Bristol Zoo's baby gorilla Kukena holds onto his mother's arm as he ventures out of his enclosure at Bristol Zoo's Gorilla Island on May 4, 2012 in Bristol, England. The seven-month-old western lowland gorilla is starting to find his feet as he learns to walk having been born at the zoo in September. Kukena joins a family of gorillas at the zoo that are part of an international conservation breeding programme for the western lowland gorilla, which is a critically endangered species. (Photo by Matt Cardy)

Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin”, after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to homelessness and prostitution. She grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, but now spends her time in Hunts Point, “trying to survive everyday. Just doing whatever it takes”.

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.

“Photoswapped: Mum and dads switch heads with their children in freakiest photos you'll ever see. It is a position that many young children would love to be in. And now these strange and sometimes unnerving images show what it would actually be like if babies swapped roles, and heads, with their mother or father. The photos, created by top advertising photographer Paul Ripke, are so eye-catching that they have swept across the world online”. (Photo by Paul Ripke/Barcroft Media via Fame Pictures)

“The western or lowland bongo is a herbivorous, mostly nocturnal forest ungulate and among the largest of the African forest antelope species. Bongos are characterised by a striking reddish-brown coat, black and white markings, white-yellow stripes and long slightly spiralled horns”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The one month old newborn Bongo Antelope Calf ventures out in the cold with his mother in their enclosure at London Zoo on December 9, 2005 in London, England. (Photo by Christopher Lee/Getty Images)

“Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara “Claire” (Marquis) and Max Neustädter, a button factory owner. His family was Jewish. Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin. Interested in photography from the age of 12 when he purchased his first camera, he worked for the German photographer Yva (Elsie Neulander Simon) from 1936. The increasingly oppressive restrictions placed on Jews by the Nuremberg laws meant that his father lost control of the factory in which he manufactured buttons and buckles; he was briefly interned in a concentration camp on “Kristallnacht”, November 9, 1938, which finally compelled the family to leave Germany. Newton's parents fled to South America. He was issued with a passport just after turning 18, and left Germany on December 5, 1938. At Trieste he boarded the “Conte Rosso” (along with about 200 others escaping the Nazis) intending to journey to China. After arriving in Singapore he found he was able to remain there, first and briefly as a photographer for the Straits Times and then as a portrait photographer”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Sigourney Weaver by Helmut Newton, 1995.

Mazouza Bouglada, 86, a berber woman from the Chaouia region, who has facial tattoos, poses for a photograph in Taghit in the Aures Mountain, Algeria October 8, 2015. Bouglada was tattooed aged 7 by a nomadic man from the Sahara region. She was advised by her mother to get tattooed. The more she got tattooed the more she showed off. Even if she still remembers the pain, she felt beautiful once it was done, Bouglada said. She was very proud of her stars on her cheeks. Her eldest sister had been tattooed before her and she wanted to imitate her. Bouglada said she has now given away all her silver jewellery to atone for the sin that believers told her she had committed by being tattooed. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

“Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately 1 metre (39 in) in length with a short, stubby tail. They are adaptable in their habitat tolerances, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as an isolated patch of about 300 ha in Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland”. – Wikipedia

Photo: “Abdul”, a baby Common Wombat, is one of the marsupials on show during the spring baby boom at Taronga Zoo September 1, 2005 in Sydney, Australia. “Abdul” was orphaned when his mother was killed by a car. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)