Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

When you think of the People's Liberation Army, you probably don't think of line dancing. But the Chinese military's latest online recruiting video makes a soldier's life look more fun than the macarena. The brief spot, posted last week on the website of the Ministry of National Defense and going viral, features tanks and fighter jets, as well as soldiers dancing in rows to a quirky hit tune by the Chopsticks Brothers called “Little Apple”. Its lyrics include, “You are my little dear little apple/I can never stop loving you”.

The landscape series we’ve selected from Leo Caillard photography is a series of panoramic views of negative and information-filled spaces. The French photographer describes his remarkable work in the following terms: “a landscape series I chose to shoot in very high definition. A work about the action of humans in diverse types of environments; void of activity or full of information.

In 2002 photographer Corey Arnold left behind a poor economy in San Francisco and headed up to Alaska to try his luck at his longtime passion of fishing. Arnold, who had worked summers during college on a salmon boat in Alaska, signed onto the f/v Rollo, a crabbing boat that fishes in the dangerous Bering Sea. While working long, strenuous hours on the Rollo, Arnold often stole away with the captain’s permission to grab his camera and photograph the crew and the ship. Arnold eventually put together “Fish Work: Bering Sea”, a documentation of his seven adventurous and dicey crab seasons aboard the Rollo. (Photo by Corey Arnold)

“The Yao nationality is a government classification for various minorities in China. They form one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, where they reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman combs her hair at the Huangluo Village of the Yao ethnic group in Guilin, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 15, 2012. The Huangluo Village of the Yao ethnic group locates at the Longji Terraces in Heping Town of Longsheng County in Guilin. Women here have the tradition of keeping long hair. They believe that long hair brings good luck and fortune. The average length of hair of 180 women in the village is 1.7 meters. (Photo by Lu Boan/Xinhua)

Wang Zeyu, 4, a fee-paying enthusiast of kung fu, practises during a training class at a kung fu school near the Shaolin Temple April 10, 2005 in Dengfeng, Henan Province, China. Zeyu's father sent him to the school from his home in Jiangsu Province, thousands kilometres away from Dengfeng, when he was just 3 years old. And his father must pay 9,800 yuan (US$1195) for one year's tuition at the school, a huge amount for most Chinese. There are more than 80 kung fu schools that line the road from the city of Dengfeng to the Shaolin Temple with hundreds and thousands of young kung-fu lovers from all over the country and beyond studying here. All the schools use the Shaolin name to attract students as the Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Chinese Kung Fu. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images)

The Perth-based photographer and journalist Frances Andrijich has travelled the Western Australian coast since the early 90s, capturing clotheslines in all their glory. In her images they take the roles of play equipment, Christmas trees and, in the summer, a homemaker’s dream. Andrijich admits she is hopelessly hung up on clotheslines; her latest book celebrates them under the spotlight of the Australian sun. Here: Vera Germanis hangs out underwear in Frances Andrijich’s grandparents’ backyard. This was the photographer’s first clothesline shot, taken in Midland Junction in 1991. (Photo by Frances Andrijich)