“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)

Residents watch volcanic smoking and ashes rising from Mount Sinabung during an eruption in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, February 24, 2016. Authorities have repeatedly called on local residents to remain patient in dealing with the impact of Sinabung's eruptions, which some experts have predicted will continue for five more years. (Photo by Xinhua/Barcroft Media)

Students receive a group punishment during a military-style close-order drill class at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Soldiers use electronic sensors to search for missing firefighters under a line of fire trucks caught in massive gas explosions in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Friday, August 1, 2014. A series of underground explosions about midnight Thursday and early Friday ripped through Taiwan's second-largest city, killing scores of people, Taiwan's National Fire Agency said Friday. (Photo by Wally Santana/AP Photo)

A girl in a military uniform poses for a photo after the see-off ceremony before the launch in Jiuquan, Gansu province, China, 25 April 2024. China's Shenzhou-18 manned spaceflight mission with three astronauts is the third manned spaceflight mission of China Space Station's development phase. The mission will last for about six months and the crew will carry out tasks such as installation, commissioning, maintenance, repair, and experiments in space. (Photo by Wu Hao/EPA/EFE)

A gull gives its familiar cry on the roof of a beach bar on the Baltic coast on July 16, 2024. (Photo by Jens Büttner/dpa)

A worker looks at Spring Festival decorations ahead of Chinese Lunar New Year festivities in Beijing, China on January 12, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

People work to rescue a dog from under rubble, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake, in Iskenderun, Turkey February 8, 2023, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. (Photo by Gurcan Ozturk via Reuters)