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)

The Öresund or Øresund Bridge is a double-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel across the Øresund strait between Scania (southernmost Sweden) and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 km (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm, which lies in the middle of the strait. The remainder of the link is by a 4 km (2.5 mile) tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager. The Øresund Bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe, and connects two major metropolitan areas: Copenhagen, the Danish capital city, and the major Swedish city of Malmö. It connects the road and rail networks of Scandinavia with those of Central and Western Europe.

In this handout image provided by Red Bull, Artem Silchenko of Russia dives from the 27 metre platform at training on Hong Island in the Andaman Sea during the final stop of the 2013 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series on October 25, 2013 at Krabi, Thailand. (Photo by Romina Amato/Red Bull via Getty Images)

The Atlantic Ocean Road or the Atlantic Road (Norwegian: Atlanterhavsveien) is a 8.3-kilometer (5.2 mi) long section of County Road 64 that runs through an archipelago in Eide and Averøy in Møre og Romsdal, Norway. It passes by Hustadvika, an unsheltered part of the Norwegian Sea, connecting the island of Averøy with the mainland and Romsdalshalvoya peninsula. It runs between the villages of Karvag on Averoy and Vevang in Eida. It is built on several small islands and skerries, which are connected by several causeways, viaducts and eight bridges – the most prominent being Storseisundet Bridge.

A lovely sunrise in at the beachfront of Playa de Muro, Alcudia on the island of Mallorca, Majorca, Spain on May 16, 2022. As a road cyclist walks his road bike along a wooden jetty heading out into the calm waters. (Photo by Phil Wilkinson/Alamy Live News)

A horse rears in the crowd during the traditional San Juan (Saint John) festival in the town of Ciutadella, on the Balearic Island of Minorca, on the eve of Saint John's day on June 23, 2022. (Photo by Jaime Reina/AFP Photo)

A pedestrian reacts as she caught a gust of wind while walking down the famed “Kokusai-dori” street, a tourist spot, in Naha in the main Okinawa island, southern Japan, Thursday, June 1, 2023, as a tropical storm was approaching. (Photo by Hiro Komae/AP Photo)

A girl plays at the West Side Hallo Fest, a Halloween festival in Bucharest, Romania, Friday, October 27, 2023. Tens of thousands streamed last weekend to Bucharest's Angels' Island peninsula for what was the biggest Halloween festival in the Eastern European nation since the fall of Communism. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)