Honorable Mention: “The Storm”. During I was taking photo with my nephew, the storm came and I caught this beautiful moment. Photo location: Kocaeli, Turkey. (Photo and caption by Aytül Akbaş/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.

Kaye Don seated in the cockpit of his new racing car the “Silver Bullet” at Wolverhampton, England on February 21, 1930, in which he will attempt to beat world land speed record at Daytona. It has two 12-cylinder V shaped engines and each develops 2,000-h.p. The theoretical speed of the car is 275 m.p.h. but the designer estimated that will be able to reach 250 m.p.h. allowing for wind pressures. (Photo by AP Photo/Staff/Puttnam)

A yellow-billed oxpecker stands on a giraffe in the Masai Mara National Park, Kenya on September 3, 2022. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A rainbow is seen near a cloud south of Corvallis, Ore., Monday, May 19, 2014. (Photo by Andy Cripe/AP Photo/The Corvallis Gazette-Times)

Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner are seen filming at the “One Night Only” set in SoHo, Manhattan on November 07, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

Winner, photojournalism. Elephant in the room, by Adam Oswell, Australia Zoo. Visitors watch a young elephant performing underwater. Oswell was disturbed by this scene, and organisations concerned with the welfare of captive elephants say performances like this encourage unnatural behaviour. In Thailand, there are now more elephants in captivity than in the wild. With the Covid pandemic causing tourism to collapse, elephant sanctuaries are becoming overwhelmed with animals that can no longer be looked after by their owners. (Photo by Adam Oswell/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021)

In this photo provided by Skydive Chicago, escape artist Anthony Martin falls while handcuffed and locked inside a box after being dropped from an airplane over Ottawa, Ill., Tuesday, August 6, 2013. (Photo by Joe Silva/AP Photo/Courtesy of Skydive Chicago)