Hirotoshi Itoh graduated from Tokyo National Fine Arts University in 1982 and later went into his family business as a stonemason. He spent several years working with metal before turning his attention to stones. He utilizes stones found in a river bank near his home, and he creates sculptures that juxtapose the original shape and hardness of the material with surprising humor and texture. You can find more of his work on his Deviant Art page.

On August 31, 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3. (Photo by NASA/GSFC/SDO via The Atlantic)

An employee of the British Museum examines a silver coin dating from 900 AD which is part of the Silverdale Viking Hoard on December 14, 2011 in London, England. The hoard, which was discovered by local metal-detectorist Darren Webster in North Lancashire, comprises of 201 silver objects including arm-rings, coins, finger-rings, ingots, brooch fragments and fine wire braid. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

This picture taken on October 18, 2018 shows a “trolley boy” pushing a home- made cart along a train track in Manila, Philippines. Scores of commuters in the city of about 12 million are propelled to their destinations daily by so-called “trolley boys” pushing metal carts that ply a few segments of the sprawling capital's railroads. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP Photo)

An African giant pouched rat sniffs for traces of landmine explosives at APOPO's training facility in Morogoro on June 17, 2016. APOPO trains the rats to detect both tuberculosis and landmines at its facility. Every year landmines kill or maim thousands of people worldwide. The trained rats sniff for explosive and so are able to detect the presence of landmines far faster than conventional methods which involve metal detection. (Photo by Carl De Souza/AFP Photo)

Photographer Logan Zillmer took this photo of the harvest moon above a corn field as part of his “Traveler” series on Flickr. (Photo by Logan Zillmer)

Iraqi security forces ride in vehicles travelling to Mosul to fight against militants of Islamic State at an Iraqi army base in Camp Taji in Baghdad, February 21, 2016. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

A hungry cow smiles for the camera in Salzburg, Austria. One of a series of funny animal mugshots taken by Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger during their travels around the globe. (Photo by Chanel Cartell/Stevo Dirnberger/Rex Features/Shutterstock)