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)

A passer-by takes a selfie with an extra newspaper reporting on President-elect Joe Biden's win in the U.S. presidential election, in Tokyo Sunday, November 8, 2020. The headline reads: “Mr. Biden Assured to win”. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)

American stand-up comedian and actress Whitney Cummings fools around with photographers after she, Griffin Johnson, and Josh Richards have dinner together at Craig's in West Hollywood, CA. on April 6, 2021. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

American model Emily Ratajkowski attends Game 5 of the NBA Playoffs, New York Knicks v Atlanta Hawks at Madison Square Garden in New York, USA on June 2, 2021. (Photo by Startraks Photo/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A caiman in the Pantanal region of Brazil in 2021. They are used to seeing humans, allowing the photographer, Leighton Lum, a close-up shot. (Photo by Leighton Lum/Caters News Agency)

US actor Ben Affleck and US actress and singer Jennifer Lopez arrive for the screening of the film “The Last Duel” presented out of competition on September 10, 2021 during the 78th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido. (Photo by Yara Nardi/Reuters)

Burka-wearing Afghan women walk past a clothing shop, in Herat, Afghanistan, Tuesday, November 23, 2021. (Photo by Petros Giannakouris/AP Photo)

In this Thursday, May 31, 2018 photo, a temporary worker using a lantern collects white asparagus from a field in Caparroso, around 85 km (52 miles) from Pamplona, northern Spain. Dubbed the “white gold” of these northern Spanish farms because of their color and the high price they fetch in markets and restaurants around the world, the stringy delicacy is planted every fall and picked each year between April and June, at the height of the spring. (Photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo)