A woman stands at the door of her shanty at a slum in Mumbai, India July 20, 2016. (Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

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 tourist poses for a souvenir snap in front of autumn foliage in Pitlochry, Scotland, Britain on September 28, 2018. (Photo by Russell Cheyne/Reuters)

A Chicago Police Officer runs toward gunfire as looters break into downtown stores in the early hours of the morning on August 10, 2020. (Photo by RMV/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A grizzly bear waves its paw at a vehicle on the road to Nemrut Crater Lake in Tatvan district of Bitlis, Turkiye on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A view of the fireworks during the Edge at Hudson Yard's 4th of July Celebration at Edge at Hudson Yards on July 04, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Edge at Hudson Yards)

A woman collects water from a stream outside the village of Tsemera in Ethiopia's northern Amhara region, February 13, 2016. (Photo by Katy Migiro/Reuters)

A schoolgirl reacts as she wades through a flooded street during heavy rain showers in Mumbai on August 18, 2025. (Photo by Punit Paranjpe/AFP Photo)