Special Merit Award. Mallory Franklin (2019). The British slalom canoeist has competed internationally since 2009 and won nine medals in total at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships with four golds, four silvers and a bronze. She has also won eleven medals at the European Championships. (Photo by Richard Pelham/World Sports Photography Awards 2021)

Vincent Yu is a multiple award winner who won Honorable Mention in the 2013 Photographer of the Year category for Pictures of the Year International. Photo: A statue of Hotei Buddha sits in the debris in the tsunami-destroyed town of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan Friday, April 1, 2011. (Photo by Vincent Yu/AP Photo)

A boy dressed like Hindu Lord Krishna waits to attend celebrations on the eve of Janmashtami at a school in Mumbai, India, Friday, September 4, 2015. The day marks the birth of Krishna. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

A group of people are seen on a Victoria line train in London, England during the first night of the Night Tube service on August 19 2016. The Central line and Victoria line are the first to operate a Night service with further lines expected to be running by the end of the year. (Photo by SWNS.com)

A man holds up for a picture a one hundred trillion Zimbabwean dollars note inside a shop in Harare, Zimbawe, June 12, 2015. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was a period of currency instability that began in the late 1990s shortly after the confiscation of private farms from landowners, towards the end of Zimbabwean involvement in the Second Congo War. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. However, Zimbabwe's peak month of inflation is estimated at 79.6 billion percent in mid-November 2008. (Photo by Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters)

For her series “Japanese Whispers”, Belgian photographer Zaza Bertrand headed inside the intimate world of rabuhos – Japanese love hotels. Love hotels became popular in Japan from the 1960s onwards, due to a lack of privacy in many family homes. There are now around 37,000 of these hotels in Japan, allowing short daytime “rests” or overnight stays. (Photo by Zaza Bertrand/The Guardian)

A Libyan fireman stands in front of smoke and flames rising from an oil storage tank at an oil facility in northern Libya's Ras Lanouf region on January 23, 2016, after it was set ablaze earlier in the week following attacks launched by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists to seize key port terminals. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

Residents watch volcanic smoking and ashes rising from Mount Sinabung during an eruption in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, February 24, 2016. Authorities have repeatedly called on local residents to remain patient in dealing with the impact of Sinabung's eruptions, which some experts have predicted will continue for five more years. (Photo by Xinhua/Barcroft Media)