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)

Indonesian residents look at the Mount Sinabung volcano as it spews volcanic ash near the Tiga Pancur village in Karo, North Sumatra on August 3, 2016. Volcanic eruptions in Indonesia in recent days have forced the closure of two airports and disrupted some flights to the holiday island of Bali, officials said August 3. Mount Sinabung, a volcano on the western island of Sumatra which has been rumbling for some time, also erupted violently on August 2, although its ash clouds did not disrupt any flights. (Photo by Y.T. Haryono/AFP Photo)

Soviet cosmonaut and the first man to travel in space, Yury Alekseyvich Gagarin (1934–1968) arriving in London for a Russian trade fair. (Photo by Douglas Miller/Getty Images)

A Kashmiri woman walks on a footbridge as it rains in Srinagar, June 24, 2015. This year's monsoon rains in India are officially forecast to be only 88 percent of the long-term average. (Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

A man from Dinka tribe holds his AK-47 rifle in front of cows in a Dinka cattle herders camp near Rumbek, capital of the Lakes State in central South Sudan December 14, 2013. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A vendor (C) cuts slaughtered dogs for sale at his roadside stall in Duong Noi village, outside Hanoi December 16, 2011. While animal rights activists have condemned eating dog meat as cruel treatment of the animals, it is still an accepted popular delicacy for some Vietnamese, as well in some other Asian countries. Duong Noi is well-known as a dog-meat village, where hundreds of dogs are killed each day for sale as popular traditional food. Dog-eating as a custom is rooted in Vietnam and was developed as a result of poverty. One kilogram of dog meat costs about 130,000 dongs ($6.2). (Photo by Reuters/Kham)

A Poison Ivy and Boba Fet (Star Wars) cosplayer during the MCM Birmingham Comic Con at NEC Arena on March 18, 2017 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Ollie Millington/Getty Images)

A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activist with her body painted promotes veganism in Bangkok April 21, 2016. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)