Members of the public dressed in Santa Suits take part in a fun run in Princess Street gardens on December 08, 2024 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The annual Santa Run in Edinburgh is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The charity event that sees participants dressed as Santa Claus dash through Edinburgh raises funds to grant wishes for children with life threatening illnesses. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A woman stands as fireworks light up the sky over Copacabana Beach during New Year's celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)

Honorable Mention: “The Storm”. During I was taking photo with my nephew, the storm came and I caught this beautiful moment. Photo location: Kocaeli, Turkey. (Photo and caption by Aytül Akbaş/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Takeoka Chisaka, Hiroshima, Japan. “One morning in August 1945, I was walking home from the night shift at a factory in Hiroshima. As I reached my door, there was a huge explosion. When I came to, my head was bleeding and I had been blasted 30m away. The atomic bomb had detonated. When I found my mother, her eyes were badly burned. A doctor said they had to come out, but he didn’t have the proper tools so used a knife instead. It was hellish. I became a peace-worker after the war. In the 1960s, at a meeting at the UN, I met one of the people who created the atomic bomb. He apologised”. (Photo and caption by Sasha Maslov)

Hostesses pose for pictures outside the Great Hall of the People before a meeting ahead of Saturday's opening ceremony of the National People's Congress (NPC), in Beijing, China March 4, 2016. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Mark Taylor may not have any training as a photographer, but that doesn’t stop him from taking amazing animal photos. From his studio in Southeast England, Taylor has made a big business out of photographing man’s best friends, following in the footsteps of his late mother, Jane Burton. Most of the animals he works with are babies, who are more comfortable in front of the camera than older animals.

Photo: Taylor often uses animals that belonged to friends of his late mother, including this Italian Spinone puppy chewing his tail. Baby animals make ideal subjects, as the older dogs and cats get, the warier they are of spending time in a studio. And his trick for getting this small subject to pose? Dog treats, of course. (Photo by Mark Taylor/Rex Features)