Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Jeffrey Shiau, 35, a volunteer from the crowd, spits water into the mouth of Sam Kaufman, 27, a performer from the Human Fountains, during a reopening party held as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions are gradually lifted in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 15, 2021. (Photo by Cheney Orr/Reuters)

American model Kendall Jenner keeps her cool during a desert getaway in the second decade of June 2025. (Photo by @kendalljenner/Instagram)

Women pose for photographs infront of an art installation comprising of reflective stainless steel balls at a public park in Singapore on August 22, 2022. (Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP Photo)

A contestant prepares at the backstage before the Miss Transqueen India 2018 transgender beauty pageant in Mumbai, India on October 7, 2018. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

People look at sharks from an underwater room structure installed in the Aquarium of Paris, France, March 14, 2016. Airbnb and the Aquarium of Paris offer contest winners a night underwater sleeping with sharks and create a research platform for “misunderstood” shark species. (Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters)

1. Jennifer Lopez

Men and Women dressed as zombies walk through Hyde Park on February 25, 2012 in Sydney, Australia. The annual Zombie Walk raises money for the Brain Foundation and this year teamed up with FX channel in promotion of “The Walking Dead” series premiering in Australia this weekend. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)