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 woman throws fallen leaves and jumps while posing for a photo at the Bauman garden in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, October 14, 2025. (Photo by Pavel Bednyakov/AP Photo)

Raising a flag over the Reichstag is a historic World War II photograph taken during the Battle of Berlin on 2 May 1945, by Yevgeny Khaldei.

Jockey student Mariangelys Almedina (Front) balances on a steel drum suspended in the air by a series of springs to simulate riding a horse as Instructor Willie Lozano looks on at the Vocational Equestrian Agustín Mercado Reverón School located in the Hipódromo Camarero on November 17, 2022 in Canovanas, Puerto Rico. The Vocational Equestrian Agustín Mercado Reverón School has produced some of the best jockeys in the world but also prepares students for a wide range of equestrian jobs on a tuition-free basis. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

Demonstrators take part in a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump in Glasgow, Britain February 20, 2017. (Photo by Russell Cheyne/Reuters)

Elephants cool off at a zoo in Karachi, Pakistan, 31 March 2021. Caretakers at Karachi's zoo were working to keep animals cool during a heatwave affecting southern Pakistan. (Photo by Shahzaib Akber/EPA/EFE)

Astronauts Nie Haisheng (C), Liu Boming (R) and Tang Hongbo are out of the return capsule of the Shenzhou-12 spaceship at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on September 17, 2021. Three Chinese astronauts, the first sent to orbit for space station construction, have completed their three-month mission and returned to Earth safely on Friday. Photo by Lian Zhen/Xinhua News Agency)

A wild water buffalo eats tree branches standing in flood water at the Pobitora wildlife sanctuary in Pobitora, Morigaon district, Assam, India, Thursday, July 16, 2020. Floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed dozens of people in this northeastern region. The floods also inundated most of Kaziranga National Park, home to an estimated 2,500 rare one-horned rhinos. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)