“Just hanging out”. As full autumn hits the valley of Hallingdal in Norway, this bear chills out in a tree which seems to barely cover its weight. Photo location: Flå, Hallingdal, Norway. (Photo and caption by Jorgen Tharaldsen/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A pilgrim holds up the cross after it was thrown by an Orthodox priest into the water, during an epiphany ceremony to bless the sea, on the southeast resort of Ayia Napa, Cyprus, Friday, January 6, 2023. By tradition, a crucifix is cast into the waters of a lake or river, and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy through the year. (Photo by Petros Karadjias/AP Photo)

Night lovers; Hormozgan province, Iran. “In this picture, you can see the Milky Way rising on a fascinating spring night on the Persian Gulf coast. The stunning cliffs of this area make every viewer imagine and even talk to them! The light pollution from a faraway city was quite strong, so it was a challenging post-processing process. I’m a nightscaper who tries to achieve an artistic look in my images, and in this image, I tried to convey and capture the magic of this location”. (Photo by Mohammad Hayati/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)

A resident of the Goodwin House senior living community, looks on as the DC area motown band “The Tribe” plays a social distance concert in their parking lot in Arlington, Virginia, during the coronavirus pandemic on April 14, 2020. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP Photo)

People sit near a fully loaded in Madama near the border with Lybia on January 1, 2015. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian paid a surprise visit to northern Niger on January 1, to visit a base being built to combat the growing flow of weapons and jihadists from neighbouring Libya. Le Drian travelled from Chad to Madama, a desert outpost about 100 kilometres from Libya, where he saw in the New Year with troops at a French base. Madama is situated on the route used by jihadists and arms smugglers in southern Libya to reach northern Mali and Niger. (Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP Photo)

Anna Sloan and Vicki Adams of Britain sweep during a match against Olympic Athletes from Russia in Session 1 of the Women' s Round Robin curling competition at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Curling Centre in Gangneung, South Korea on February 14, 2018. The British team won the match convincingly, 10-3. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

A love story with two log choppers. “In 1993, I was working on a project about life in the Olomouc region of Czechoslovakia. One day, I came to the village of Dlouhá Loučka-Křivá and went into a courtyard where I saw two old people, a husband and wife, sawing firewood for winter. They were working quietly, concentrating. I watched them fetch a beam from a wrecked barn, but they didn’t discuss how they planned to carry it to the saw. The woman faced one way, the man the other. When they realised, the woman eventually turned and followed her husband. The picture I took is the picture of many relationships – when each partner wants something different, but they have to come to an agreement, pull together eventually”. (Photo by Jindrich Streit)

Ukrainians pour water on each other on a street in Lviv, Ukraine, 02 May 2016. The tradition of pouring water was an ancient spring ritual of cleansing on first Monday after Orthodox Easter. (Photo by Mykola Tys/EPA)