JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA — MARCH 25: Smoke and flame rose up from Saudi Aramco’s Jeddah oil depot in Saudi Arabia on March 25, 2022. A hostile attack by the Houthis targeted Aramco oil facility, says the Arab Coalition.

The Long March-7 Y6 rocket carrying cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-5, the last cargo ship before the completion of the China Space Station, blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in China's Hainan Province on November 12, 2022. The photo, taken from an open village around the launch site, captured the moment of the rocket launch. China launched cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-5 to deliver supplies for the space station, which was completed by the end of 2022. From 2021 to 2022, China launched a series of space missions to complete the construction of the space station.

A man working at a recycling factory surrounded by a huge pile of discarded plastic bottles. The image shows how our green earth is gradually becoming a plastic hell.

The dress rehearsal for the airborne part of the military parade to mark the 77th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The Antonovsky automobile and pedestrian bridge across the Dnieper River connects Kherson with the left bank. In response to the request of the heads of the Donbass republics, the Russian Armed Forces launched the special military operation in Ukraine.

These photos were taken from March 12 to March 20, 2022, when I visited the special military operation zone. Those days were easily the most difficult period of my life, because I saw people who had lived through all this in Donetsk and Mariupol.

Blaze

“We just need to wait.” This is what a woman in Gorlovka said to me, when I was photographing her apartment destroyed by another Ukrainian attack. To wait for what? “For peace, of course. Just a little longer,” she replied. These people have been thinking of it for a long nine years. The conflict in Donbass began in 2014. It claimed or derailed thousands of lives, and left hundreds of people homeless. Many residents were forced to leave their homes, but most decided to stay and wait for the long-coveted peace on their land. This story is about the people who chose to stay in their homeland no matter what. In February 2022, the President of Russia signed the executive orders recognizing the LPR and DPR, and later Russia announced the special military operation to protect the residents of Donbass.

"We just need to wait"

Forest fires are a recurrent concern when the summer season begins. In fact, they have increased both in number and fierceness, and this fact is directly related to climate change. According to EFFIS (European Forest Fire Information System) data on fire seasons, 2022 was the worst year of the century: the area burnt in less than seven months already exceeded the total area burnt by fire in 2012, which was previously the worst year on record. By the middle of the summer season, the area burnt across the EU was three times the average of the last 15 years. As of August 6, 2022, Spain alone accounted for 40% (39.39%) of the total in the European Union in 2022, i.e. 235,575 hectares out of a total of 600,731 hectares. The worst fire in the history of Galicia, one of the regions in Europe which faces the greatest threat from forest fires, occurred this summer in O Courel. Part of it had already burned last year. The O Courel mountainous region is one of the most valuable natural areas in Europe.

Fire and ashes

The image features Yegor Noskov, a player with the CSKA Moscow, in a match against his counterparts from Torpedo Moscow. While trying to keep the ball on the field, Yegor fell into a puddle, but this did not deter him. He was determined to keep the ball for his team.

A primary school student skiing at the empty school stadium.

2022 Beijing Olympics, Speed Skating. General view inside the stadium during the warm up.

Lionel Messi has taken part in five FIFA World Cups, but his dream came true in Qatar, when the Argentina national team became champion for the first time since 1986.

Diver Stefan Jevtic jumps from the Old Bridge during the 456th traditional annual high diving competition in Mostar, Bosnia, July 31, 2022. A total of 31 divers from Bosnia and the neighboring countries leapt from the 23-meter-high bridge over the Neretva River. Photo taken by hand, not a remote camera shot.

This series features highlights from the Russian Olympic Committee team’s performance at the  24th Beijing Olympics in February 2022.

Energy of victory

Every year, between November and April, when the temperature is chilly, the Buzkashi season opens in Tajikistan. Buzkashi — from the Persian words goat (“buz”) and drag (“kashi '') — has been played in Central Asia for centuries and involves horse riders — chapandaz — dragging a dead goat around markers across a huge field surrounded by hills. Every weekend, multiple events take place all over this mountainous country, offering surprising entertainment.

Buzkashi, the most popular Tajik game

Locho wrestling is one of the native and ritual sports of Mazandaran in Iran; Locho is a combination of two words of equal weight, Lo and Cho, each of which has a separate meaning. Lo means the edge and side of something and the word Cho means wood. Therefore, Locho refers to the edge of wood. Locho wrestling is one of Mazandaran's traditional wrestling sports. For many years, people have been rejoicing on the 26th of Tir, the 28th (July of the solar month), in a ritual known as the celebration of the dead, by preparing all kinds of local food and delicacies. During this celebration, traditional wrestling competitions are also held to identify the best wrestler in the region. Respecting elders and white-beards is an important characteristic of Locho And usually elderly peopleare in charge of organizing this ceremony. Locho involves both lightweight and heavyweight wrestling, and a sheep’s head is awarded to the best lightweight wrestler while  a cow’s head is presented to the heavyweight winner.

