Nyaueth by Peter Zelewski – £2,000 third prize winner. This was taken near London’s Oxford Street as part of Zelewski’s series Beautiful Strangers. Zelewski explains: ‘The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous street portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a special inner quality’. (Photo by Peter Zelewski/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

A eunuch dances during a rally to mark the congregation of thousands of eunuchs from different parts of India, in Jammu, India, Friday, March 13, 2015. The term eunuchs is used in India to describe transvestites, transsexuals and others who identify themselves as neither male nor female but as a member of a third gender. They traditionally survive by begging, dancing at weddings or blessing newborn babies and are frequently subjected to discrimination. (Photo by Channi Anand/AP Photo)

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, March 6, 2014. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft launched from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, for their third official Commercial Resupply (CRS) mission to the orbiting lab on April 18, 2014. Dragon returned to Earth with a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of southern California on May 14, 2014. Dragon is the only operational spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of supplies back to Earth, including experiments. (Photo by Ron Lin/SpaceX Photos)

Pernille Ferdinandsen receives a neck tattoo from Peter Madsen during the third Copenhagen Ink Festival which opened Thursday May 9, 2013 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the biggest tattoo festival in Northern Europe. During the three days, 180 of the world's best and most celebrated national and international tattoo artists show the audience their skills in making art on the body and tattoo's on the audience. (Photo by Lars Krabbe/AP Photo)

“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

Girl in newari attire makes a funny face to her friend as she performs a Mass Bel Bibaha (marriage) ceremony in Bhaktapur, Bagmati, Nepal on December 7, 2021. The two-day ceremony, usually held several times a year, sees pre-adolescent “marry” the Hindu deity, Vishnu, symbolised by the local “bael” (wood apple) fruit. Normally Newar girls marry thrice time in there life as first marriage with Bael fruit, second with sun and third with human. (Photo by Amit Machamasi/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News)

“Orange Caramel (오렌지 캬라멜), is the first sub group formed from the South Korean pop group After School. This sub-unit was formed with the third generation members: Nana, Raina and Lizzy. Orange Caramel’s concept is more lighthearted and sweet unlike many girl groups that have taken on darker, sexier concepts”. – Wikipedia

Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)