Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Winner. “This was taken in the South Ari Atolls, Maldives, as the south-west monsoon season was setting in. It features my partner – and dive buddy – Emma after surfacing at the end of the last dive of the day to find 1.5 metre swells and dark monsoon clouds. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: This beautiful portrait of a diver in an ocean swell below a menacing sky stands out this month for its emotional and elemental beauty. It is a reminder that while we may play among nature we are always dwarfed by its power and must be constantly on our guard”. (Photo by Simon Dunn/The Guardian)

A truck carrying gold miners across the Sahara desert to far northern Niger drives outside Agadez, Niger, May 9, 2016. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters)

Street photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili follows 16-year-old Emeer Guesmi, aka B-boy Zulu Rema, as he trains and performs breakdance moves – all without the use of his legs. At a breakdance championship in Tunisia, Casablanca-based street photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili noticed an unusual competitor: Emeer Guesmi, dancing without the aid of his lower legs. He started following him as he trained and performed. (Photo by Yassine Alaoui Ismaili/The Guardian)

In this Tuesday, September 12, 2017 photo, Amornrat Simapsaisan, a local shop manager, watches before she ate watermelon salad with bamboo worms, at Inspects in the Backyard restaurant, Bangkok, Thailand. Tucking into insects is nothing new in Thailand, where street vendors pushing carts of fried crickets and buttery silkworms have long fed locals and adventurous tourists alike. But bugs are now fine-dining at the Bangkok bistro aiming to revolutionize views of nature’s least-loved creatures and what you can do with them. She tucked in quite happily to her watermelon and cricket salad on a recent evening. “It’s tasty. It’s munchy”, she said. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo)

A photograph taken on November 20, 2021 shows the barberry berries with water drops after a rain in the garden outside Moscow. (Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP Photo)

Women sells vegetables at Kaporo market in Conakry, Guinea Monday, September 13, 2021. (Photo by Sunday Alamba/AP Photo)

Sheep stand on a dyke as clouds cover the sky over Tossens, northern Germany, on September 2, 2019. (Photo by Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/dpa/AFP Photo)