Crowds wave as HMS Daring, the largest and most powerful destroyer warship ever built for the Royal Navy, leaves Portsmouth Harbour on January 11, 2012 in Portsmouth, England. HMS Daring, the first of six new Type 45 destroyers embarked from Portsmouth on its maiden deployment, a seven-month mission to the Middle East. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A beggar who lay at the side of a road pretending he had no legs was moved on by police who made him stand up and walk away. The man lay slumped on his front in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, China, with his legs tucked under him, and his jeans stretched out to make it appear he had no legs. He is approached by a police officer, who bends down and talks to him for some moments. The officer then reaches out and helps the man to his feet before guiding him across the road. Chengdu is one of a number of cities where officials have tried to clamp down on begging. (Photo by Rex Features)

Doesn’t taking a nap in a hammock outdoors sound lovely? Perhaps not when you’re hanging in the air, thousands of feet above ground, between two mountains in the Italian Alps! Which is exactly what these adventurous folks did during the International Highline Meeting in Monte Piana, Italy. (Photo by Sebastian Wahlhuetter Photography)

When wedding photographer Katie Yeaton saw that one of her dogs had white fur and the other had black-and-white fur, she did what only a wedding photographer could do: she threw them a backyard wedding complete with professional photography to remember the day. (Photo by Katie Yeaton)

Second place, Nature: double trapping. Picture taken in the Brazilian Pantanal ... when I downloaded the CF did not want to believe it ... The nature knows we always give magnificent events but sometimes extraordinary. (Photo by Massimiliano Bencivenni/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)