October winner. “A burst of the aurora borealis over Kirkjufell, taken in September 2016. This shot has been a holy grail for me and was finally captured after many trips”. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: Iceland is a hotspot for aurora photography and this composition of the symmetric, free-standing Kirkjufell and the trident waterfall is much-sought after. If you can time your visit when the aurora “kp” index is high and know the settings for nighttime aurora images, you may end up with a beautiful photograph like this. (Photo by DВ/The Guardian)

A woman poses with a cut-out of Vladimir Putin in the “President Cafe” in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, April 7, 2016. Dozens of photos of Vladimir Putin, from childhood to Russian President, hang on the walls of President Cafe in a working-class area of Krasnoyarsk, a city in eastern Siberia. A life-size cut-out of Putin stands by the bar. Images of U.S. President Barack Obama, as well as leaders of Germany and Britain, greet customers in the toilets. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Runner-up. “The City of London, looking towards the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. The ever-changing London skyline provides many excellent opportunities for cityscape photography, none more exciting than the ebb and flow of traffic at night”. (Photo by Mark Caldon/The Guardian)

Soap Bubble Structures by Kym Cox. Bubbles optimise space and minimise their surface area for a given volume of air. This phenomenon makes them a useful tool in many areas of research, in particular, materials science and “packing” – how things fit together. Bubble walls drain under gravity, thin at the top, thick at the bottom, which interferes with travelling lightwaves to create bands of colour. Black spots show the wall is too thin for interference colours, indicating the bubble is about to burst. (Photo by Kym Cox/2019 Science Photographer of the Year/RPS)

“A Balinese man shows off his pride and joy, a fighting cock, while on a cigarette break after a morning’s work in nearby fields”. (Photo by Coltrane Koh/The Guardian)

Aurorae category runner-up: Lone Tree under a Scandinavian Aurora by Tom Archer (UK). The photographer decided to explore the area around the hotel on a very crisp -35C evening in Finnish Lapland. When he found this tree, he decided to wait for the misty conditions to change and could not believe his luck when the sky cleared and the aurora came out in the perfect spot. Archer spent about an hour photographing it before his camera started to lock up because of the harsh conditions, but by then he was happy to call it a night. (Photo by Tom Archer/2020 Astronomy Photographer of the Year)

“After an afternoon of hiking and exploring the caves of Rhossili Bay, West Glamorgan, we caught the sun breaking through the clouds”. (Photo by Megan Warren-Davis/The Guardian)

In this June 16, 2017 photo, Batel Delciner, 23, removes wood from a furnace to lower the heat cooking sugar juice at the Ti Jean distillery, which produces clairin, a sugar-based alcoholic drink, in Leogane, Haiti. The broth is cooked for about four hours after a fermentation period of four to eight days. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo)