In this photograph taken on August 20, 2022 a woman dances with a child alongside the Garonne river in Toulouse, southern France. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)

Students perform a traditional dance during the Onam festival celebrations in Chennai on August 25, 2023. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

Students perform during a “Bhangra” folk dance competition at a university in Amritsar on October 29, 2024. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

Istanbul-based Ali Gulec is a graphic artist with a difference. His surreal illustrations are like identikit drawings aiming to prosecute the material arts. Working on the margins of what is possible with his medium, Gulec's forms, figures, and situations are remarkable for their clarity and strength of purpose, and maintain an iconographic intensity that would make any rock band bereft of an album cover salivate with admiration.

Meet the snake-mimicking butterfly (Dynastor darius). While this slick master of disguise may show off impeccable imitation skills, prior to taking on this serpentine appearance it was simply a furry, nondescript caterpillar, and it looked pretty much how you would expect any old caterpillar to look.

The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 660,235 sq miles, roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Some scientists predict that climate change may be near a "tipping point" where the entire ice sheet will melt in about 2000 years. If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (683,751 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (23.6 ft).

An Animal Liberation Victoria activist cries as she holds a dead animal at Federation Square on October 1, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia. Over 200 activists gathered with the bodies of deceased animals to publicly grieve their deaths. Animal Liberation Victoria is against the treatment of animals as “property” an promotes a vegan lifestyle. (Photo by Graham Denholm)

Armed Karo herdsman just back from protecting their cattle herds come down to the river to wash decorative clay markings off their bodies at the end of the day in the Omo Valley, South West Ethiopia. Dus, Omo Valley, Ethiopia, January 2008. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Discovery Communications)