Shortlisted images in the running to be crowned Photobox Instagram photograph of the year range from furry friends to the Holi festival to the meaning of love. Judges, including the Guardian’s former picture editor Eamonn McCabe, have whittled down 180,000 submissions to unearth a shortlist that celebrates the best of social media. Winners will be announced October 3, 2018. Here: Najac, France. Travel shortlist. (Photo by Aaron Jenkin/@aaronjenkin)

A model presents a creation by Versace from the Spring/Summer 2023 collection during the Milan Fashion Week, in Milan, Italy, 23 September 2022. The Milano Fashion Week Women's runs from 20 to 26 September. (Photo by Mourad Balti Touati/EPA/EFE)

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activists wear crocodile masks during a demonstration against the use of crocodile skins ahead of Milan's Fashion Week, in Milan's Duomo Square, Italy, Tuesday, February 21, 2017. Milan Fashion Week opens Wednesday. (Photo by Antonio Calanni/AP Photo)

An young Indian Jain devotee dressed as Lord Krishna participates in a religious rally organised on the occasion of Mahavir Jayanti in Kolkata on April 2, 2015. The most important religious holiday in Jainism, Mahavir Jayanti celebrates the birth of Mahavira, the last Tirthankara, which is generally accepted as 599 BCE. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

Photographer Howard Schatz had an idea: place actors in a series of roles and dramatic situations to reveal the essence of their characters. Such was the premise behind his book, In Character: Actors Acting, which captures some of Hollywood’s most emotive stars in the act of, well, making faces. Luckily for us, he continued the tradition for Vanity Fair. Here are some of the best.

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”.

A member of a local swimming club holds a Russian national flag as he dives in at the start of a 24-hour swimming marathon near the western Siberian city of Barnaul March 29, 2014. Thirty members of the club will swim in turn during the event, held to mark Crimea becoming part of Russia, local media reported. (Photo by Andrei Kasprishin/Reuters)

An elephant “kisses” a visitor during a show at an elephant training school in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, April 18, 2015. Some 16 elephants live at the school and give four 30-minute performances everyday for visitors. (Photo by Wong Campion/Reuters)