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)

Women are reflected in a puddle as they walk across Red Square in Moscow, Russia on April 26, 2018. (Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP Photo)

A red squirrel leaps over a gray squirrel after the larger squirrel became annoyed with its territory being encroached upon, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Freeport, Maine. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

Gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica celebrates after the Women's 100m Final during the 18th edition of the World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, United States on July 17, 2022. (Photo by Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters)

A reveller takes part in the “Free Parade” during LGBTIQ Pride Month in Porto Alegre, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil on June 12, 2022. (Photo by Diego Vara/Reuters)

A cosplayer poses during New York Comic Con 2023 – Day 4 at Javits Center on October 15, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for ReedPop)

Catholic faithful attend a Palm Sunday mass at the start of Holy Week in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, Sunday, March 24, 2024. (Photo by Jorge Saenz/AP Photo)

A cygnet keeps snug under its mother’s wing at Heronry Pond in Wanstead Park in east London in the last decade of May 2024. (Photo by Jeff Moore/The Times)