A wild water monitor (Varanus salvator) is seen swimming between colorful popcorn snacks at a Lumphini public park in Bangkok, Thailand on March 27, 2022. (Photo by Matt Hunt/Neato/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Participants gather during a traditional hunting contest, involving tamed golden eagles and hawks, in Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 1, 2018. (Photo by Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters)

A woman looks at a handgun at the Glock booth at the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show, Tuesday, January 19, 2016, in Las Vegas. The SHOT Show, the world's largest annual trade show for shooting, hunting and law enforcement professionals, runs through January 23 and is expected to feature 1,600 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to more than 62,000 attendees. (Photo by John Locher/AP Photo)

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)

An Iraq fan poses before the World Cup 2022 Qualifier 2nd round Group C football match between Iraq and Iran at Amman International Stadium in Amman, Jordan on November 14, 2019. (Photo by Muhammad Hamed/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)

“Leopard Hunting a Stork”. “One-shot capture. I watched the leopard stalking the stork, I only had time to focus at 400mm, no time to change to high speed, I watched the stork, and as soon as it flapped its wings, I shot one shot”. (Photo by Paul Rifkin/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

Highly commended birds : Crested guan by Tim Hunt (UK). ‘This photo shows a crested guan in the cloud forests of Costa Rica as it pauses while foraging on a lone branch. Due to the clouds that are so typical for this habitat, I could often only photograph the bird’s silhouette against a grey sky. But then, for a short moment only, the sun broke through the clouds, and I overexposed the image by over two stops in order to blow out the background and allow this beautifully marked bird to stand out’. (Photo by Tim Hunt/GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015)