They say the great photographers are out of bed before sunrise and always late for dinner. Photographer Alex Robciuc does just that; waking at 5 AM to capture the gorgeous morning light spilling over a small county in Transylvania, Romania. This dedication to early rising and sticking around for the "perfect light" has offered Alex some seriously beautiful landscape images.

A photographer tested the concentration of several pairs of dogs as he captured their reactions to treat time in a series of shots. Christian Vieler, 47, of Waltrop, Germany, has been a professional dog photographer since 2016. He came up with the idea of snapping two dogs catching treats simultaneously. Here: Basset Hounds. (Photo by Vieler Photography/Caters News Agency)

Russian pop art photographer Sergey Chilikov captures a nation liberated from the social oppression of late-era Soviet rule – at parties, in the streets, and bouncing high. His exhibition, Photoprovocations, will be at Photo London, 19-22 May. Here: Yoshkar-Ola, Matrosova Street (1995). (Photo by Sergey Chilikov)

Unforgiving temperatures of up to 60℃ (140℉) beat down on these saltminers on a daily basis. The mines, situated in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia, stretch across 38,000 sq miles and at their lowest point are more than 300ft below sea level. Joel Santos travelled to capture the area’s dry, brutal beauty. Here: Dromedaries and donkeys are used to transport the salt. (Photo by Joel Santos/Barcroft Images)

Lioness and hyena posture to one another, in Masai Mara, Kenya, August 2015. A photographer captured one of the oldest rivalries in the animal kingdom as a pair of lions went head to head with a pack of hungry hyenas. (Photo by Ingo Gerlach/Barcroft Images)

Ten finalists capture the theme of “through young eyes” in this young photographers’ competition that aims to engage youth around the world in wildlife conservation. Here: Heavy bodied jumping spider by Md Rashuidul Rabby, age 23, from Bangladesh. (Photo by Md Rashuidul Rabby/WWD2017)

The CBRE Urban Photographer of the Year competition – now in its ninth year – encourages professional and amateur photographers to capture cities at work. Here: Dog Walker – 15:00. The competition allows photographers to enter up to 24 images, one representing each hour of the day. (Photo by Johanna Siegmann)

Ryo Minemizu, one of Japan’s emerging stars in the field of marine life photography and the 2017 winner of the Nikkei National Geographic photography prize, captures the beauty and complexity of plankton that drift in our planet’s oceans and other bodies of water in meticulous detail. Here: Batesian mimicry by a Soleichthys fish larva. (Photo by Ryo Minemizu/The Guardian)