Students perform a traditional dance during the Onam festival celebrations in Chennai on August 25, 2023. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

An internally displaced Afghan girl holds a child at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2016. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

Guardian of the Mangroves – Overall Winner. Tanya Houppermans, Cuba. A curious American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) swims right up to Tanya, at Gardens of the Queen (Jardines De La Reina), an archipelago off the coast of Cuba. It has been strictly protected since 1996, and is one of the most untouched marine ecosystems in the world. ‍ “The healthy population of American crocodiles is down to the pristine condition of the mangroves and I wanted to capture close ups of this gentle giant in its natural habitat. I hope this image can illustrate that protecting areas like this is so critical”. (Photo by Tanya Griffin Houppermans/Mangrove Photographer of the Year)

Bangladeshi farmers busy to processing jute in Dhamrai outskirts of Dhaka on July 06, 2020. (Photo by Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A woman poses for a picture near an ice hole as a man takes a dip during celebrations of the Orthodox Christian feast of Epiphany in the settlement of Ivanovskoye in the Moscow region, Russia on January 19, 2022. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Indian girls apply colored powder on each other as they wear protective masks as a precautionary measure against coronavirus, during Holi festival celebrations in Bhopal, India, 26 March 2021. Holi marks the beginning of the spring season. Holi will be celebrated as the Hindu spring festival of colors across the country on 29 March. (Photo by Sanjeev Gupta/EPA/EFE)

A woman drives a scooter with her dog in Hanoi on December 10, 2021, as Vietnamese officials in the central city of Hoi An announced it was set to be the country's first dog and cat meat free city. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)