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)

Visitors take photos of Fu Bao, a giant panda, at Everland amusement park in Yongin, south of Seoul, South Korea, 25 February 2024. The panda will be displayed to the public until 03 March, before returning to China in early April. The female panda, which was born to giant panda Ai Bao and her partner, Le Bao, at the Everland amusement park in Yongin, south of Seoul, in 2020, will be returned to China under an international agreement. (Photo by Yonhap/EPA)

A robot using artificial intelligence is displayed at a stand during the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, on May 30, 2024. Humanity is in a race against time to harness the colossal emerging power of artificial intelligence for the good of all, while averting dire risks, a top UN official said. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP Photo)

A Pakistani scavenger girl writes on a notebook she collected from a garbage, while another girl sits next to her in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Thousands of children pick recyclable items from waste dumping points to earn living for their poor families. (Photo by K. M. Chaudary/AP Photo)

A male sea lion Leo writes the word of tiger in Chinese character at a New Year's attraction to celebrate the Year of the Tiger at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on Monday, January 3, 2022. The calligraphy attraction by the sea lion will be carried through January 31. (Photo by Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A novice monk holds a book during an inauguration ceremony at Jogye temple in Seoul, May 11, 2015. Ten children on Monday were given the opportunity to experience life as Buddhist monks by staying at the temple until Buddha's birthday in two weeks. The writing on the book reads, “Novice Monk Prayer”. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Re-enactors use flaming torches to write 2023 during the Flamborough Fire Festival, a Viking themed parade in aid of charities and local community groups held on New Year’s Eve on December 31, 2022. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Wire via Getty Images)

Triplet sisters Natalia, Irina and Tatiana Mironenko attend a rehearsal while preparing for examination performances staged by the graduates of the folk dance faculty of the Krasnoyarsk choreographic college in Krasnoyarsk, Russia May 13, 2019. All three 19-year-old sisters are expected to join the renowned Krasnoyarsk state academic dance ensemble of Siberia after the graduation. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)