Alex Prager is an American art photographer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her photographs primarily use staged actors, models and extras to create “meticulously designed mise en scène”, often described as film-like and hyperreal. “Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive” is at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, 15 June – 14 October 2018. Here: The Big Valley, Susie and Friends, 2008. (Photo by Alex Prager Studio/Lehmann Maupin Gallery)

Runner-up. “The heavens opened and the streets around Shibuya, Tokyo, were suddenly drenched in even more colour and movement. I was taking photos (my friend was holding the umbrella) when I noticed this woman at the crossing. I’m pleased with the futuristic feel of the image”. (Photo by Katherine Bridgestock/The Guardian)

A person walks their dog in the morning mist at sunrise in Greenwich Park in south London on November 9, 2020. (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP Photo)

Wayne Painter, 70, saw the sun set beneath lenticular clouds 20km wide in Tasmania, Australia in November 2021. Some likened the image to a near-miss with Mars. (Photo by Wayne Painter/Kennedy News)

Icelandic horses graze on a meadow at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, September 1, 2025. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

A hint of Spring Fever is evidenced by this passerby tipping his hat to a store fixture mannequin on a State St. sidewalk in downtown Chicago on March 23, 1978. The mannequin was awaiting pickup to be transported. (Photo by AP Photo)

An Oriental Garden Lizard sits on a tree in Gauhati, India, Tuesday, April 16, 2019. During the breeding season, the male lizard's head and throat turn a bright color. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

A woman in a USA sash, who would help show U.S. President Barack Obama to his seat, waits with other women in traditional dress for the start of the ASEAN Summit gala dinner in Vientiane, Laos September 7, 2016. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)