At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

In this Thursday, January 17, 2019, photo, an Indian tamer reacts as a bull charges towards him during a traditional bull-taming festival called Jallikattu, in the village of Allanganallur, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu state, India. Jallikattu involves releasing a bull into a crowd of people who are expected to hang on to the animal's hump for a stipulated distance or hold on to the hump for a minimum of three jumps made by the bull. The sport, performed during the four-day “Pongal” or winter harvest festival, is hugely popular in Tamil Nadu. (Photo by Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo)

Canoeists are framed by the tail of a breaching whale in Antarctica in April 2023. The photographer, from California, writes: “It was probably a once-in-a-lifetime moment”. (Photo by Jiahong Zeng/Solent News)

Blue, white and red brassieres, the colours of the French national flag, hang from a balcony in Marseille, France, November 27, 2015 as the French President called on all French citizens to hang the tricolour national flag from their windows on Friday to pay tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks during a national day of homage. (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)

The twin lighthouses of St Joseph on Lake Michigan have been transformed by a winter storm. Ice encases the buildings, giant icicles hang from the piers and the beach is frosted white. Here: Huge icicles hang from the pier. (Photo by Mike Kline/Barcroft Media)

Zed Nelson has photographed the same family, once a year on the same day, for 20 years. I take hundreds of photo’s of my extended family all year round, some just languish on my computer screen unseen by anyone, some get printed, some framed. What is really interesting about this project is not only the obvious time scale but his “ analytical approach“. The same plain background is used for each session and he chooses only 1 frame to represent that years image. My many photographs are a mishmash of family events, his create a family history unfolding . Perhaps less really is more.

Girls refresh themselves and their dog with water spray frames set along the central street of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev during a heatwave on June 25, 2020. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

A masked reveller hangs from an inflatable balloon during the first day of the carnival in Venice, Italy, January 23, 2016. (Photo by Manuel Silvestri/Reuters)