Revellers make the most of Boxing Day in Liverpool city centre, United Kingdom on Sunday, December 26, 2021. Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated after Christmas Day, occurring on the second day of Christmastide. (Photo by London News Pictures)

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

A boat, center, is surrounded by Japan Cost Guard's patrol boats after some activists descended from the boat on Uotsuri Island, one of the islands of Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, in East China Sea Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Regional tensions flared on the emotional anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender as activists from China and South Korea used Wednesday's occasion to press rival territorial claims, prompting 14 arrests by Japanese authorities. The 14 people had traveled by boat from Hong Kong to the disputed islands controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan. (Photo by Yomiuri Shimbun/Masataka Morita/AP Photo)

A woman uses a phone to take a “selfie” photo with cat as she stands along the barbed wire fence demarcating the “blue line” – drawn by the United Nations to mark Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 – while an Israeli Merkava battle tank is deployed nearby, at a position along the border near the village of Kfar Shuba in southern Lebanon on June 11, 2023. (Photo by Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP Photo)

Alicia Finn-O’Shea, 10, talks to Chelsea Pensioners on the Mall during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London, United Kingdom on June 2, 2022 (Photo by Antonio Olmos/The Observer)

An illumination is held at a commercial facility “NAMBA PARKS” in Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture on November 15, 2022. Approximately 650,000 LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs are decorated to imagine waterfalls and meadows at the event. (Photo by Naoya Azuma/Yomiuri/The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP Photo)

Models pose backstage prior to the Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Spring Summer 2023 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on January 25, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

A supporter of presidential candidate and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee and Czech Army General Petr Pavel hands out leaflets, ahead of a direct presidential election that will start on January 13, in Prague, Czech Republic on January 5, 2023. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)