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)

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures during a visit to Darnford Farm in Banchory near Aberdeen in Scotland on September 6, 2019. Prime Minister Boris Johnson heads to Scotland on Friday in campaign mode despite failing to call an early election after MPs this week thwarted his hardline Brexit strategy. (Photo by Andrew Milligan/Pool via AFP Photo)

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)

Hirari Ikeda, a well-known Harajuku street fashion personality, on the street in Shibuya. (Photo by Tokyo Fashion)

A university in the Philippines in March 2024 has come up with a novel way to stop students cheating in exams – by getting them to wear hats in the shape of animated characters and random objects such as a crate of beer. (Photo by Angelo Ebora/beampix/Solent news)