Professor Xie Yong works on an art installation of a beaver, which is made out of plastic and around 300,000 needles, in Shenyang, Liaoning province, July 23, 2013. The needles, according to Xie, represent the pain felt by animals when their fur is taken off to produce clothing. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

“Cyber Monsoon”, honorable mention in Places category. A torrential monsoon rain in Bhaktapur, Nepal. (© Anuar Patjane)

“Panopticons is an arts and regeneration project of the East Lancashire Environmental Arts Network managed by Mid Pennine Arts. It involved the construction of series of 21st-century landmarks, or Panopticons (structures providing a comprehensive view), across East Lancashire, England, as symbols of the renaissance of the area”. – Wikipedia

Photo: “Singing Ringing Tree. The Singing Ringing Tree is a musical sculpture overlooking Burnley. It was designed by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu of Tonkin Liu and constructed from pipes of galvanised steel”. (Photos by WandereringSoul/Mark Tighe)

A close up of a Khon mask July 8, 2011 in Angthong, Thailand. The paper mache Khon masks, are part of the ornate glittering costumes used in the stylized classical Thai dance form known as Khon. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Annelie Vandendael was born in Belgium and grew up in the South of France. After college she came back to Belgium to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Kask) in Genth where she got a master degree in Photography; Images have always been a passion for her. After finishing her studies, she was invited to “La Fabrica”, the Benetton Communication and Research Center in Treviso, Italy. She was also nominated for the photo academy Award in the Netherlands and won the Award of the Roorda Agency, Amsterdam. (Photo by Annelie Vandendael)

A coil-shaped Helix Nebula showing a fine web of filamentary “bicycle-spoke” features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth. A planetary nebula is the glowing gas around a dying, Sun-like star. (Photo by Reuters/NASA)

Men at work at the Cardiff Institute, making huge baskets, unique in size and construction, for loading oil cake in South Africa. (Photo by Maeers/Getty Images). 1938

David Yeo’s photography places naturally small species alongside animals that have been selectively bred to be tiny and cute. Here: “The most difficult aspect of this shoot was to get each African pygmy dormouse – also known as micro squirrels – on to a separate camera. Once in place, they needed to remain still long enough to get them both in the frame and looking at me. Often solitary, they naturally wanted to move away”. (Photo by David Yeo/Leica Studio Mayfair/The Guardian)