“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

Brown-throated sloth called “43”, rescued by Juan Carlos Rodriguez and his wife Haydee in a residential area, waits in the kennel getting prepared for being released, at the couple's shelter for sloths, in San Antonio, Venezuela on July 30, 2021. (Photo by Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)

Amateur astronomer Bill Snyder has been involved with astrophotography since 2007. Photo: The Cygnus Wall is in the southern area of NGC7000 also known as the North America Nebula. It is approximately 1800 light years from Earth, and is in the constellation Cygnus. The Wall is an energized shock front and contains the most concentrated star formations in the nebula. The size of the North America Nebula is about 4 full moons. (Photo and caption by Bill Snyder)

Using digital editing, designer Anton Repponen places Manhattan buildings in desolate landscapes, “inviting viewers to see them as if for the first time”. Here: 8 Spruce Street/New York By Gehry. Photo by Anton Repponen/The Guardian)

A Palestinian woman reacts after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces during a protest marking Land Day and the first anniversary of a surge of border protests, at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the southern Gaza Strip on March 30, 2019. (Photo by Ashraf Abu Amrah/Reuters)

An Afghan burqa-clad woman with children ride a donkey in Kishim district of Badakhshan province on October 12, 2023. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

Fireworks explode in the hands of a protester launching it at the Lebanese Central Bank building as frustrated depositors rally against Central Bank's Gov. Riad Salameh, who is facing corruption charges, and the deepening financial crisis in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, March 24, 2023. (Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP Photo)

Young gymnasts practice pull-up on a bar at a gymnasium of a sports school in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province April 11, 2015. (Photo by William Hong/Reuters)