Landscape second place: Denis Ferreira Netto, Brazil. “In a helicopter flight through the sea mountain range, I came across this white cloud cover, which resulted in this magnificent image that resembles the head of a dinosaur”, the photographer said. (Photo by Denis Ferreira Netto/TNC Photo Contest 2021)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

Crowds look on as Xolo the Giant Dog, one of the giant Royal De Luxe street puppets taking part in Liverpool's World War I centenary commemorations, walks through the streets of Liverpool on July 25, 2014 in Liverpool, England. French street theatre company Royal de Luxe are putting on a show throughout the city as part of Liverpool's World War I centenary commemorations from July 23-27. The giant puppet grandmother has slept in the hall for two days as part of “Memories of August 1914”. As the giants tour the city the Little Girl Giant and her dog Xolo will meet up with the giant Grandmother telling the story of life leading up to World War One. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Highly commended birds : Crested guan by Tim Hunt (UK). ‘This photo shows a crested guan in the cloud forests of Costa Rica as it pauses while foraging on a lone branch. Due to the clouds that are so typical for this habitat, I could often only photograph the bird’s silhouette against a grey sky. But then, for a short moment only, the sun broke through the clouds, and I overexposed the image by over two stops in order to blow out the background and allow this beautifully marked bird to stand out’. (Photo by Tim Hunt/GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015)

From house breaking in Johannesburg to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi to rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year. Here: Protesters drag a female police officer accused of shooting a protester in the Buterere neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi, May 12, 2015. Goran Tomasevic: Protesters started throwing stones at a group of police, who then started to run away. The policewoman in the photo, Medikintos Inabeza, 33, got left behind and then some protesters started to push her, saying that she had shot a female protestor in the stomach with an AK47 rifle. I didn't see anything of that. There were 5 or 10 protesters pushing the policewoman at first, then others came and joined in. Up to 20 or 30 protesters were surrounding her at one point. The protesters kicked and beat her very badly; I also saw a couple of knives. I thought they were going to kill her... (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

KidZania provides children and their parents a safe, unique, and very realistic educational environment that allows kids between the ages of four to twelve to do what comes naturally to them: role-playing by mimicking traditionally adult activities. As in the real world, children perform “jobs” and are either paid for their work (as a fireman, doctor, police officer, journalist, shopkeeper, etc.) or pay to shop or to be entertained. The indoor theme park is a city built to scale for children, complete with buildings, paved streets, vehicles, a functioning economy, and recognizable destinations in the form of “establishments” sponsored and branded by leading multi-national and local brands.

An Afghan refugee family stands by trucks loaded with their belongings as they wait to go back to Afghanistan with others, at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office on the outskirts of Peshawar February 13, 2015. Afghan immigrants ordered out of Pakistan in what officials say is a bid to root out militants are, some analysts say, scapegoats being used to distract attention from the authorities' failure to end violence. (Photo by Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)

Masooma Alizada (L) and Frozan Rasooli (R), members of Afghanistan's Women's National Cycling Team prepare a bicycle before training on the outskirts of Kabul February 20, 2015. Afghanistan's Women's National Cycling Team has been breaking new ground for women's sports and pushing the boundaries of what is – and is not – acceptable for young women in the conservative Muslim country. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)