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)

People look at smoke and flame rising from the Nevskaya Manufaktura textile factory founded by English merchant J. Thornton in 1841, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Monday, April 12, 2021. The emergencies ministry said the fire had broken out over several floors of the red-brick Nevskaya Manufaktura building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A crustacean walks on a road after flooding went back in Schuld, Germany, Friday, July 16, 2021. Two days before the Ahr river went over the banks after strong rain falls causing severals deaths and hundreds of people missing. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

American actress Rachel Zegler and Panamanian actress Ilda Mason arrive at the 2021 American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 21, 2021. (Photo by Aude Guerrucci/Reuters)

Attendees look on at the event held by Kamala Harris during Election Night, at Howard University in Washington on November 6, 2024. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

US surfer Koa Rothman rides a huge swell in training for the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout 2025 event held annually at Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, on December 26, 2024. The “Da Hui Backdoor Shootout” in 2025 is an invitation-only surfing competition held on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, during a holding period from January 4 to 16, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bielmann/AFP Photo)

A walrus takes centre stage after barging another out of the way to be in a photograph in Svalbard, between mainland Norway and the North Pole in January 2025. (Photo by Olav Thokle/Syndicated Photos/Solent News)

A man shakes a wooden disk to keep it on fire during the Schieweschlawe festival in Offwiller, eastern France, Sunday, February 26, 2023. The Schieweschlawe festival is a celtic tradition to drive away evil spirit and celebrates equinox. (Photo by Jean-Francois Badias/AP Photo)