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)

A massive positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike hits in Coolidge, Arizona, 31 August 2016. Thousands of rain drops merge to form mammoth travelling sheets of water in these breathtaking monsoons. Veteran storm chaser and photographer Mike Olbinski captured the stunning beauty of monsoons in timelapses and stills while chasing storm systems across America. (Photo by Mike Olbinski/Barcroft Images)

An artist has created a homage to cultural and historical figures – by immortalising them as Star Wars characters. Mike Leavitt wanted to “document the pulse of our times” through his sculpture by splicing non-fiction characters with famous faces. He chose the sci-fi trilogy as a basis for what he calls his “pop culture satirical mash-ups”, with many of the pieces hand-carved from wood. The hilarious results include Albert Einstein as R2D2, Michael Jackson as an Ewok and Angelina Jolie in Princess Leia's famous slave girl outfit. Photo: Gandhi as Yoda. (Photo by Mike Leavitt/Rex USA)

«Sing»

The story of 20 children born or living with illness or health conditions is being told by Toronto photographer and artist Shawn Van Daele, by transforming their drawings into magical photographs.

“Anne Sudworth is a British artist internationally known for her paintings of magical trees and haunting moonlit landscapes”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Anne Sudworth – “Gowrim Idhree”.

A dramatic sunset acts as a backdrop to Stonehenge on November 20, 2008 in Stonehenge, England. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

American film director Mike Todd and his actress wife Elizabeth Taylor get into a spat after missing their flight from London to Nice on June 22, 1957. (Photo by AP Photo)