Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

Studio stack: Rabbit? Acanthocinus aedilis, Cerambycidae, A female Timberman (Timbermam perhaps?). Stacked from 216 exposures in Zerene Stacker (PMAX). (Photo by John Hallmén). P.S. All pictures are presented in high resolution.

The winner of the Miss Tattoo Brazil 2014 contest, Bruna Barros, shows a tattoo that says 'My body, my rules' during Tattoo Week, the largest convention of art in the skin of Latin America, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 14 July 2017. A tattooed woman beauty pageant, the new trends and techniques of the tattoo world, body piercing and the environment of the art of definitively painting the body, are all due to be addressed during the seventh edition of the “Tattoo Week Sao Paulo“. (Photo by Sebastiao Moreira/EPA)

A dog sits in a plastic basin filled with water in Taipei, Taiwan, 05 May 2018. Betel nut seller Mr Luo, the dog's owner, said he puts his dog Ah Dai (Stupid Guy) in the water-filled basin whenever the weather get hot. Luo has a dozen pairs of glasses for Ah Dai, so the dog wears different glasses every day and many tourists take photos of Ah Dai. (Photo by David Chang/EPA/EFE)

A photo from Madonna’s high school yearbook at her childhood home in Rochester, Michigan, circa 1973. (Photo by Rebel Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Elizabeth Nicolaou, a final year student with the Royal Academy of Dance, strikes a pose on April 28, 2022 near the Cutty Sark ship in Greenwich, London ahead of International Dance Day. First celebrated in 1982, International Dance Day has taken place every year since in anniversary celebration of the birth of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), considered the creator of modern ballet. (Photo by Guy Corbishley/Alamy Live News)

Members of Brighton Swimming Club brave the early morning temperature to take a dip in the sea east of the pier on January 5, 2022. The club, founded in 1860, is the oldest in England. (Photo by Simon Dack/Alamy Live News)

Ukrainian soldiers of the 71st Jaeger Brigade fire a M101 howitzer towards Russian positions at the frontline, near Avdiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, March 22, 2024. (Photo by Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo)