Our collection of amazing images from around the world.

Amazing images that celebrate the beauty and diversity of the incredible world we all share.

LONDON, ENGLAND

Santa Claus greets Jaythan Corbacho with an elbow bump during the Selfridges 2020 Christmas Shop ‘Once Upon a Christmas’ photocall at Selfridges department store on Oxford Street in London. There is still a measure of uncertainty around what Santa visits will be available across Europe this year as a result of new restrictions caused by the ‘second wave’ of COVID-19. But, like most of us affected by the pandemic, Father Christmas is embracing technology and offering live video calls from the North Pole. Santa schools in the UK have also been training Father Christmas in social distancing and the use of PPE.

In Australia, Santa visits are currently ‘on’ but will most likely be different to the traditional cosy chat. In some states at least – if not all – visitors to Santa will not sit on his knee but will sit on their own chair to talk about their Christmas wishes. The usual portrait photograph will likely be replaced with a landscape shot to accommodate social distancing.

The world’s first Christmas grotto opened in the Bon Marche Department Store in Liverpool, England, in 1879 and was called ‘Christmas Fairyland’.

In the US, the first ‘department store Santa’ appeared in 1890. Scottish immigrant James Edgar, who owned a small department store in Brockton, Massachussetts, loved dressing up and so had a special suit made based on illustrations of Santa Claus he had seen. He paraded through the store, delighting children and spreading joy. By the turn of the century, visits to ‘Santa’ were widespread throughout the US.

GANJA, AZERBAIJAN

A man carries geese on top of his car as he drives on a highway towards the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan. A simmering, decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has recently exploded into the worst fighting the area had seen since an ethnic war in the 1990s. Officially, the 4,400 km² territory is part of Azerbaijan, but is home to ethnic Armenians, and is known by its Russian name, which translates to ‘mountainous Karabakh’.

Skirmishes have been common for years along the front lines, which is considered one of the world’s most militarised borders. Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, lies 100km from the frontlines of Nagorno-Karabakh, but that didn’t save it from being shelled as both sides in the conflict have been using drones and powerful long-range artillery. Despite ceasefire efforts, Turkey’s direct support of Azerbaijan, in an area of traditional Russian influence, risks turning the local dispute into a regional one. Both Russia and France have supported Armenia’s claim that Turkey deployed Syrian militants to Nagorno-Karabakh, similar to the nation’s recent intervention in Libya.

But life goes on, even when nations are embroiled in armed conflicts, and this man has been photographed for more than 10 years taking his geese for drives such as this. Whether he is heading to markets in the city has never been explained.