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)

A performer dressed in costume prepares to participate in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade in Sydney, Australia, March 5, 2016. The Sydney Mardi Gras parade began in 1978 as a march and commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Riots of New York. It is an annual event promoting awareness of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues and themes. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

A participant prepares for the 42nd annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade in Sydney, Australia, 29 February 2020. The Sydney Mardi Gras parade began in 1978 as a march and commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Riots of New York. It is an annual event promoting awareness of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues and themes. (Photo by James Gourley/EPA/EFE)

Freelance illustrator and graphic designer Aurélien Police was born in France in 1978. He has already worked and is currently working on projects for the music and publishing industries (book covers, CD design, children book illustrations). He uses computer as melting pot to mix up all sorts of raw materials, erasing the frontiers between all possible media so as to provide his pictures with a graphic finishing of his own. Flirting with various themes -often associated with fantasy, detective or supernatural- allows him to translate in pictures his own personal vision of those genres.

The Plants like flower grow up in the wild. Spring 2014 near Paveh, Kermanshah, Iran

Serra da Aboboreira Megalithic Set (Meninas do Crasto) on September 24, 2023 in Baiao, Portugal. Since 1978 that Serra da Aboboreira (Aboboreira Mountains) has been the scene of a systematic study of its archeological values, among which are the monuments known as megalithic. These are funerary monuments designing the landscape. These dolmens were constructed with stones (lithos) of medium or large dimensions (mega), which were laid in a, more or less, vertical position. Over these, it was still placed a lid, also of stone. These containers were covered by an artificial mound of earth and stones (dolmen). (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images)

Samy Rose Moshiri, an Iranian American artist and activist, covers the mouth of Belarusian activist Yadviga Krasovskaya after dousing themselves in fake blood on stage at a Freedom Rally for Iran, in support of Iranian women and against the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, outside City Hall in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 1, 2022. (Photo by Bing Guan/Reuters)

Iraqi Kurdish refugees wait with children in Cukurca refugee camp in Turkey April 8, 1991. Reuters photographers have chronicled Kurdish refugee crises over the years. In 1991 Srdjan Zivulovic documented refugees in Cukurca who had escaped a military operation by Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq aimed at “Arabising” Kurdish areas in the north. Hundreds of thousands fled into Turkey and Iran. Images shot in recent months show familiar scenes as crowds of people flee Islamic State militants in Syria. There are as many as 30 million Kurds, spread through Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but tend to feel more loyalty to their Kurdishness, rather than their religion. (Photo by Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters)