Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

Picture shows a mural painting in Ferrol, on September 2, 2018, during the annual street art festival “Meninas de Canido” set up in 2008 to breathe new life in a dying neighborhood. Angry at the announced death of his neighborhood, Canido, in Ferrol, Eduardo Hermida painted his version of Velazquez's “Meninas” on a wall. An act of protest that gave birth to a festival and gave new colors to this city of Galicia. (Photo by Miguel Riopa/AFP Photo)

A Palestinian man sits on a damaged car following Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Heavy airstrikes pummeled a street in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, destroying ramshackle homes with corrugated metal roofs nearby. The military said it struck two underground launchers in the camp used to fire rockets at Tel Aviv. (Photo by Khalil Hamra/AP Photo)

A man rides a bicycle by a graffiti under the “Old Sava bridge” over Sava river in Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (Photo by Darko Vojinovic/AP Photo)

Members of the Paraguay-African cultural group Kamba Cua dance during celebrations in honor of Saint Balthazar, one of the Three Kings, on Epiphany in Fernando de la Mora, Paraguay, late Saturday, January 8, 2022, just days after the official holiday. The annual procession is a tradition that keeps Paraguay's Afro-descendants connected with their African roots through ancestral dance, drumming and customs. (Photo by Jorge Saenz/AP Photo)

A Palestinian youth washes his horse at a Mediterranean Sea beach in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on September 27, 2022. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP Photo)

Dancers perform during a rehearsal for the “2023 Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” at St. Paul the Apostle Church on Thursday, October 19, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

Mother and son in disguise attend a Halloween celebration at Taipei Children's Amusement Park in Taipei, Taiwan, Sunday, October 29, 2023. (Photo by Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo)