“Most recently, the bushy beard’s masculinity has been turned off and instead adorned with flower power. A wacky new trend sees hipsters weave foliage into their facial hair. It’s emerging across boho America. Yes, men in Brooklyn, Portland and San Francisco are adorning their faces with blossoms, seemingly for the sole purpose of artistic portraits that have been taking over the social media with the hashtag #flowerbeards. It started gaining popularity on the social platform of Tumblr, when a blogger began “Will It Beard” project, and has since blossomed elsewhere around the Internet”. – Linda Sharkey via The Independent. (Photo by designsquish/Tumblr)

“John Thomson (14 June 1837 – 29 September 1921) was a pioneering Scottish photographer, geographer and traveller. He was one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East, documenting the people, landscapes and artifacts of eastern cultures. Upon returning home, his work among the street people of London cemented his reputation, and is regarded as a classic instance of social documentary which laid the foundations for photojournalism. He went on to become a portrait photographer of High Society in Mayfair, gaining the Royal Warrant in 1881”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Ex Omnibus Driver. (Photo by John Thomson/LSE Digital Library)

Born with a rare condition, the artist has chronicled her life in portraits – capturing everything from her tattooed prosthetics to the tentacled creature she stitched together on the shores of Naoshima. Here: Ophelia (2013). From a series of photos of imagined women exhibited at the 2013 Aichi Triennale. Here, Katayama invokes Hamlet’s tragic heroine, after the painting by British pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais. (Photo by Mari Katayama/The Guardian)

My name is Jakub and I’m a painter, illustrator & concept artist who lives and work in Poland. My speciality is dark fantasy, character design, concept art and portrait. Since several years I work and paint digitally, but I never gave up traditional drawing and painting. For me the most important in my work, is create unique atmosphere and tell some kind of story through my creations.

Tami Varma, right, and her brother Robin, the grandchildren of Devendra Varma, a scholar of English gothic tales and an expert in vampire lore, pose in coffins at the Bran Castle, in Bran, Romania, Monday, October 31, 2016. A Canadian brother and sister are passing Halloween night curled up in red velvet coffins in the Transylvanian castle that inspired the Dracula legend, the first time in 70 years anyone has spent the night in the gothic fortress, after they bested 88,000 people who entered a competition hosted by Airbnb to get the chance to dine and sleep at the castle in Romania. A portrait of medieval prince Vlad the Impaler is placed on the wall. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

A student falls asleep as she holds a book containing a portrait of China's late chairman Mao Zedong during a lesson at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School in Sitong town, Henan province December 3, 2013. In a remote part of central China, the day starts at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School with a pre-dawn jog, some revolutionary songs and then an activity long since forgotten at other schools: reciting quotations from Mao Zedong's famed “Little Red Book”. While the ruling Communist Party that Mao led continues to hold him in esteem as the leader of the Communist Revolution, his radical policies and teachings have been largely shelved since his death in 1976 in favour of a pro-market approach that has turned China from a backwater into the world's second biggest economy. The 120th anniversary of Mao's birth is on December 26, 2013. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Looking for love by Tony Wu, USA. Highly commended, Animal Portraits. “Accentuating his mature appearance with pastel colours, protruding lips and an outstanding pink forehead, this Asian sheepshead wrasse sets out to impress females and see off rivals, which he will head-butt and bite, near Japan’s remote Sado Island. Individuals start out as females, and when they reach a certain age and size – up to a metre (more than 3 feet) long – can transform into males. Long-lived and slow-growing, the species is intrinsically vulnerable to overfishing”. (Photo by Tony Wu/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)