Model Bianca Gavrilas wears a a hand-embroidered cape made from the silk of the Golden Orb Spider in the V&A Museum's Medieval and Renaissance Gallery on January 23, 2012 in London, England. The cape is one of two golden spider silk textiles that exist in the world, it was made in Madagascar over a period of 8 years and using the silk of silk of 1.2million spiders. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Student, Shoukria positions a stone for cutting at the Turquoise Mountain Gem cutting class on May 18, 2011, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mineral resources of Afghanistan are relatively unexplored even with Afghanistan's mineral wealth of coal, copper, gold and iron ore, with precious and semiprecious stones, including high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby. Given the country's remote and rugged terrain, on-going instability plus an inadequate infrastructure and transportation means that mining is still difficult. While many are trying to bring positive changes, Afghanistan's mining industry uses unregulated, primitive methods and outdated equipment. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Gohei Hayashi of Kyoto University is seen in side his movable eco and healing house, “Kujira (Whale) House” July 21, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. The house is made from Japanese paper, bamboo and tatami mat. Hayashi has travelled 500 km from Japan's ancient city, Kyoto to Tokyo with his eco house to promote his house which can be placed both out inside and outside to provide a private space. The Kujira house is available at the price of 800,000 yen (roughly US$6600). (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

In this photo illustration, an endangered Chinese box turtle which hatched at Bristol Zoo is placed on a box of matches on August 12, 2008 in Bristol, England. It weighs just 15 grams and measures around 4cm long whereas an adult box turtle weighs around 800 grams, measures around 16 cm long and can live up to 50 years. Chinese box turtles are hunted for their meat for use in medicine or as pets and have been listed as endangered on the International Union for Endangered Species Red List. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

By making use of digital colour grading and composites, Romanian photographer Caras Ionut created these dreamy blue-themed landscapes. The work is even more impressive when you consider that Caras, who has been a mariner for the last 24 years, only picked up an interest in photography a few years ago. For more of his work, including fashion composites and semi-surrealist scapes.

This outrageous display of facial hair configurations made an appearance at the 4th Annual National Beard and Mustache Championships in New Orleans. Luckily Las Vegas-based photographer Greg Anderson was on-hand to give us a front-row seat as the bizarre spectacle of facial hair paraded in front of his camera lens. The championships involved some 150 contestants from the U.S., U.K., and Canada who competed in 17 different categories.

We are all drawn to fire, entranced by its beauty and ferociousness. Its brilliance draws us in like moths to a candle flame. Thus, many of the celebrations that humans have involve lighting fires. They can be big or small; there could be many little lights or one giant inferno; they may float on water, burn on land, or rise high into the skies. Loi Krathong is a festival that is held each year in Thailand and a number of other places. During this festival thousands of little fires are lighted, presenting a marvelous sight for all the onlookers. It is believed that this tradition is an adaptation of Brahmanical festival, which was adopted by Thai Buddhists to honor Buddha.

An Afghan refugee family stands by trucks loaded with their belongings as they wait to go back to Afghanistan with others, at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office on the outskirts of Peshawar February 13, 2015. Afghan immigrants ordered out of Pakistan in what officials say is a bid to root out militants are, some analysts say, scapegoats being used to distract attention from the authorities' failure to end violence. (Photo by Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)