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)

A striking funeral worker takes a break near a casket placed at a parking lot as they protest over changes to a host of procedures and regulations, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak outside the department of home affairs in Soweto, South Africa, September 16, 2020. (Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters)

Poland's Piotr Lisek reacts after competing in the men's pole vault qualification during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo on July 31, 2021. (Photo by Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters)

NYPD police wearing protective face masks and gloves respond to a report of an emotionally disturbed person (EDP), amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in the Midtown Manhattan area of New York City, U.S., September 15, 2021. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

A child runs towards Mohamed Maarouf, 28, as he walks with a sack of gifts while dressed in Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) costume in a slum near the centre of Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 24, 2021. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

A grey-bellied Night Monkey (Aotus Lemurinus) plays with a teddy bear at the veterinary clinic of the Cali Zoo in Cali, Colombia on January 27, 2020. They monkey is being raised by personnel of the Cali Zoo after a worker found it near the complex. Apparently it fall from a tree with his father who had health problems. (Photo by Luis Robayo/AFP Photo)

Firefighters extinguish a fire in Kampar, Riau province on Indonesia's Sumatra island on August 13, 2019. Indonesian authorities are deploying thousands of extra personnel to prevent a repeat of the 2015 fires, which were the worst for two decades and choked the region in haze for weeks. (Photo by Wahyudi/AFP Photo)

A couple embrace in silhouette at Craigyhill loyalist bonfire in Larne, Co Antrim on Monday July 11, 2022, on the “Eleventh night” to usher in the Twelfth commemorations. (Photo by Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images)