While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)

Boys walk home for lunch from school in the village of Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 16, 2015. U.S. President Barack Obama visits Kenya and Ethiopia later this month. His ancestral home of Kogelo is home to Sarah Hussein Obama, his step-grandmother. The Kenyan village, burial place of Obama's father, features an open-pit goldmine, a pork butcher's, a school named after their most famous son and outdoor market stalls. Villagers get around by motorbike taxi or on foot while a donkey-cart transports water. Children, some of them named Obama in honour of the President, walk to and from school together. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

A man reacts while having a nasal swab sample taken at a testing and screening facility for the coronavirus, in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, August 21, 2020. (Photo by Fareed Khan/AP Photo)

A woman holds an umbrella while walking along a flooded street during heavy rain in Dhaka, Bangladesh on June 12, 2023. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

A clown nose is placed on a child's face during a protest opposing violence against women after the murder of Venezuelan actress and clown Julieta Inés Hernández Martínez in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, January 8, 2024. The body of Hern·ndez, who had been missing since Dec. 23 while traveling by bicycle, was found in Presidente Figueiredo city, near Manaus in Amazonas state. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)

A drone view of fishermen unloading fish caught in a net during the sardine run in Scottburgh, South Africa, on June 12, 2024. (Photo by Rogan Ward/Reuters)

Passengers climb to board an overcrowded train at a railway station in Dhaka August 8, 2013. Millions of residents in Dhaka are travelling home from the capital city to celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (Photo by Andrew Biraj/Reuters)

Professional conceptual category winner. Greetings from Mars, by Julien Mauve, France. Mauve says: “I have always wondered what it would be like to discover a totally different world ... and to photograph it for the first time as if I was Ansel Adams. So I came up with this project, which is about space exploration and discovery. But it’s also about our behavior in front of landscapes and how we create pictures that will share our personal story with the world”. (Photo by Julien Mauve)