The Rio de Janeiro Olympics kick off on August 5 for some two weeks of competitive games drawing athletes as well as audiences from around the world. As they prepare to cover the event, Reuters photographers look back on their favourite pictures from past Olympics where they captured the action on the ground as well as the participants' tears and joy that followed. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Palestinian barber Ramadan Odwan styles and straightens the hair of a customer with fire at his salon in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip February 2, 2017. In Ramadan Odwan's barbershop in Gaza, hair isn't just blow-dried, it's blowtorch-dried. “People have gone crazy about it, many people are curious to go through the experience and they are not afraid”, he told Reuters. “People here love adventures”. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

People use large water guns to spray each other as they celebrate the annual Songkran festival in Bangkok, Thailand on April 14, 2025. Thailand celebrated the Thai traditional New Year, called Songkran in Thai and also known as ëthe water festivalí, on 13 April, with festivities going on on throughout the weekend. During Songkran, people celebrate the New Year by splashing water to each other as a sign of washing away sins and bad luck from the previous year. People across Thailand celebrate the New Year with parties and water related activities throughout the weekend. (Photo by Diego Azubel/Matrix Images)

Reuters photographer Bobby Yip took a series of portraits of people taking part in the “Occupy Central” protests in Hong Kong, and asked them why they had joined the demonstrations. China rules Hong Kong under a “one country, two systems” formula that accords the territory limited democracy. Tens of thousands of mostly student protesters are demanding Beijing give them full democracy, with the freedom to nominate election candidates. The unrest is the worst in Hong Kong since China resumed its rule over the former British colony in 1997. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

A waste picker unloads garbage at a waste transfer station in Bamako, Mali, August 19, 2018. In the Malian capital of Bamako, donkey carts driven by young men like 19-year-old Arouna Diabate play a vital role battling the fast-growing city's waste problem. Every morning before dawn, Diabate hitches his donkey to a cart and sets off on his rounds, going door-to-door to collect household garbage which he delivers to a local waste transfer station for a monthly salary of around $35. “I won't be picking up trash with a donkey cart for the rest of my life, but for now people appreciate us because we help clean up the homes of Bamako”, Diabate said. (Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters)

South African Sangomas are wizards and witches who are supposedly chosen by their ancestors to follow a traditional training and go through a rite of passage after which they become Sangomas and can cure and help people. They are so respected and trusted that western medical authorities have actually advised the government of South Africa to develop its cooperation with Sangomas in order to improve hygiene and health among the population. (Photo by Patrick Durand/Sygma via Getty Images)