Nyaueth by Peter Zelewski – £2,000 third prize winner. This was taken near London’s Oxford Street as part of Zelewski’s series Beautiful Strangers. Zelewski explains: ‘The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous street portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a special inner quality’. (Photo by Peter Zelewski/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Pernille Ferdinandsen receives a neck tattoo from Peter Madsen during the third Copenhagen Ink Festival which opened Thursday May 9, 2013 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the biggest tattoo festival in Northern Europe. During the three days, 180 of the world's best and most celebrated national and international tattoo artists show the audience their skills in making art on the body and tattoo's on the audience. (Photo by Lars Krabbe/AP Photo)

“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

Residents display scarecrows with an NHS theme outside their homes in Greenfield for the annual scarecrow parade on April 09, 2020 in Manchester, United Kingdom. There have been around 60,000 reported cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United Kingdom and 7,000 deaths. The country is in its third week of lockdown measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. (Photo by Anthony Devlin/Getty Images)

Britain's Queen Elizabeth, second left, sits next to fashion editor Anna Wintour, third left, and Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council (BFC) as they view Richard Quinn's runway show before presenting him with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, as she visits London Fashion Week's BFC Show Space in central London, Tuesday, February 20, 2018. (Photo by Yui Mok/Pool photo via AP Photo)

Girl scouts pose for a group photo at the third station of the Way of the Cross reenactment marking Good Friday, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, March 30, 2018. Thousands of Haitians are commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by reenacting the Way of the Cross, visiting the 14 stations, each marking an event that befell Jesus Christ on his final journey. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo)

Girl in newari attire makes a funny face to her friend as she performs a Mass Bel Bibaha (marriage) ceremony in Bhaktapur, Bagmati, Nepal on December 7, 2021. The two-day ceremony, usually held several times a year, sees pre-adolescent “marry” the Hindu deity, Vishnu, symbolised by the local “bael” (wood apple) fruit. Normally Newar girls marry thrice time in there life as first marriage with Bael fruit, second with sun and third with human. (Photo by Amit Machamasi/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News)

Wags the dog wears a button featuring a photo of the moment after the attempted assassination on former president Donald Trump outside the Fiserv Forum during the third day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17, 2024. Days after he survived an assassination attempt Donald Trump won formal nomination as the Republican presidential candidate and picked Ohio US Senator J.D. Vance for running mate. (Photo by Nick Oxford/AFP Photo)