Locho

Muay Thai, known as the “art of eight limbs” because of the different ways opponents can strike each other, with knees, fists, kicks, and elbows, is Thailand’s de facto national sport and a source of immense pride. Following the death of former South East Asian Games silver medallist Panphet Phadungchai after an elbow strike in July last year, there are growing calls for more safety regulation. Regular paid fights have long been one route out of poverty for children from rural Thailand, but the death of a 13-year-old in a bout in 2018 caused outrage in the kingdom. Youngsters can earn hundreds of dollars a fight from promoters and gamblers, but the bouts often take place outside any regulatory framework and without protective equipment. Despite the safety concerns, traditionalists are reluctant to bring in more safety measures as they believe it will dilute the character of the sport.

Muay Thai, Tradition vs Safety

Stilt fishermen community. The practice started during World War II when food shortages and overcrowded fishing spots prompted some clever men to try fishing on the water. This picture was taken on the northern coast of India.

The brick field workers of Bangladesh start work early in the morning, when some of the workers make bricks while others carry them. A worker who makes between 1,000 and 1,500 bricks a day gets only 500 Tk (4.67 USD), which is barely enough to feed their families. The black smoke and dust in the brick fields have a severe impact on the workers’ health. They enter the body  through the nose, mouth and ears affecting various parts of the body, especially the lungs. The workers get no social security benefits from the authorities. Most importantly, their basic human rights, such as the right to healthcare and education, are violated. According to Bangladesh Human Rights Commission (BHRC) and Department of Labor, brick field workers do not live long due to various health problems, including lung diseases.

A man rows his boat along the banks of the Yamuna River in New Delhi. Migratory birds come to India for the winter. They get to different parts of the country by October and usually leave in March.

Farmers are processing jute in the lake. Jute sticks are left in fresh water for weeks so that the outer skin decomposes and peeling the fiber becomes easier. The sticks take on different colors depending on the  stage of decomposition, which looks beautiful from above.

Demothanasia is the process by which political actions or omissions lead to the disappearance of a territory's population. Death by depopulation is slow and silent. It is merciless with territory, nature and heritage. The situation is no less dramatic for the people who live or, rather, resist in rural areas. Europe is the most ageing continent in the world. One of the regions most affected by ageing according to Eurostat is Galicia. There is a high percentage of elderly people with a lack of residential autonomy or with a certain degree of dependency who are reluctant to leave the land where they have lived all their lives. They live alone where care and assistance are conspicuous by their absence. Administrations fail to provide sufficient resources and the political actors involved display a passivity to the point of implicit violence, leading to extremely worrying social contexts. A large part of the ageing population is abandoned in these areas with a lack of care.

Demothanasia

According to IPCC reports, Thailand and Indonesia have been classified among the most vulnerable countries to climate change. The oceans’ health in this area is in serious decline: climate change-related phenomena and anthropological stressors, such as pollution and overfishing practices, have destroyed 40% of coral reefs, while fish stocks continue to decline and consumption patterns remain unsustainable. These and other pressures exacerbate climate-induced ocean acidification and warming and weaken the capacity of the oceans to mitigate the impact of climate change, also threatening the fishing industry on which 200 million people in the Indo-Pacific depend for food and jobs. Symbiosis demonstrates the interconnectedness of climate change-related issues, investigating the direct effect of these phenomena on the marine environment, and highlighting the positive solutions that both local communities and scientific authorities are implementing to preserve the health of the marine ecosystem for our future.

Symbiosis

The Northern Sea Route stretches from the Kara Strait in the west to the Bering Strait in the east. The harsh ice conditions and severe Arctic climate are the main obstacles to navigation in the region. The Arctic summer is short, but during the warmer months, the Mikhail Somov, a legendary diesel-electric vessel, manages to make two voyages. The entire route, with all the drop-off points, is carefully thought-out. Most of the stops are located on steep, rocky shores. Others are located in the shallow waters of the northern seas. In such cases, an Mi-8 helicopter from the 2nd Arkhangelsk United Aviation Division comes to help deliver the cargo.

Northern Sea Route

During the winter season, the water in rivers gets dried up and mosses begin to pop up from underneath. People from the rural areas, who rely on fishing for their daily wages, tend to catch fish in this mossy river. They start very early in the morning, before any other boatman began catching fish at a bulk level and then they sell their catch in the local market to earn a daily wage. They even fish in groups, using different kinds of fishing nets in various processes, to catch a large number of fish in one go. Afterwards, they sell the entire catch and divide the wages equally among them.

