A woman crosses an open sewer as she makes her way to her house in a Christian slum in Islamabad December 4, 2014. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

A Kamchatka Brown Bear cub eats frozen fruits during a Christmas feeding session at Hagenbecks zoo in Hamburg, northern Germany on December 5, 2014. (Photo by Fabian Bimmer/Reuters)

Farm animals are walked down the aisle and blessed by church officials during the “Blessing of the Animals” at the Christ Church United Methodist in Manhattan, New York December 7, 2014. (Photo by Elizabeth Shafiroff/Reuters)

A North Korean soldier kicks a pole along the bank of Yalu River near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, February 4, 2014. (Photo by Jacky Chen/Reuters)

Chinese-American actress Bai Ling attends “The Key” screening at The Real Experimental Film Festival at Laemmle's Music Hall on November 21, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Barry King/WireImage)

German model Micaela Schaefer (2nd from Left) and German actor Yvonne Woelke (2nd from right) sighted during Oktoberfest at Theresienwiese on September 21, 2014 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Chad Buchanan/Getty Images)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

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)