Sports Finalist – Ian MacNicol. Michalina Kwasniewska of Poland competes in the Women's high jump during day one of The European Athletics U23 Championships 2013 on July 11, 2013 in Tampere, Finland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Agence France-Presse)

Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Light painting on the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, United Kingdom on April 25, 2023 using burning steel wool spun around on a rope sending sparks flying. (Photo by Kevin Jay/Picture Exclusive)

A mural is seen on a heavily damaged residential building in the frontline town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region on April 25, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/AFP Photo)

A pair of cyclists take photos as the sun rises over the Atlantic Ocean, Thursday, October 3, 2024, in Bal Harbour, Fla. (Photo by Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo)

A man wear a phallic-shaped hat during Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Steel Phallus) on April 1, 2018 in Kawasaki, Japan. The Kanamara Festival is held annually on the first Sunday of April. The pen*s is the central theme of the festival, focused at the local pen*s-venerating shrine which was once frequented by prostitutes who came to pray for business prosperity and protection against sexually transmitted diseases. Today the festival has become a popular tourist attraction and is used to raise money for HIV awareness and research. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Sudanese protesters rally outside the army complex in Sudan's capital Khartoum on April 18, 2019. Huge crowds of protesters thronged the Sudanese capital Khartoum today, a week after the army's ouster of president Omar al-Bashir, determined to complete their revolution seeking civilian rule. (Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP Photo)

A migrant worker wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks up to a pedestrian bridge in Beijing, Sunday, December 6, 2020. Provincial governments across China are placing orders for experimental, domestically made coronavirus vaccines, though health officials have yet to say how well they work or how they may reach the country's 1.4 billion people. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)