Commuters hang off a local passenger train in the morning in Colombo, Sri Lanka September 8, 2016. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/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)

Afghan children play soccer in front of the war-damaged Darul Aman Palace in the suburbs of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, June 8, 2011. (Photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP Photo)

A performer dances in the Chinese New Year parade in Sydney on February 17, 2013. The parade featured more than 3,500 performers from Australia and China, including 120 performers from Shenzhen, Sydney's offical partner city for this year's festival. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)

A youth rolls a hoop in the National Theater where families displaced by gang violence are taking shelter in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 9, 2024. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

Villagers wade through a flooded road following heavy rains after cyclone Remal's landfall at Singi Mari village of Nagaon district, in India's Assam state on May 29, 2024. A powerful cyclone that smashed into low-lying Bangladesh and India killed at least 65 people, including in torrential rain storms in its wake, state government officials and media said on May 29. (Photo by Biju Boro/AFP Photo)

India's Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel assists a dog to perform a stunt during the celebrations to mark country's Independence Day, in Chennai on August 15, 2025. (Photo by R.Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

An Indonesian man displays his collection of rings with various gemstones at an exhibition and competition of the best gemstone at a mall in Jakarta on August 6, 2015. The recent fad of collecting rings with precious gemstone or polished gemstone locally called “batu akik” is sweeping across Indonesia, with collectors going for the very rare stones and it's possession many believe will give the owner supernatural power. (Photo by Bay Ismoyo/AFP Photo)