Women balance on a “mikoshi” or portable shrine as people carry it into the sea during a festival to wish for calm waters in the ocean and good fortune in the new year in Oiso, Kanagawa prefecture, west of Tokyo, Japan, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

This picture taken on September 9, 2014 shows a waiteress handing over food to customers at a prison themed restaurant in Tianjin. As more themed restaurants are popular in China, a “prison style” restaurent in Tianjin is aimed at reminding people to observe the law and to be good citizens. (Photo by Wang Zhao/AFP Photo)

People smear black ash with hands onto each other to wish for good luck and fortune during a traditional festival of the Yi ethnic minority in Qiubei County, Yunnan province, China July 18, 2017. (Photo by Ren Dong/Reuters/CNS)

An artist applies henna on the hand or a woman during the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, November 4, 2021. Millions of people across Asia are celebrating the Hindu festival of Diwali, which symbolizes new beginnings and the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness. (Photo by Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo)

From left, Cierra Fraser, 28, Los Angeles, a nanny, and Joslin Farley, 28, Los Angeles, a barista, poses in the outfits they wore to see the movie “Barbie” at TCL Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California, on July 22, 2023. “I just knew that it was in good hands. I knew we were not gonna get a stereotypical barbie movie. I knew it was gonna be exactly what the people needed”, said Farley. (Photo by Jenna Schoenefeld for The Washington Post)

In this May 2, 2015 photo, skywriter Nathan Hammond releases smoke as he writes messages of hope and love over New Orleans, during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Hammond was commissioned by local entrepreneur, Frank Scurlock, who said the messages were simply his way of reminding people that goodness can still flourish in a world that seems increasingly marred by violence. (Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Photo)

People decorate a street with candles inside oranges during the Epitaph ceremony during Good Friday's “Apokathelosis”, the Descent of Christ's dead body from the Cross, which forms a key part of Orthodox Easter, in the southern city of Leonidio, at the Peloponnese peninsula on April 26, 2019. Millions of Greeks flock to churches around the country this week to celebrate Easter, the country's foremost religious celebration. (Photo by Aris Messinis/AFP Photo)

People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)