Since AFP opened a bureau in Pyongyang in September, Seoul-based photographer Ed Jones has been thinking of ways to try to change the stereotypical images that are normally associated with North Korea -- a military parade, or a fleeting photo captured surreptitiously from the window of a bus.

"The idea of a portrait series seemed a good solution that would involve the subjects themselves – a difficult proposition in North Korea where there is an inherent suspicion of foreign media," he writes.

"Sometimes when you’re photographing war, you come across a scene that takes you away from your life as a human being, to another one which has nothing to do with humanity," writes Yemen photographer Mohammed Huwais.

"The massacre at a funeral ceremony in Sanaa a few months ago was such a scene. I found myself staring at a human inferno that I have never seen, even in horror movies."