Members of the Washington Commanders Command Force dance during a timeout against the Seattle Seahawks during the second half at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland on November 2, 2025. (Photo by Geoff Burke/Reuters)

A girl cools off from the heat in water from an open fire hydrant in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., July 19, 2019. (Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters)

A mahout walks next to his elephant through a busy street in Horana, a suburb of Sri Lanka's capital Colombo on March 23, 2021. (Photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP Photo)

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)

Britain Athletics, 2016 London Anniversary Games, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London on July 23, 2016. Canada's Brent Lakatos crashes with athletes during the mens 1500m T54. (Photo by Eddie Keogh/Reuters/Livepic)

Polar frame, by Dmitry Kokh, Russia. When Kokh’s boat approached the small island of Kolyuchin in the Russian High Arctic, which had been abandoned by humans since 1992, he was surprised to spot movement in one of the houses. Binoculars revealed polar bears – more than 20 in total – exploring the ghost town. Dmitry used a low-noise drone to document them. (Photo by Dmitry Kokh/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022)

A climate campaigner in Dublin on November 9, 2024 dresses as Lady Justice to demand that world leaders commit to a fast, fair and funded phase-out of all fossil fuels when they gather in Azerbaijan on Monday for the Cop29 climate conference. (Photo by Stedman Photography)

Meet the star students of orangutan school – the unique rehab centre where orphaned apes are taught how to climb trees and survive in the wild without their mum and dad. (Photo by Caters News)