An altar is pictured after it was decorated by the Antar family with some 3,000 traditional cheese and corn buns called “chipas”, in celebration of Kurusu Ara in Asuncion May 3, 2015. Kurusu Ara, the Day of the Cross, is a Catholic festival that is combined with local Gurani culture and falls annually on May 3. Paraguayans typically celebrate the festival with chipas, used to decorate religious shrines and altars. The chipas are later distributed to attendees. The buns at the top are arranged to read, “March 3 live”. (Photo by Jorge Adorno/Reuters)

Photographer, Baron DaParre takes a picture of young model Danette Vega below an effigy dressed as a Wall Street banker hanging from a telephone wire on October 28, 2011 in Miami, Florida. As protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protesters continue around the country an artist known as Above, created the installation which hangs above a mural that reads “Give a Wall St. banker enough rope and he will hang himself”. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Most probably, every person who has read the Harry Potter books imagined themselves as a wizard. Wouldn’t it be cool to perform all sorts of magic or to whizz around on a broom? Well, actually, if you think about it, whizzing around on a broom might not be such a good idea after all… Just think of all the bugs you’re going to come across! Such an encounter might prove fatal for the bugs. However, you will most likely lose all your desire to ride the Nimbus 2000, once a few dozen bugs will smash into your face! (Photo by Halno)

It's often said that pets and their owners can start to look alike, but these adorable photographs take the old mantra to a new extreme. They are the work of Svetlana Valyiskaya (27), from St Petersburg, who snaps pets in everyday poses in her spare time from her job as a commercial photographer. The vibrant costumes and scenes, which Svetlana designs herself, have made the photos a hit in her native Russia – and it's not hard to see why. She said: “I really love animals, they are loyal, faithful and true and always interesting to work with – plus they never criticise the photographs afterwards”. (Photo by Svetlana Valyiskaya/Mercury)

Japanese artist Mami Kiyoshi has spent 15 years creating vivid portraits of people surrounded by their belongings – from wine bottles and violins to the odd stray pet. Mami Kiyoshi’s ongoing series “New Reading Portraits” is, in part, a nod to the mise-en-scène found in traditional woodcut printing. Here: Sakura and Kazuhiro, Tokyo, 2015. (Photo by Mami Kiyoshi/Galerie Annie Gabrielli/The Guardian)

Shan boys pray before they have their heads shaved in anticipation of their ordination in the Poy Song Long Ceremony at Wat Pa Pao in Chiang Mai, Thailand on April 3, 2018. Poy Sang Long (“The Festival of the Crystal Sons”) is a ceremony that marks a rite of passage among the Buddhist Shan people in Myanmar and northern Thailand. Boys between seven and fourteen years of age are ordained as Buddhist novices during a three day ceremony. Before the ceremony starts the boys have their heads shaved. (Photo by Jack Kurtz/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A mannequin's head is covered in a woman dress shop in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, December 26, 2022. Under the Taliban, the mannequins in women's dress shops across the Afghan capital Kabul are a haunting sight, their heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags. The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban's puritanical rule over Afghanistan. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)