Underwater photographer of the year – winner. Dancing Octopus by Gabriel Barathieu (France). Location: Island of Mayotte, off the coast of south-east Africa. “Balletic and malevolent”, one judge said of this octopus, hunting in a lagoon. Barathieu waited until spring tides when there was just 30cm of water on the flats and plenty of light in the shallows. (Photo by Gabriel Barathieu/UPY2017)

Wildlife category, open shortlist. “Buffaloes and stars”. This picture, taken at Zimanga game reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, used an in-camera multiple exposure, with the first lit for the buffaloes and the second focused on the stars. (Photo and caption by Andreas Hemb/2017 Sony World Photography Awards)

A girl calls to her mom as she stands near a dead whale on the shore Monday morning, April 25, 2016, on the cobblestone beach at Lower Trestles on San Onofre State Beach, just south of San Clemente, Calif. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/The Orange County Register via AP Photo)

Visitors and car enthusiasts attend the annual Goodwood Revival historic motor racing festival, celebrating a mid-twentieth century heyday of the racing circuit, near Chichester in south England, Britain, September 9, 2016. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

A group of hikers atop Mount St. Helens on July 21, 2016. Mount St. Helens or Louwala-Clough is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is 96 miles south of Seattle, Washington, and 50 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Raxit Kagalwala)

With the humpback calving season drawing to a close, here’s a look at some of Rita Kluge’s distinctive marine photos from the south Pacific. The Sydney-based photographer fell in love with whales after witnessing southern rights from the New South Wales coastline as they travelled to and from their feeding grounds in the Antarctic. She has since been to Tonga, where humpbacks breed and calf in winter months, to photograph them in the water. (Photo by Rita Kluge/The Guardian)

Michael O’Neill won a prize in animal portraits with fry of a peacock bass hovering around their mother for protection against predators in South Florida. (Photo by Michael Patrick O'Neill/2016 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year)

A man assist trucks carry palm oil fruit on a damaged road at Mesuji Raya village in Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra province, Indonesia, January 11, 2017. (Photo by Budi Candra Setya/Reuters/Antara Foto)