Ruslan Arslanbayev of Russia works on his creation during the Sand Sculpture Festival “Sand Fantasy” in Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2016. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
A massive sand storm cloud is close to enveloping a military camp as it rolls over Al Asad, Iraq, April 27, 2005. (Photo by Cpl. Alicia M. Garcia, U.S. Marine Corps/Reuters/U.S. Department of Defense)
The city of Meroë laid undiscovered for two millennia before British archaeologist John Garstang excavated it in the early 20th century. Garstang took the radical decision to document his discoveries with photography – and immortalised an ancient world. “Meroë: Africa’s Forgotten Empire” is being shown until 14 September at Garstang Museum of Archaeology, Liverpool. Here: A group visiting the excavations at Meroë, including (from left) Midwinter Bey, director of Sudan Railways; Lord Kitchener; General Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, Sirdar of the Egyptian Army; Professor Archibald Sayce; John Garstang; and Lady Catherine Wingate, 1911. (Photo by Garstang Museum of Archaeology)
A tourist stands at an edge of the singing sand, the 150-metre-high by three-kilometre-long dune that generates a low-pitched, organ-like rumble in dry weather, in Altyn-Emel national park in Almaty region, Kazakhstan, May 12, 2016. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
From the waters edge a New York policeman urges two young children to put their bathing costumes back on. (Photo by Ed Clarity/Keystone/Getty Images). July 1949
Julian, left, is photographed by his mother with friend Gianluca, right, under water at a public pool in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on a hot Friday, July 3, 2015. Germany faces a heat wave with temperatures up to 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) at the weekend. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)
Artist Vik Muniz is known for his gigantic composite installations and sculptures created from thousands of individual objects. In this new collaboration with artist and MIT researcher Marcelo Coelho, Muniz takes the opposite approach and explores the microscopic with a new series of sandcastles etched onto individual grains of sand.
Four-year-old Solaris Arias (right) jumps through water spraying from an open fire hydrant in Providence, Rhode Island, on June 20, 2012. Much of the state remained under a heat advisory Tuesday afternoon because of the steamy air mass that has moved into the region resulting in temperatures in the 90s. (Photo by Steven Senne/AP Photo)