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)

An Iraq fan poses before the World Cup 2022 Qualifier 2nd round Group C football match between Iraq and Iran at Amman International Stadium in Amman, Jordan on November 14, 2019. (Photo by Muhammad Hamed/Reuters)

Two young women, having enjoyed a drink at a party, dance together in Tehran, Iran. Although unrelated men and women are forbidden to socialise together many people ignore these strictures in the privacy of their own homes. (Photo by Hossein Fatemi/Reuters/Panos Pictures/Courtesy of World Press Photo Foundation)

An officer of the Afghan border police throws an assault rifle to a policeman participating in a military exercise on the outskirts of Herat, Afghanistan, Monday, September 7, 2015. Twelve female and seventy male border police personnel participated in the military exercise near the border with Iran in Herat province. (Photo by Hoshang Hashimi/AP Photo)

Mark Wagner, the collage artist, challenges viewers to examine their relationship with money and the capitalist society in which we live. Photo: “Way of the Dinosaur”, cut one-dollar bills. (Photo by Mark Wagner)

A protester holds a poster displaying the message “Get away UK” during an anti-British demonstration in the Iranian capital that resulted in a break in at the British Embassy on November 29, 2011 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by FarsNews/Getty Images)

A woman counts her money as she sells flowers ahead of International Women's Day in central Kiev, Ukraine on March 7, 2019. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

American model Emily Ratajkowski attends The Fashion Awards 2025, an annual event raising money for the British Fashion Council Foundation, at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, Britain on December 1, 2025. (Photo by Maja Smiejkowska/Reuters)