at a bus stop before an annual race in Belgrade, Serbia December 27, 2015. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

Santa Claus greets a child during a visit to residents of the slum of Petare in Caracas, Venezuela, December 11, 2016. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

Ayaka Oshita, a 27-year-old diver, practices in preparation for the upcoming seasonal feeding performance as a Santa diver at Sunshine Aquarium at Ikebukuro in Tokyo, Japan, 07 December 2021. Oshita has 15-month experience for feeding fish at the aquarium after she joined the aquarium in 2019. The Santa diver performance will be held for three days around the Christmas time. The aquarium will not inform the performance time to avoid the visitors' crowd due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA/EFE)

Farmers dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes ride in a wooden carriage on the way to the chapel on the Kalvarienberg in Bad Toelz, during the Leonhard procession November 6, 2014. The Leonhardi Ritt procession is an annual event that started in the 17th century to pray to St. Leonhard, the patron saint of animals. (Photo by Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

Balinese children take part in a traditional mud bath known as Mebuug-buugan, a day after Nyepi – the “Day of Silence”, aimed at neutralising bad traits in Kedonganan village on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP Photo)

A woman dressed in traditional costumes jumps over a bonfire to commemorate the day of Santa Agueda in Andavias, Spain, on February 6, 2022. In the province of Zamora it is quite a tradition, the women take over the city and the towns to gain control in the province, the councils give them the batons as a sign of authority, they celebrate around 7 days of festivity where they dance, eat, live the festival and honor Santa Agueda. (Photo by Manuel Balles/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Wearing traditional Belarus costumes girls jump over a bonfire as they celebrate the Ivan Kupala night, an ancient heathen holiday, held in the countryside near the town of Turov, some 260 km southwest of the capital Minsk, on July 6, 2014. People celebrate Kupala Night with bonfires that last throughout the night with some leaping over the flames as it is believed that the act of jumping over the bonfire cleanses people of illness and bad luck. (Photo by Viktor Drachev/AFP Photo)