A Taliban fighter poses for a picture holding a flower before offering Friday noon prayers in Kabul, Afghanistan on October 1, 2021. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP Photo)

Pausing for a selfie as plum blossoms burst into bloom in Dujiangyan City, in southwest China’s Sichuan province on February 20, 2024. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

Art graduate Katie Mills with her one of her “Kheeky” face flesh bottles that forms part of her “Bottoms Up” illustration design work during the media preview of the Edinburgh College of Art graduate show in Edinburgh on Friday, August 16, 2024. The exhibition features the work of more than 350 postgraduate students, and is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, the UK's largest annual celebration of visual art. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

This strange coral-looking specimen is actually a mushroom. The photo, “Beautiful Destroyer”, was taken in the Panamanian tropical rainforest where the mushroom produces nitrogen, an element vital to soil health. (Photo by Sarah A. Batterman)

A tractor trailer drives through flash flood waters that overran Skunk Creek, Tuesday, August 19, 2014, in northwestern Phoenix. Flooding from heavy rain in the Phoenix area has forced authorities to close several major roads, including a portion of Interstate 17 about 25 miles north of the city. (Photo by Matt York/AP Photo)

Each year Nikon Small World recognizes the excellence of photography taken under the microscope. The contest showcases the beauty and complexity of life. Anyone interested in microscopy and photography can enter the contest and in its 42nd year, Nikon Small World received 2,000 entries from 70 countries. Here: 11th Place; Scales of a butterfly wing underside (Vanessa atalanta). (Photo by Francis Sneyers/Nikon's Small World 2016)

During the spring harvest season, a group of traditional Malaysian honey hunters travel to the rainforest near the Thai border to collect honeycombs from giant bees – and risk their lives climbing 200ft trees. Here: Bees are sensitive to light, which makes them follow the glowing embers down to the ground. (Photo by Hasnoor Hussain/The Guardian)

A pool ingeniously filled with clear water in the middle of Lake Kerniki in Greece enabled this shot of feeding pelicans. (Photo by Bence Mate/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)