IT'S a relatively simple idea – set up a mirror so you can capture the reflection of a dramatic landscape in a single photograph. Photographer Daniel Kukla, from New York, created a spectacular series of artworks called The Edge Effect using the technique. He clamped the mirror onto an easel and placed it in various settings in the Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Artist Amber Wheeler of Minneapolis, Minn., has given her 2-month-old boy just that. All she used was some Photoshop and well-timed photos. Using simple black lines – much like the ones in this series of cat Instagram portraits – Wheeler transformed her son into an astronaut, a superhero, and a cowboy without spending one dollar on costumes.

German photographer Martin Klimas, who you may remember from his exploding porcelain figure series, creates breathtaking photos of flowers exploding into a million beautiful pieces. To achieve this effect, he soaks the petals in liquid nitrogen to make them brittle and hits the flower with an air gun.

Kirsty Mitchell is a former fashion designer who worked under both Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan as a student. However, she found her ultimate calling in photography. Her imaginative series 'Wonderland' takes you to alternate worlds where umbrellas drip with lavenders, backs sprout wings and limbs get lost in tree branches

Denis Rouvre is a portraitist, living and working in France. His photos have been nationally and internationally published. Rouvre’s photo series have been widely exhibited in France and abroad. He has also published several books, and his numerous prizes include World Press Photo award, and a Sony World Photography Award. Photo: Asia Argento. (Photo by Denis Rouvre)

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.

After school and civil service, Thomas Mangold went off to study Visual Communications in Dortmund where he still lives. During these studies, he had the opportunity for an internship at the advertising agency Grey Dusseldorf and also began to receive invites to publish his photographic series in magazines. Around this time, a new professor at the college arranged a one week intensive seminar in Strata 3D.