Iran's Hanieh Rajabi performs during the women's Daoshu competition at the 13th Wushu World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, November 16, 2015. (Photo by Tatan Syuflana/AP Photo)

An Iranian girl walks at the Tochal ski resort, in north of Tehran, Iran on December 12, 2019. (Photo by Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA via Reuters)

Women welcome the people coming back to Tyre, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect, in Lebanon on November 27, 2024. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

People wear masks to help guard against the Coronavirus in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, February 23, 2020. On Sunday Iran's health ministry raised the death toll from the new virus to 8 people in the country, amid concerns that clusters there, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Sharafkhaneh port and lake Urmia. Masoud Ghadiri (Iran). The summer Milky Way is very prominent in this photo. On the galaxy zone, Saturn is located besides the Lagoon nebula. On the right of the horizon, you can see the extreme light pollution of Urmia, which is caused by ever-increasing city development. (Photo by Masoud Ghadiri/National Maritime Museum)

Public Space series, 2015. This series by Morteza Niknahad and Behnam Zakeri tends toward cinema, taking an almost cartoonish view of modern life in Iran. This work was inspired by the social life of dolphins. (Photo by Morteza Niknahad and Behnam Zakeri/The Guardian)

Mahsa Kadkhoda #11 of Team Iran spikes the ball during their semi-final round match against Team Chinese Taipei on day seven of the AVC Cup For Women at PhilSports Arena on August 28, 2022 in Pasig, Philippines. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

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)