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)

In this February 7, 2014 file photo, Matt Figi hugs and tickles his once severely-ill seven year old daughter Charlotte, as they walk together inside a greenhouse for a special strain of medical marijuana known as Charlotte's Web, which was named after the girl early in her treatment for crippling severe epilepsy, in the mountains west of Colorado Springs, Colo. Colorado is poised to award more than $8 million for medical marijuana research, a step toward addressing complaints that little is known about pot's medical potential. Among the research projects poised for approval on Wednesday, December 17, 2014, are one for pediatric epilepsy patients, and another for children with brain tumors. (Photo by Brennan Linsley/AP Photo)

A woman attempts to get past a police blockade during a protest on Women's Day, in Manila, Philippines on March 8, 2023. (Photo by Lisa Marie David/Reuters)

Indian folk artists perform during the “Unboxing Bengaluru Habba” or Bangalore festival, an annual citywide festival held in front of Vidhana Soudha, the State Legislature of Karnataka, in Bangalore, India on December 10, 2023. The Bengaluru festival showcases folk dance and cultural diversity that have shaped Bengaluru into a vibrant metropolis. (Photo by Jagadeesh N.V./EPA/EFE)

Camp dwellers pump water from a well at Malkohi refugee camp in Jimeta, Adamawa State, Nigeria on February 19, 2019, four days ahead of the country's General elections set for February 23 after a last-minute rescheduling. Malkohi is a camp for internal displaced who fled their homes as Boko Haram insurgents advanced across north-eastern Nigeria. From their homes on the outskirts of Yola, capital of presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar's home state Adamawa, Malkohi residents say they feel forgotten. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP Photo)

A man dressed as Santa Claus arrives to distribute toys on children living in an impoverished neighbourhood in Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 26, 2020. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

Brush your teeth and get cleaned up for the week ahead! These animals answered the call of good dental hygiene. Here: Hamster holds toothbrush. (Photo by Neo Vision/Getty Images/Amana Images RM)

Widows, who have been abandoned by their families, light sparklers after offering prayers on the banks of the river Yamuna as part of Diwali celebrations organised by non-governmental organisation Sulabh International in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh October 21, 2014. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)