A gaucho rides an unbroken or untamed horse during Creole week celebrations in Montevideo, March 23, 2016. All Easter week gauchos all over Uruguay and neighboring Argentina and Brazil come to Montevideo to compete for the award of best rider. (Photo by Andres Stapff/Reuters)

Photographer Howard Schatz had an idea: place actors in a series of roles and dramatic situations to reveal the essence of their characters. Such was the premise behind his book, In Character: Actors Acting, which captures some of Hollywood’s most emotive stars in the act of, well, making faces. Luckily for us, he continued the tradition for Vanity Fair. Here are some of the best.

The Zelda Project is a Los Angeles, CA based group of friends who seek to bring to life the characters, settings, and overall feel of Ocarina of Time through photography and film. Our ultimate goal is to create the characters as they would appear in reality to the best of our abilities, placing them in beautiful sceneries true to their Hyrulean counterparts, and creating elaborate photosets utilizing art ranging from costuming to 3D CGI.

A participant sets off on a penny-farthing bicycle at the start of the The Tweed Run in central London, Britain, May 14, 2016. The Tweed Run, a very British public bicycle ride through London's streets, with a prerequisite that participants are dressed in their best tweed cycling attire. (Photo by Hannah McKay/Reuters)

International photographic competition, which runs in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, awards special prize for the best close-up images. Here: Winner – Mayflies by Petar Sabol, Goričan, Croatia. (Photo by Sabol Petar/International Garden Photographer of the Year)

Run by the Society of German Nature Photographers (Gesellschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen), the prestigious annual contest celebrates the best wildlife photography from members in Germany. Here: Landscapes, second place: Florian Smit, “Rainforest” (Danum valley, Borneo). (Photo by Florian Smit/2019 GDT Nature Photographer of the Year)

Balloons participate in the Balloon Spectacular during Canberra Festival on March 10, 2012 in Canberra, Australia. The annual balloon festival in Canberra is considered one of the best in the world, and is unique in allowing patrons to float above Parliament, embassies and other government buildings. Canberra is celebrating its 99th birthday in 2012, with over 50 events in the 17 day Canberra Festival. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

In one of the best collaborations this blog has seen in ages, professional illustrator Mica Angela Hendricks has been collaborating with her 4-year-old daughter on a series of wonderful drawings that pass back and forther between mother and daugher until reaching an always unexpected final form. Each drawing begins with Hendricks drawing a detailed retro-ish head, after which her daughter snatches away the sketchbook to create rudimentary body (or animal!) parts as well as other random details. Afterward Hendricks goes back in to polish things up a bit and behold: dinosaur women, slug ladies, and beaver astronauts are born.