Children attend a war safety awareness class conducted by civil defence members, in the rebel-controlled area of Maaret al-Numan town in Idlib province, Syria May 14, 2016. (Photo by Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

American singer and dancer JoJo Siwa performs with her dancers during the Chicago Pride Fest on June 22, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images)

“Today, we take photography for granted. Anyone can take a photograph simply by pressing a button. Yet, it was not always so simple. The invention of photography was announced in 1839, but during its first fifty years taking a photograph was a complicated and expensive business. In 1888, all this was to change following the appearance of a camera that was to revolutionize photography. Popular photography can properly be said to have started 120 years ago with the introduction of the Kodak”. – The UK National Media Museum. Photo: Two men on the deck of a ship, about 1890. (Photo by Collection of National Media Museum/Kodak Museum)

A visitor is dwared between the wheels of BelAZ 450-ton dump truck (L) and BelAZ 360-ton dump truck (R) at the plant of Belarusian manufacturer of heavy trucks and equipment for earthmoving, BelAZ, in Zhodino, some 55 km from Minsk, Belarus, 27 August 2019. The company mostly delivers its products to CIS mining companies, mainly from Russia and Ukraine. (Photo by Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A handout photo made available by the World Press Photo (WPP) organization on 13 February 2017 shows a picture by Rossiya Segodnya photographer Valery Melnikov that won the Long-Term Projects – First Prize award of the 60th annual World Press Photo Contest, it was announced by the WPP Foundation in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 13 February 2017. Caption: Civilians escape from a fire at a house destroyed by an air attack in the Luhanskaya village. (Photo by Valery Melnikov/EPA/Rossiya Segodnya/World Press Photo)

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.

Children hitch a ride with a passing tram in Dnipro, Ukraine on March 19, 2024. (Photo by Jack Hill/The Times)

Bikini-clad women ski as they are led by a car during a performance on the frozen Yenisei River outside Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, March 20, 2016. The performance, entitled “Siberian Spring's Strings” and created with the participation of artist Vasily Slonov, marked the day of spring equinox (vernal equinox), according to organizers. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)