Touching and dramatic portraits and landscape shots have won prizes at Australia's prestigious photography prize. Photo: Winner of the NSW (New South Wales) prize: Peter Solness said: “I wanted to re-imagine the lost waterways, so I got my light-painting tools to work. In this image, water is being released from the top of the historic Centennial Park No. 2 Reservoir, which was built in 1925 and holds 90 megalitres of water. After 89 years of incarceration these waters now run free!”. (Photo by Peter Solness/Head On)

The competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is now in its sixth year and has received over 2,500 entries. Photo: Centre of the Heart Nebula by Ivan Eder (Hungary). Situated 7500 light years away in the “W”-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia, the Heart Nebula is a vast region of glowing gas, energized by a cluster of young stars at its centre. The image depicts the central region, where dust clouds are being eroded and moulded into rugged shapes by the searing cosmic radiation. (Photo by Ivan Eder)

The Cage of Death at Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin City, Australia. The Cage of Death starts out above the water where the two tourists in it can see the huge crocodile below before the cage is lowered into the pen. The tourists are then inches from the 16-foot-long Saltwater crocodile as it greedily snaps its jaws over meaty treats that are being dangled right in front of the cage. (Photo by Crocosaurus Cove/Media Drum World/Profimedia)

A devotee gestures after being flogged by a reveler dressed as a devil during a mass celebration of the “Talciguines” of Texistepeque, El Salvador on Easter Monday, April 3, 2023. In the Nahuatl, Talciguin means “deviled men”, a traditional procession performed during Easter monday to represent the fight against the devil of the Christian prophet Jesus Christ. (Photo by Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A member of the Africa Roho Msalaba church throws a 2 month old baby into the air during the “Throwing babies into the air” ritual in Kibera Slum of Nairobi, Kenya on March 10, 2024. The babies of the members of the Africa Roho Msalaba church, who are not taken out of the house until they are 2 months old and are not allowed to be seen by strangers, are introduced to the community by being paraded through the streets with the 'throwing babies in the air' ritual. (Photo by Edwin Ndeke/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Protesters throw fireworks at riot police during clashes in Nanterre, near Paris, France, 29 June 2023. Violence broke out after police fatally shot a 17-year-old during a traffic stop in Nanterre on 27 June 2023. According to the French interior minister, 31 people were arrested with 2,000 officers being deployed to prevent further violence. (Photo by Yoan Valat/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Zdzisław Beksiński, 24 February 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor. Beksiński executed his paintings and drawings either in what he called a 'Baroque' or a 'Gothic' manner. The first style is dominated by representation, with the best-known examples coming from his fantastic realism period when he painted disturbing images of a surrealistic, nightmarish environment. The second style is more abstract, being dominated by form, and is typified by Beksiński's later paintings.

Beksiński was murdered in 2005.

“In a nutshell and to prevent my english readers from experiencing eye bleeding after having read too many syntax errors, I’m a french journalist – I work as an editor, not as photographer – who happens to be nuts about photography. Being the happy owner of too many Leica M for a man to shoot, I spend most of my free time shooting my friend and my town, Strasbourg, in b&w and sometimes in colors”. – Manuel Plantin

Photo: “Even detectives got the blues”. Strasbourg, 2011 (Photo by Manuel Plantin)