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 resident removes mud on a street brought by monsoon rains in San Mateo, Rizal, Philippines, August 14, 2016. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

A combination photo shows some of the colourful doors seen in Rabat's Medina and Kasbah of the Udayas, September 2014. UNESCO made Rabat a World Heritage Site two years ago and media and tour operators call it a “must-see destination”. But it seems the tourist hordes have yet to find out. While visitors are getting squeezed through the better-known sites of Marrakesh and Fez, the old part of Rabat - with its beautiful Medina and Kasbah of the Udayas - remains an almost unspoiled oasis of calm. Smaller and more compact, its labyrinths of streets, passages and dead ends are a treasure trove of shapes and colours, of moments begging to be caught by the photographer's lens. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Young cheetahs eat meat at The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) center in Otjiwarongo, Namibia, on August 13, 2013. The CCF started breeding Anatolian livestock dogs to promote cheetah-friendly farming after some 10,000 big cats – the current total worldwide population – were killed or moved off farms in the 1980s. Up to 1,000 cheetahs were being killed a year, mostly by farmers who saw them as livestock killers. But the use of dogs has slashed losses for sheep and goat farmers and led to less retaliation against the vulnerable cheetah. (Photo by Jennifer Bruce/AFP Photo)

People stand next to a ship, containing tonnes of hazardous mercury-mixed oil, as it was allowed to anchor at Gadani ship-breaking yard in Gadani, Pakistan, 28 May 2021. Authorities have launched an investigation into the anchoring of a ship at the Gadani shipbreaking yard despite Interpol's warning that the ship contains dangerous chemicals. (Photo by Rehan Khan/EPA/EFE)

A racegoer reacts to picking a winner in the first race on the third day of the Royal Ascot horserace meeting, which is traditionally known as Ladies Day, at Ascot, England Thursday, June 17, 2021. (Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo)

An alarmed squirrel. (Photo by Mary McGowan/Barcroft Images/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards)