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)

Chocolate is the greatest gift the Earth has given us. The dessert table would be a sad sight without it. It’s so beloved, so appreciated, that the Swedish scientist who named the cocoa plant that gives us chocolate called it Theobroma cacao, which means “food of the gods”. Here: Farmer holding a freshly cut cocoa bean pod, revealing the pulp and seed inside on a rainforest farm. (Photo by Doug McKinlay/Getty Images)

A participant in the Borodino Battle re-enactment before the show at the Borodino Field in the Moscow Region on September 4, 2016. The Battle of Borodino, fought on September 7, 1812, was a battle fought in the Napoleonic Wars during the French invasion of Russia. The fighting involved around 250,000 troops and left at least 70,000 casualties, making Borodino the deadliest day of the Napoleonic Wars. (Photo by Kirill Kallinikov/Sputnik)

Soccer is played on a television mounted in a workshop in the Willets Point area of Queens in New York October 27, 2015. Willets Point, also known as the Iron Triangle, is an industrial precinct that sits in the shadow of Citi Field, home of the New York Mets baseball team. Many businesses within Willets Point employ a largely immigrant workforce. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

Guo Meiling of China jumps her Mini into the road during the 38th Dakar Rally in Arrecifes, Argentina, January 2, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Students perform a traditional dance during the Onam festival celebrations in Chennai on August 25, 2023. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

Sha'carri Richardson of the U.S. readies herself for the start of heat 2 in the women's 200m at the World Athletics Championship at the National Athletics Centre, Budapest, Hungary on August 23, 2023. (Photo by Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

Rita Ora's sister Elena has shown off her model looks while in Ibiza in the second decade of August 2023. (Photo by elenaora/Instagram)