“The Net thrower”. The fisherman are conducting activities on Situgunung Lake. Photo location: Situgunung lake, Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Dody Kusuma/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Two young dancers take pictures while waiting for the start of the Koenji Awa-Odori dance festival, in the Koenji neighborhood of Tokyo. Saturday, August 24, 2019, Started in the 1950s, the Koenji Awa-Odori has grown to be one of Tokyo's largest and most popular summer festivals an estimated 10,000 dancers participating in the dance festival. Hundreds of thousands of spectators gather in the neighborhood to watch the two-day summer spectacle. The event is held on the last weekend of August each year. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

Cast member Keri Russell attends the premiere of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in Los Angeles, California, U.S. December 16, 2019. (Photo by Phil McCarten/Reuters)

American fashion model Karlie Kloss arrives at Wall Street Journal Awards event on November 02, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images)

With the humpback calving season drawing to a close, here’s a look at some of Rita Kluge’s distinctive marine photos from the south Pacific. The Sydney-based photographer fell in love with whales after witnessing southern rights from the New South Wales coastline as they travelled to and from their feeding grounds in the Antarctic. She has since been to Tonga, where humpbacks breed and calf in winter months, to photograph them in the water. (Photo by Rita Kluge/The Guardian)

Second Place Winner: “Thunderstorm at False Kiva”. I hiked out to these ruins at night hoping to photograph them with the Milky Way, but instead a thunderstorm rolled through, creating this dramatic image. – Max Seigal. National Geographic Traveler Director of Photography Dan Westergren, one of this year's judges, shares his thoughts on the second place winner: “This photo combines two different scenes into one: the small kiva in a cliff dwelling and the grand vista of Canyonlands National Park across the valley. I really like the two different color palettes – warm inside and purple outside. This two-for-one scene was caused by the lightning storm outside the dwelling, which lit up the landscape like it was a huge electronic flash. Looking at this picture I can imagine what a wonderful sight it must have been for the ancient people who lived here. It doesn't seem too amazing now in our modern world, but might have been mind-blowing for the prehistoric residents”. Location: Utah. (Photo and caption by Max Seigal/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Photographer Lori Nix hand-crafted dioramas are fictional scenes of a post-apocalyptic world in which plants and decay reclaim both grand and mundane structures. Each structure is built in Nix's living room and can take over half a year to build. Photo: Library, 2007. Photographer Lori Nix says this is the most popular image she has made for this project that she calls “The City”. (Photo by Lori Nix)

An Afghan girl jumps off the wall of a small cemetery in Kandahar on July 29, 2022. (Photo by Daniel Leal/AFP Photo)