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)

A peacock leaps into the air as it battles a rival over territory on a foggy morning. The brightly coloured bird jumped almost six feet into the air before crashing down on its opponent. The fight was captured by amateur photographer Nilesh Patel, in Dudhwa National Park, India. (Photo by Nilesh Patel/Solent News & Photo Agency/Solent News)

A police officer adjusts her helmet on the sidelines of an anti-government protest against food scarcity at soup kitchens and economic reforms proposed by President Javier Milei, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 7, 2024. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

Job seekers carry a woman who fainted at the Indonesia Spectacular Job Fair 2015 at Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta August 12, 2015. Indonesia's gross domestic product grew at 4.67 percent in the second quarter, its slowest pace in six years. Since he took office last October, Widodo's government has passed a raft of measures aimed at boosting industry and consumption that have been criticized by investors as protectionist. (Photo by Reuters/Beawiharta)

Jiejin Qiu, who is six months pregnant with her first baby, poses underwater during a photo shoot at a local wedding photo studio in Shanghai, in this September 5, 2014 file photo. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

A three-month-old Sumatran tiger cub named “Bandar” shows his displeasure after being dunked in the tiger exhibit moat for a swim reliability test at the National Zoo in Washington, on November 6, 2013. All cubs born at the zoo must take a swim test before being allowed to roam in the exhibit. Bandar passed his test. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)