Wakodahatchee wetlands, Delray Beach, Florida, US. Equipped with sinewy necks and spear-like bills, great blue herons can lunge with fearsome speed to strike their aquatic prey. Adults will also employ rapid stabbing motions as one aspect of their complex courtship displays; they’re seemingly dangerous moves, but fitting to the intensity of mating season. (Photo by Melissa Rowell/Audubon Photography Awards)

The current world Champions in the Men's and Women's RS:X, Piotr Myszka of Poland and Blanca Manchon of Spain arrive at Bathers Beach carrying the ISAF World Championships Flag to be raised to officially open the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships on December 2, 2011 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)

Participants at the Dubai Run at Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on November 26, 2021. (Photo by Ruel Pableo for The National)

Members of the public enjoy the sunny weather along the Brighton beach in East Sussex, United Kingdom on July 17, 2022. (Photo by Marcin Nowak/London News Pictures)

The sun rises through the thick fog that covers the city of Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, November 12, 2021. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Visitors ride a swing attraction during the Hochheim Market in Hochheim, Germany on November 11, 2025. The traditional autumn fair has been held for more than 500 years. (Photo by Matias Basualdo/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A visitor poses with artist Joyce Pensato's artwork “Mickey for Micky” at the Frieze Art Fair in London, October 14, 2014. (Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

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)