An Afghan woman walks with a child in the old city of Herat province, Afghanistan on October 15, 2018. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

Girls during a class at the Teire Irish dance school in Moscow, Russia on March 15, 2019. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/TASS)

A man sits at the back of his car in the city centre of Yangon on September 15, 2023. (Photo by Sai Aung Main/AFP Photo)

An Iraqi army cadet participates in “the leap of faith”, from a bridge as part of their training, in Baghdad, Iraq on December 15, 2023. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

American actress Sydney Sweeney arrives at the premiere of “Immaculate”, Friday, March 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Photo)

A farmer stands near pumpkins on display on the side of a road near Sanaa, Yemen on February 15, 2025. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

American singer-songwriter Grace VanderWaal at the PatBo show on September 15, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Bre Johnson/BFA.com)

Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)