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)

A body laying in the street is covered as police block the area around the site of a shooting in Halle an der Saale, eastern Germany, on October 9, 2019. At least two people were killed in a shooting on a street in the German city of Halle, police said, adding that the perpetrators were on the run. “Early indications show that two people were killed in Halle. Several shots were fired. The suspected perpetrators fled in a car”, said police on Twitter, urging residents in the area to stay indoors. (Photo by Sebastian Willnow/dpa/AFP Photo)

A model presents a creation at a metro station during a show opening the Moscow Fashion Week in Moscow, Russia on October 22, 2019. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

These two ladies received some important messages on Valentine's night in Manchester, England on February 14, 2020. Brits celebrated Valentine's Day in style last night – proving you can have a good time even if you don't have a partner. (Photo by Mercury Press/The Sun)

A model poses for a photograph backstage during Moscow Fashion Week in Moscow, Russia, Monday, October 7, 2024. (Photo by Pavel Bednyakov/AP Photo)

Participants in the Notting Hill Carnival celebration are seen in west London over he Summer Bank Holiday weekend on August 28, 2023. The Notting Hill Carnival is Europe's largest street festival, which celebrates Caribbean culture, is expected to attract over 1 million revellers on bank holiday monday. (Photo by Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

An aerial photo shows a general view of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, in Shanghai on October 9, 2024. (Photo by Jade Gao/AFP Photo)

British actress Laila Rouass poses during a studio shoot ahead of the new series of “Footballers Wives” at a London studio on January 28, 2004 in London. Rouass plays Conrad's bisexual wife Amber, and the nine-part series begins on ITV1 on February 11, 2004. (Photo by Stephen Perry/Getty Images)