SPLIT, Croatia — The 2019 Cigar Smoking World Championships, now in their 10th year, saw over 120 competitors gathereto determine who could smoke a cigar the slowest. Photographed for The New York Times.

PAMPLONA, Spain — José Luis Martín Moro preserves each of the sixty bulls that are killed at Pamplona's San Fermin festival every year, to be bought by a clientele that includes toreros, runners, businesses and aficionados. Photographed for The New York Times.

WEISSENSEE, Austria — The Elfstedentocht is a legendary Dutch speed skating race and a victim of global warming: it hasn't been held in 22 years; the longest such period since its inception. Since 1989, organizers have held an "Alternative Elfstedentocht" race in Weissensee, Austria, where the ice is reliably thick enough to skate the grueling, 200km tour. Photographed for The New York Times

BONDY, France — The vast sprawl of suburbs and satellite towns around Paris, disdained by some as a breeding ground for crime and terrorism, is home to the greatest pool of soccer talent in Europe. The banlieues of Bondy and Sarcelles produced Kylian Mbappé and Riyad Mahrez, respectively. Photographed forThe New York Times.

PARIS, France — Rafael Nadal may be the king of clay court tennis, but Roland Garros' groundskeepers are the true artists. “They know the feeling of sliding. They know the feeling of playing,” Fabien Tiquet, a towering groundskeeper, says of the competitors. “What happens underneath, they don’t know.” Photographs + text on the crew that prepares the French Open's iconic clay courts forThe New York Times.

It’s 4am, and I’m standing in a partially-demolished abandoned building 40 kilometers outside of Kyiv, Ukraine. Broken glass, splintered wood, and rotting pieces of insulation are everywhere. Fifty feet above the rubble-strewn floor, a man free climbs a metal girder, flashlight clenched in his teeth. The place is swarming with teams of Ukrainian men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 50, armed with walkie-talkies, headlamps, and utility belts, and all looking for something: a 2-inch code or phrase that’s been stenciled somewhere. Or a set of numbers that can only be read under a blacklight. Or a seemingly disconnected phone that, once picked up, transmits instructions to the listener. This is Quest, one version of a popular set of games invented in Eastern Europe and referred to varyingly as “Encounters,” “Quests” or “Night Races,” depending on the format. The games tend to defy comparison to western games, but one legend implies that the founder was inspired by David Fincher’s 1997 classic “The Game.” While each of the myriad formats are unique in their own way, they all share the same basic framework. Teams of players on site (typically with access to a car) work with additional players online to solve puzzles and progress through the game. While easier games may last just a few hours, the more complex permutations can last entire days and span hundreds of kilometers. Organizers utilise disused factories, decommissioned military installations and abandoned buildings, of which there is no shortage in the former Soviet Union, to host their games which often include over a hundred players.