Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

Cheng Chen (R), a 27-year-old worker at a state-owned enterprise, poses for a photograph with his nephew who is wearing his home-made Iron Man armour, in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province April 13, 2015. It cost Cheng about 500 yuan ($81 USD) to make the armour, which weighs about 4 kilograms, with plastic boards and LED lights, local media reported. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Dancers perform on stage during the Crazy Horse Paris “Forever Crazy” Media Call at The MasterCard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands on October 11, 2017 in Singapore. Forever Crazy consists of a series of highly aesthetic and visual tableaus presented by a classically trained dancers clad only in textured lighting and projection. The show runs from 11 October 2017 till 22 October 2017 in Singapore. (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)

“Falling Back To Earth” promises to be both spectacular and meditative, and presents a beautiful, thought-provoking vision of our relationship with the earth and with each other. (Photo by Dave Hunt/EPA)

“I’d come to the Altai Mountains on an Adventure Sherpas tour. Our group of 12 was made up mostly of Minnesotans who’d left warm weather and falling leaves for frosty Mongolia. We’d come to sleep in cozy ger tents, the traditional yurt abode of the Mongolian steppe; sip mare’s milk tea; climb mountain glaciers; ride horses to an ancient battle site, and attend the annual Eagle Hunting Festival in Ölgiy...”. – Kathryn Kysar via The Star Tribune. Here: hunter Berek and his eagle outside his home. (Photo by Brad Ruoho/The Star Tribune)

A medical staff member rests next to a patient infected with Covid-19 in the intensive care unit of Lozenets Hospitalin Sofia on November 9, 2021. Bulgaria is among the countries with the highest number of deaths compared to its population. (Photo by Nikolay Doychinov/AFP Photo)

A soldier helps another with her ear protection at the Terningmoen Camp in Elverum, Norway on March 23, 2017. Soldiers demonstrate their skills and tactics during a contract drill as they train to become part of the world's first all-female special forces unit, the Jegertroppen or “hunter troops”. (Photo by Carolina Reid/NBC News)

A vehicle lies on a road in Adairsville. (Photo by David Goldman/Associated Press)