Pinning a purple flower into her bleach blonde hair, pretty Ava admired herself in the mirror. She had every reason to be proud. In the space of a year, she had lost an incredible 17 stone. Her weight dropped from 37st 1lbs to 19st 7lbs, and she slipped into a dress before gazing at her newly svelte figure. With her smokey eye makeup and black skater dress, she could have been glamming up for a night on the tiles with her girlfriends. Instead, it was Halloween, 2013, and Ava was hiding a huge secret. Born a boy named William, it was the first time she had ever dressed as a girl – and everything fell into place.
A photographer from the United Arab Emirates travelled to Pakistan where he captured the lives of local people in a series of expressive portraits .
SITTING in the middle of a vast desert, an abandoned cinema is still waiting for its first movie to be screened .
WITH his spiked ears and yellow and blue body, a colourful monkey bears an uncanny resemblance to Marvel Comics’ Wolverine .
FULL OF STUNNING colours and swirling shapes, the furrows on these fields create a mix of mesmerising patterns .
TRYING their best to wriggle away, three adorable tiger cubs receive their health checks at Chester Zoo .
A diver explores the crystal clear waters of the Silfra canyon in southern Iceland, which is the only place on Earth where you can dive or snorkel between two continental plates .
FROM KISSING an alligator on the nose to walking over broken glass, this fearless daredevil is a real life female JACKASS .
FROM motorcycling to department store shopping these spookily faceless people are part of the Chinese-fad for wearing protective solar-visors in public .
FROM COLOURFUL autumn leaves to living trees at first glance you might miss these people blended with nature .
A quiet Himalayan mountain village springs to life for a colourful Buddhist festival designed to expel evil spirits and bring happiness .
Sam Notaro built his own flood defences to protect his four-bedroom home in Moorland, Somerset Flooding is likely to get worse around Somerset as groundwater levels continue to rise .
A young orangutan comes over all shy as she hides her face behind a broken bucket .