Kourtney Roy makes eerie self-portraits in desolate yet dramatic locations – with wigs and wardrobe straight out of 1950s melodrama. In these shots, from her “Enter as Fiction – California” series, she plays characters caught in desolate, often abandoned settings. (Photo by Kourtney Roy/Galerie Catherine et André Hug/The Guardian)

A villager run as Mount Sinabung erupt at Sigarang-Garang village in Karo district, Indonesia's North Sumatra province, February 1, 2014. Four people died and more than 28, 000 villagers have been evacuated since authorities raised the alert status for the volcano to the highest level in November 2013, local media reported on Saturday. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Victorian and Australian women's cricket team representative Meg Lanning dives for a catch during a photo shoot at Quarry Park on October 27, 2011 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)

Students celebrate their A-level results at King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham, England on August 18, 2016. The proportion of top grades achieved by A-level students across the UK has fallen for a fifth year in a row, and girls have caught up with boys in attaining A* grades. (Photo by Joe Giddens/PA Wire)

A Maori soldier runs as New Zealand's soldiers march down the Champs Elysees in Paris during a rehearsal of the annual Bastille Day military parade on July 12, 2016. (Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP Photo)

Only the most intrepid urban explorers cross the tattered ruins of the old Iron Curtain to endure the excessive bureaucracy, military paranoia and freezing winds of the East to hunt for the ghosts of an empire. Rebecca Litchfield is one who couldn’t resist the haunting allure of the ruins of the Soviet Union.

“Double head vulture”. On the day of windy days during raptors migration some people in my country start to catch these tired raptors, so in this day we go to photograph some raptors and we saw these tow tired vultures, so we start to drag them away from the hunters until they reach a good hidden place, to make them safe until they start a new journey. Photo location: Kuwait. (Photo and caption by Mohd Khorshed/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Chingele, a herder, wears a traditional Mongol costume to greet a neighbor for the New Year. Chingele was among a group of herders who went to Beijing to protest eviction from grazing lands to make room for an army training camp. (Photo by Gilles Sabrie/The Washington Post)