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)

Climate activists of the “Last Generation” covered with mud protest in front of the Senate building in Rome, Italy, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Two bare breast activists have smeared the facade of the senate with mud, shouting the slogan: “Help us for the ecological transition”. (Photo by Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via EXPA)

A model is prepared backstage at the LaQuan Smith show during Fashion Week on Monday, September 12, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

George Harrison of the Beatles sits cross-legged with his musical mentor, Ravi Shankar of India, a sitar virtuoso, in Los Angeles, August 3, 1967, as Harrison explains to newsmen that Shankar is teaching him to play the sitar, a 25-stringed guitar-like instrument. Harrison said “Indian music makes God come through in a spiritual way”. (Photo by AP Photo)

A boy jumps from a swing during sunset in Valras-Plage, southern France December 29, 2014. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

Amanda Lepore attends the Moschino x H&M – Front Row at Pier 36 on October 24, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

Two sculputures at the waterfront in Marseille – Ever feel like youve forgotten something? No its not a mind trick – these are the amazing photos of sculptures done by a French artist. The sculptures are the work of Bruno Catalano and might look like theyre missing vital organs but the invisible bodies represent a world citizen according to their creator. (Photo by Caters News Agency)

“Slow”. A calm cow in the messy streets of Jodhpur. Photo location: India. (Photo and caption by Matthias Troeger/National Geographic Photo Contest)