“The Independence day”. While on storm chasing expeditions in the Tornado Alley in USA I have encountered many photogenic supercell storms. This photograph was taken while we were approaching the storm near Julesburg, Colorado on My 28th, 2013. The storm was tornado warned for more than one hour, but stayed an LP storm through all its cycles and never produced a tornado, just occasional brief funnels, large hail and some rain. Photo location: Julesburg, Colorado, USA. (Photo and caption by Marko Korošec/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A parrot stuck on a roof for three days greeted firefighters sent to its aid on August 13, 2018 with a four-letter tirade. Jessie, the multi-lingual Macaw, flipped the bird after escaping from her owner's home in Edmonton, north London, UK. When she could not be lured down from a neighbour's roof, firefighters were called out and told to tell the bird “I love you” – to which Jessie replied “I love you back”. But she then ruffled her would-be rescuers' feathers by telling them to “f**k off” before flying off to another nearby rooftop. The foul-mouthed pet also speaks Turkish and Greek according to its owner, but had its own choice words in English for the rescue team. As Jessie wasn't injured, the firefighters, who had been called in by the RSPCA, left her on her perch. The parrot was later reunited with its owner. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock)

This is a “swami” - Valeria Lukyanova (born August 23, 1985), from Odessa, Ukraine. Her other names: Naamah (Нахема; Na'amah (Hebrew: נעמה‎) – is a demonic legendary creature, the mother of divination), Amatue, Nagval and Goddess (бАгиня). She is fond of esoteric, believes that 2012 will be the end of the world, and waits for the planet Nibiru (I'm not kidding). This girl had amused the Russian-language Internet (because the Russians are cynical and heartless people). IMHO she is very beautiful (technical characteristics – Chest: 88cm (34,64 in; may be longer already); Waist: 47cm (18,5 in; may be lesser already) and Hips: 88cm (34,64 in)). Enjoy. (Photos by Valeria Lukyanova)

Wide-angle category winner. Part of the Illusion by Marcus Blatchford (UK). Location: National Dive & Activity Centre, Chepstow, Wales. “This is the deepest inland dive centre in the UK. The dive plan was to explore the deep end, but this time I dived ‘unplugged’ (without my strobes). With the exception of this change to my camera technique, there were no planned shots I wanted to achieve – just a fun dive with ad-hoc photos along the way. Shortly after this photo was captured, in 6C water and two hours of decompression ahead of us, we turned and started the long ascent back to the surface”. (Photo by Marcus Blatchford/Underwater Photographer of the Year 2016)

Elsa Rhae Pageler, otherwise known as just Elsa Rhae, has the unbelievable knack for transforming her beautiful face into something incredibly scary. Although she began her career in video editing, and still works as one to this day, she has become infamous for her amazing makeup transformations. She took a stage makeup class as an elective to graduate from her film degree in college and soon realized that it was a passion she didn’t even know she had at first.

The time of selfies with duck faces is long gone and ridiculed, though some persist in doing it. Helene Meldahl, however, didn’t want to give up the trend, but had to think of a creative way to keep doing it. So she decided to create comical pictures by drawing over the selfies that she has made. Some people just can’t stop taking pictures of themselves. It makes you wonder, what they would do in an era before the existence of cameras… Oh, poor souls, they would definitely suffer greatly without the possibility of sharing on instagram their “stunning looks” and the pictures of food that they eat every 2 seconds. (Photo by Helene Meldahl)

The worst drought in 40 years has a cruel grip on Somalia. A struggling young government and militant violence have compounded to bring crisis to 6.7 million lives. The town of Baidoa is facing some of the harshest conditions. Surrounded by territory controlled by al-Shabaab militants and amid ongoing attacks, 160,000 people have had to leave their farms and are surviving in camps where hunger, thirst and cholera await them. (Photo by Peter Caton/Mercy Corps)