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)

Afghan children play soccer in front of the war-damaged Darul Aman Palace in the suburbs of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, June 8, 2011. (Photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP Photo)

In this Wednesday, July 20, 2016 photo, a child carries kettles through a flooded street with a woman in Tianjin, China. China says dozens of people have died or gone missing since Monday in massive floods across the country's north. (Photo by Chinatopix via AP Photo)

A woman stands at the door of her shanty at a slum in Mumbai, India July 20, 2016. (Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

Canadian singer Avril Lavigne leaves little to the imagination wearing a see-through top as she and boyfriend Mod Sun arrive at a friend's house in Calabasas, CA. with Avril's dog on July 14, 2021. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

A caiman in the Pantanal region of Brazil in 2021. They are used to seeing humans, allowing the photographer, Leighton Lum, a close-up shot. (Photo by Leighton Lum/Caters News Agency)

India's Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel assists a dog to perform a stunt during the celebrations to mark country's Independence Day, in Chennai on August 15, 2025. (Photo by R.Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

A pupil arrives on the first day of school at Yas American Academy in Abu Dhabi in the last decade of August 2025. (Photo by Victor Besa/The National)