The shoemaker in Turkey, the potato seller in Vietnam, and the weaver in Bolivia are among the billions of low-income entrepreneurs who make the world go round. They are also the type of people who can benefit significantly from microfinance. Every year, the Consultative Group To Assist The Poor (or CGAP) hosts a photo contest asking entrants to submit photos based around the idea of microfinance.The purpose of the contest is to give amateur and professional photographers a chance to show the different ways that poor households manage their financial lives and make their lives better through financial inclusion. Photo: South Asia Regional Winner – “Bricks Worker”, Bangladesh. A private enterprise worker is working at a brick field. These small businesses are creating new job opportunities for many poor people. (Photo by Moksumul Haque)

Samurai commiting seppuku (hara-kiri) in Japan, circa 1880. (Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images)

Members of the Women's Fire Brigade with their Chief Officer, March 1916. (Photo by Topical Press Agency)

A macaque crosses a pedestrian overpass in Hong Kong, China, 08 November 2021. According the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, AFCD, the total population of wild monkeys in Hong Kong is about 1,800, distributed in 30 social troops. (Photo by Jerome Favre/EPA/EFE)

Artist Vik Muniz is known for his gigantic composite installations and sculptures created from thousands of individual objects. In this new collaboration with artist and MIT researcher Marcelo Coelho, Muniz takes the opposite approach and explores the microscopic with a new series of sandcastles etched onto individual grains of sand.

Performers ride on a train before the 40th annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade in the Brooklyn borough of New York, New York, USA, 18 June 2022. The annual event is one of the largest art parades in the country. (Photo by Yuki Iwamura/EPA/EFE)

A group of volunteers dressed as elves and a man dressed as the grinch take part in a Christmas celebration organised by the NGO “Unos Venezolanos” in the neighbourhood of Petare, in Caracas, Venezuela on December 21, 2022. (Photo by Gaby Oraa/Reuters)