Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)

Participants of the “Lady in red“ procession, marking the day of the Summer Solstice, walk on a promenade of the Yenisei River in Krasnoyarsk, Russia on June 22, 2019. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Vladimir Mogilnikov, 62, washes his hands in a communal washing room in a dormitory for the workers of Proletarka textile factory in the town of Tver, 200 kilometres north-west from Moscow on August 8, 2020. (Photo by Andrey Borodulin/AFP Photo)

A female Chinese People's Liberation Army soldier looks at members of an honor guard preparing for a welcome ceremony for visiting German President Joachim Gauck, outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Monday, March 21, 2016. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)

An young Indian Jain devotee dressed as Lord Krishna participates in a religious rally organised on the occasion of Mahavir Jayanti in Kolkata on April 2, 2015. The most important religious holiday in Jainism, Mahavir Jayanti celebrates the birth of Mahavira, the last Tirthankara, which is generally accepted as 599 BCE. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

Amateur astronomer Bill Snyder has been involved with astrophotography since 2007. Photo: The Cygnus Wall is in the southern area of NGC7000 also known as the North America Nebula. It is approximately 1800 light years from Earth, and is in the constellation Cygnus. The Wall is an energized shock front and contains the most concentrated star formations in the nebula. The size of the North America Nebula is about 4 full moons. (Photo and caption by Bill Snyder)

A member of the Fientan group, a contemporary dance company of young deaf and mute people from Burkina Faso, performs during the Market for Performing Arts in Abidjan (MASA), at the Culture Palace in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters)

Yuccas catch fire as the Powerhouse fire makes a fast run toward Lake Hughes, south of Lake Hughes, California, on June 1, 2013. The 19,500-acre wildfire destroyed numerous homes overnight. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)