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)

The rising sun is framed between the lighthouses at the end of the pier in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast on March 18, 2025. (Photo by Andrew McCaren/London News Pictures)

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)

American model and television personality Amelia Hamlin is seen attending The Annual Frame Fashion Week dinner during NYFW on September 09, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

Fog hangs over the east of the capital on a frosty Sunday morning on January 12, 2025 in London, UK. (Photo by David Levene/The Guardian)

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)