“I am Kylie, a young digital artist based in Singapore. I am inspired by things like shyness and dreams and escapism”. – Kylie Woon. Photo: Temporary blindness. (Photo by Kylie Woon)

“Warming up”. This photo I capture in the early afternoon, the animal species of lemurs fly. Photo location: Sambas, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Hendy Mp/National Geographic Photo Contest)

An Afghan man shows his skills while riding a motorcycle along a road on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif on October 6, 2024. (Photo by Atif Aryan/AFP Photo)

Hino Team Sugawara's Teruhito Sugawara with Hirokazu Somemiya and Yuji Mochizuki in action during stage 10 of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia on January 15, 2025. (Photo by Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)

Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)