Tony North; First place, Breathing Spaces; Overall Winner; Blue Tajinaste, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. “Echium thyrsiflorum is endemic to the mountains of La Palma island – from high up, there was a magnificent view of both the caldera below, and the stars above. The Unesco La Palma biosphere reserve encompasses the entire island, with the Caldera de Taburiente containing mountains with a highest peak of 2,426 metres – the Roque de los Muchachos”. (Photo by Tony North/IGPOTY)

Lightning strikes as smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. The death toll from the unprecedented assault by Palestinian militant group Hamas on its territory rose to 900 in Israel, which has retaliated with a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza, raising the death toll there to 687. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP Photo)

A wild leopard runs on the stairs as it tries to escape from a compound of a house in Kathmandu, Nepal June 1, 2016. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Ja Kang Song, 71, and Ja Hyun Su, 72, dive for shellfish and are the main breadwinners for their families. In South Korea, 45% of the diving women of Jeju are over the age of 70. Routinely diving to depths of 20m and staying under for an average of two to three minutes, the pressure on the body takes its toll and, like many others, burst eardrums have left Ja Hyun Su deaf. Each season, between seven and 10 women die diving the waters around Jeju Island. (Photo by Andy W. Langton/Age International)

Night lovers; Hormozgan province, Iran. “In this picture, you can see the Milky Way rising on a fascinating spring night on the Persian Gulf coast. The stunning cliffs of this area make every viewer imagine and even talk to them! The light pollution from a faraway city was quite strong, so it was a challenging post-processing process. I’m a nightscaper who tries to achieve an artistic look in my images, and in this image, I tried to convey and capture the magic of this location”. (Photo by Mohammad Hayati/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)

A greater bird of paradise (Paradisaea apoda) displaying in Badigaki Forest, Wokam Island (Aru Islands, Indonesia). Found here in Aru and on adjacent New Guinea, the greater bird of paradise represents about 40 different species of birds of paradise that depend on intact rainforest across the New Guinea region spanning eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. With more than 80% of forest cover still intact, this region represents the largest remaining block of rainforest in the entire Asia-Pacific. (Photo by Tim Laman/naturepl.com/LDY Agency)

A delegate dressed in a furry Lion costume walks across a Zebra crossing to the convention centre at the Eurofurence convention in Berlin on August 17, 2017. Some 2700 delegates are taking part in the 3-day-long Eurofurence in the German capital, the worlds oldest active Furry-convention for people dressing up in furry costumes. (Photo by Odd Andersen/AFP Photo)

A seagull files over a man sitting at a coffee shop backdropped by the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul, Tuesday, November 17, 2020. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)