Fishing in Mossy river

In biology, imago is the last stage of an insect during its metamorphosis. In psychology, the concept was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung and denotes a subconscious mental archetype through which we see other people. This picture of a passer-by with an earflaps hat, face mask and wings reminds me of a tired archangel who lives next door.

A man is meditating in a secret waterfall in Maharashtra.

Ajab Muhammad Miftah, 54, poses for a portrait in her house in the village of Ezbat Soliman, Fayoum, Egypt, on September 22, 2022. The hands supporting her belong to her daughters, who have been supporting her since she lost her husband and two of her young sons in a microbus accident during their trip to Aswan. In order to make a living, fishermen make the trip from the Fayoum governorate to Lake Nasser in the Aswan governorate, which is more than 825 km from Fayoum. It became a trip of death after they had to abandon Lake Qarun, where they used to fish, due to the pollution in the area.

A miner pushes a chrome wagon. Miners risk their lives every day for a monthly salary of around $350.

Abdul Latief, 62, has been a fisherman for 37 years. Since the sea has penetrated deeper inland, the wind became stronger and fish are harder to find. Nowadays he spends more money on fuel for his boat than what he can earn. His house flooded for the first time in 2008 and since then he has already elevated it twice, in 2009 and 2019. Today floods are getting higher but Abdul hasn't got enough money to elevate his house again. His family wants to move inland but for Abdul fishing is his life.

Around 650,000 people in France have Autism Spectrum Disorders — it is definitely becoming essential to understand them and listen to them. Only 0.5% of these people could work in an ordinary environment, which obviously delays any inclusion strategy. A disconcerting reality when we know that learning and socialization are the only real ways to build an independent future. French photographer Lucie Hodiesne Darras knows this reality well. This is evidenced by her documentary series Lilou, started in 2018, in which she captures the daily life of her brother Antoine, who has ASD. "Lilou is the nickname we gave my brother Antoine, who is now 34 years old. He is an exceptional person, living in a world different from ours." Through this visual ensemble, we can discover its fantastic protagonist, a complex person full of life. Incredibly poignant, the Lilou images communicate the diversity of emotions that run through his life.

Lilou, an inside view of autism

This is a series of portraits resulting from the "Women of the Dump" project, which tells the story of women and their families who survive thanks to the largest landfills in the city of Bujumbura. Most are either widowed or abandoned by their husbands. They earn their living by collecting charcoal, bones, plastic bottles, basins,plastic seals, and scrap metal, which they resell and manage to earn around 2000 Fbu per day, or about $1 per day. On the other hand, they feed directly from the landfill (if they are lucky, of course). They are queens. Strong in their tenacity in the face of adversity, they survive the ups and downs of everyday life on their own and manage, for better or worse, to take care of their children andtheir families. Managing to live on nothing is a miracle, and women in the dump do it every day. These are queens who are asleep at the moment.

Sleeping Queens

My uncle Carlos is 53 years old. Since birth, he has suffered from schizophrenia and has severe developmental delay, which seriously affects his mental health. The situation became even worse when he reached adolescence. This is when his problems and symptoms became apparent and began to affect his daily life. Today, after several decades, the reality is critical, the desire to take his own life is increasing, there are fewer and fewer days when he steps on the sidewalk, he cannot talk the way he did before, sadness grows and hope diminishes with every passing day. His only light in the morning is my mom, my two brothers and me. We are the only reason why he has the strength to keep walking the path of madness, why he swallows hundreds of pills a week, dares to get up, turn on the radio and change the shirt he has been wearing for a month. I have been visiting his house for 18 years, and one day he woke me up to tell me about his life, his mind, how a person with mental health problems lives, feels and thinks.

Lito

Bauls are a group of itinerant mystic singers who have been wandering from one Bengali village to another for centuries, extolling the ways of love. This unique community has a rich cultural heritage that developed over a long period. Their way of life has formed through direct and indirect interactions of ritualistic and cultural folk beliefs and ideas. The word Baul literally means "mentally disturbed," with a connotation of frenzied behavior. The Bauls, "God's Madmen," follow no doctrine and preach no religion. On the contrary, they stand against all forms of social or religious sectarianism. Freedom of the spirit is theirs by-word. They are known for their unconventional lifestyle and a different approach to religion. The true beauty of the Baul lies in their free spirit. They do not believe in rules and regulations that are part of orthodox religions.

The Unchained Bird