Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)

These images, scanned from old glass negatives which had surfaced in northern France, were believed to have been taken by a local amateur photographer in 1916. They showed British and a few Australian soldiers, in formal or informal poses, during or just before the most murderous battle in the history of the British Empire – Battle of the Somme. Who are these British and British Empire soldiers? The identity of the soldiers is, and may always remain, a mystery... (Property of Bernard Gardin/Dominique Zanardi/Joel Scribe/The Independent Magazine)

A humanoid robot named “Robi” sits during a promotional event for the launch of a weekly Robi Magazine in Tokyo, Japan, 20 January 2015. Created by roboticist Tomotaka Takahashi, the 34-centimeter tall humanoid robot can recognize and respond to more than 200 words and phrases, walk and dance. Parts of the robot will be put on sale in a weekly magazine to be fully assembled with 70 issues. (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA)

A visitor looks down from a terrace at a Volkswagen Beetle owners' meeting in Sao Bernardo do Campo January 25, 2015. Around 1000 Volkswagen Beetle cars took part in this event as part of celebrations marking Brazil's annual National Volkswagen Beetle day, which falls on January 20. (Photo by Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)

A woman cries after riot police dispersed demonstrators during protests to oust Narok county Governor Samuel Tunai in Narok, Kenya, January 26, 2015. At least seven people were injured on Monday in clashes between Kenyan police and protesters from the Maasai ethnic group who accuse a local governor of corrupt handling of tourism funds from the Maasai Mara game reserve, the Kenya Red Cross said. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

A man walks with a giant rake during carnival celebrations in Zubieta January 27, 2015. Bell carrying dancers known as Joaldunak from Zubieta and neighbouring Ituren visit each other's villages performing a ritual dance to ward off evil spirits and awaken the coming spring. Alongside the dancers, villagers dress in bizarre and frightening costumes to harass and scare visitors. (Photo by Vincent West/Reuters)

In a 200-acre-plus dump 5 kilometers north of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, hundreds of men, women and children scavenge day and night through the burning wasteland. They earn $12 to $15 a day – on a good day – for recycling plastics as well as clothing, household items and aluminum (for smelting). Some 5,000 tons of waste is created each day in the Port-au-Prince area. (Photo and caption by Giles Clarke/Getty Images Reportage)

A brave photographer managed to get within metres of an active volcano despite it spewing out lava waves over 140 metres high. Silhouetted against a fiery fountain of red, Icelandic photographer, Tómas Freyr Kristjánsson, 37, braved blistering temperatures to get as close the volcano as possible. Although very few were brave enough to get so close, Tómas managed to photograph nearby tourists to give some scale to the spraying molten rock, including that of a nearby motorcyclist. (Photo by Tómas Freyr Kristjánsson/Caters News)