Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

Ecuadorian indigenous people celebrate the festival of the moon or Kulla Raymi, in Quito, Ecuador, 21 September 2021. A circle on the ground made up of fruits and inside the Andean symbol of the chacana, multinational geometric flags and a cross that symbolizes the four cardinal points, were the setting in which the festival of the moon, the Kulla, was commemorated this Tuesday. Raymi, on a hill in Quito. It is one of the four most significant festivities of the Andean agroecological calendar, which commemorates the beginning of life and exalts women as the maximum representation of fertility. (Photo by Jose Jacome/EPA/EFE)

Calling themselves the Gaza skate team, a group of young Palestinians get together to skate and rollerblade amid deprivation and high security. Here: Palestinian boys of Gaza skating Team rollerblade on a street in Gaza City March 8, 2019. (Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

Spectators react as a competitor races past in the annual donkey festival in Salcedo, Ecuador, Saturday, September 10, 2022. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/AP Photo)

Staff prepare for Halloween at the Forbidden Corner tourist attraction, a labyrinth in the heart of Tupgill Park, in the Yorkshire Dales on October 19, 2022. (Photo by James Glossop/The Times)

People gather at the site of a bomb explosion in Sanaa December 23, 2014. Five bombs exploded on Tuesday in Sanaa's old quarter, where many supporters of the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi group live, killing at least one person and wounding another, a Yemeni security official said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Houthis have been fighting the Sunni Islamist militant al Qaeda group and allied tribesmen since its gunmen captured Sanaa in September and forced the resignation of a government they had long seen as corrupt. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

A photographer has discovered a spectacular way of keeping warm during winter – using fire to heat up icy locations. Sam Scholes uses long-exposures to capture the movement of fire in front of ice-covered backdrops. After lighting steel wool his friend Scott Stringham swings the flaming object in order to make swirling patterns. The result of this technique – captured at Midway Ice Castles in Utah is a vibrant image with the warm light dancing across the cold scenes. (Photo by Sam Scholes/Caters News)

A member of the Community Police of the FUSDEG (United Front for the Security and Development of the State of Guerrero) poses with a weapon during events to mark the first anniversary of the force's operations in Ocotito, January 23, 2015. Based on the traditional indigenous justice system, the Community Police is made up of volunteers from different communities of Guerrero, and was created in response to the spate of violence in several locations in the state. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)