A new type of tandem at Alexandra Palace, London. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images). June 1936

Men slicing blubber off a large, dead whale. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images). Circa 1912

An Indian Brahmin and his family. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Circa 1890

Justin Beiber unveils his waxwork at Madame Tussauds on March 15, 2011 in London, England.

As an American in 1990s Cuba, Tria Giovan risked being branded a traitor. But the photographer continued to visit and, from the dance hall to the hair salon, she captured the resilient spirit of the Cuban people. The 120 images in Tria Giovan’s “The Cuba Archive” are from the period in the 90s when, as an American, travel to Cuba could have seen her branded a traitor, as the country was subject to a US trade embargo. Her trip required lots of planning – and patience. (Photo by Tria Giovan/The Guardian)

Born with a rare condition, the artist has chronicled her life in portraits – capturing everything from her tattooed prosthetics to the tentacled creature she stitched together on the shores of Naoshima. Here: Ophelia (2013). From a series of photos of imagined women exhibited at the 2013 Aichi Triennale. Here, Katayama invokes Hamlet’s tragic heroine, after the painting by British pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais. (Photo by Mari Katayama/The Guardian)