Best portfolio winner. Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea ajaja, by Petr Bambousek, Czech Republic. (Photo by Petr Bambousek/2018 Bird Photographer of the Year)

Sharafkhaneh port and lake Urmia. Masoud Ghadiri (Iran). The summer Milky Way is very prominent in this photo. On the galaxy zone, Saturn is located besides the Lagoon nebula. On the right of the horizon, you can see the extreme light pollution of Urmia, which is caused by ever-increasing city development. (Photo by Masoud Ghadiri/National Maritime Museum)

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)

“William Hope (1863 – 8 March 1933) was a pioneer of so-called “spirit photography” (spirit photography is a type of photography whose primary attempt is to capture images of ghosts and other spiritual entities, especially in ghost hunting). Based in Crewe, England, he was a member of the well known spiritualists group, the Crewe Circle”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Couple with a young female spirit.

Underwater photographer of the year – winner. Dancing Octopus by Gabriel Barathieu (France). Location: Island of Mayotte, off the coast of south-east Africa. “Balletic and malevolent”, one judge said of this octopus, hunting in a lagoon. Barathieu waited until spring tides when there was just 30cm of water on the flats and plenty of light in the shallows. (Photo by Gabriel Barathieu/UPY2017)

Puppies, pugs and the perfect antidote to political pandemonium, it’s the Kennel Club’s dog photographer of the year competition. Here: Jamie Morgan’s two Afghan hounds won first place in the portrait category. (Photo by Jamie Morgan/PA Wire)

Some of the best entries so far in the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. There are two weeks left to enter, and the winners will be announced in September. Here: Aurora over Laksvatn Fjord, Laksvatn, Norway. The aurora borealis dances in the skies over the town of Laksvatn, with the Milky Way to the left. The image is a single shot with no compositing, only post-processing to bring out the aurora, and some colour corrections. The photographer Matt Walford said: “I love the way the northern lights look like they are just wistfully dancing over the fjord, framed by the mountains on either side”. (Photo by Matt Walford/National Maritime Museum)

Chris Renshaw has recently been awarded the 2015 Africa Geographic “Photographer of the Year” award. Chris tells that his love “for anything wild and adventurous came from a deep rooted attachment to the African continent. This image shows that timing, a bit of anticipation, and luck allowed this incredible moment in time to be captured”. (Photo by Chris Renshaw)