A Palestinian man sells corn at Gaza Beach during sunset on August 8, 2021. (Photo by Sameh Rahmi/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A mahout splashes water on his elephant on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India on April 8, 2019. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

A cyclist rides in al-Qudra desert in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, on June 8, 2020. (Photo by Giuseppe Cacace/AFP Photo)

Hao Han (8), Shaolin kung fu student and child actor. Shaolin Monastery, Henan. (Photo by Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer)

Afghan balloon vendors walk with their bicycles to look for customers, near a market in Kabul on January 8, 2025. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

An Indian woman reacts while performing yoga at a railway station on International Women's Day, organised by Heal-Station in association with Western Railway, in Mumbai, India, 08 March 2023. (Photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

Vogue Italia is hosting a series of shows in Milan exploring how the magazine seeks to engage with hot social and political issues and provoke debate through images by top photographers. The Photo Vogue festival in Milan is hosting three exhibitions. The first, Fashion and Politics in Vogue Italia, looks at the magazine’s ambition to be a catalyst for change – in subtle and playful ways. Here: David LaChapelle – October 2004. (Photo by David LaChapelle/The Guardian)