Natural world and wildlife shortlist. Lop Buri in Thailand is home to hundreds of macaques, which local residents consider to be disciples of the Hindu god Hanuman. While some people love them, others fear or even hate them. Despite the inconvenience they often cause, the macaques are generally respected and considered sacred. (Photo by Joan de la Malla/Sony World Photography Awards)

A local resident dressed as Yamraj or Hindu god of death, wearing a novel coronavirus-themed balloon necklace, gestures as he poses during an awareness about social distancing and staying at home organised by Delhi police during a nationwide lockdown to slow the spreading of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New Delhi, India, April 28, 2020. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Believers bathe in the icy water during a traditional Epiphany at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Ostankino near TV Tower in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, January 18, 2023. Across Russia, the devout and the daring are observing the Orthodox Christian feast day of Epiphany by immersing themselves in frigid water through holes cut through the ice of lakes and rivers. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God through his baptism in the River Jordan. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Tip Toland is a sculptor and instructor living in the Seattle, Washington area. Her current focus is figurative ceramic sculpture. Tip is represented by the Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York City.

Photo: “Letter to God”, 2011. Stoneware, paint, chalk pastel, hair. (Photo by Tip Toland/Marie-Andrée Côté)

Doctor Boaz Zissu of the Bar Ilan University shows the inscription on a 2,000-year-old ossuary at the Rockefeller Museum on June 30, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority have confirmed the credibility of the ancient ossuary, otherwise known as a stone chest in which to store bones, as bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas from the New Testament. Laboratory tests have come back saying that the inscription with the name of “Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri” is both “genuine and ancient”. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

A Nihang Sikh, belonging to the Sikh warrior clan, performs Gatka, a form of Sikh martial arts, during a religious procession marking the 350th martyrdom anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji in New Delhi, India, 25 November 2025. The procession commemorates the martyrdom of the 9th Sikh Guru, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, who was executed in 1675 AD for refusing to convert to Islam on the orders of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The event is observed at Gurudwara Sis Ganj in Delhi. Guru Tegh Bahadur, the youngest of the five sons of Guru Hargobind, was born in Amritsar in 1621. (Photo by Rajat Gupta/EPA)

In this February 1, 2017 photo, Anjali Lama, a transgender model from Nepal, looks at her mobile phone backstage during Lakme Fashion week in Mumbai, India. Growing up as the fifth son in a poor farming family in rural Nepal the dream to be a fashion model came late in life.(Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

A sacrificial bull decorated for sale stands at its feed trough at the animal market on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, September 22, 2015. Muslims across the world are preparing to celebrate the annual festival of Eid al-Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which marks the end of the annual haj pilgrimage, by slaughtering goats, sheep, cows and camels in commemoration of the Prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to Allah. (Photo by Faisal Mahmood/Reuters)