Women take selfies as they wait for the subway at Penn Station, New York, December 26, 2023. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)

A Sri Lankan child uses an inflatable tube to wade through floodwaters after heavy rains in Biyagama suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka, 06 June 2021. Many parts of the island have been inundated due to heavy monsoon rains. According to the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Center, at least 14 people have been killed so far and more than 245,212 people affected across the country. (Photo by Chamila Karunarathne/EPA/EFE)

Brazilian singer Larissa de Macedo Machado, better known by her stage name Anitta is seen outside Schiaparelli during Paris Fashion Week – Haute Couture Fall Winter 2022 2023 – Day One on July 04, 2022 in Paris, France. (Photo by Spread Pictures/The Mega Agency)

Second Place Winner: “Thunderstorm at False Kiva”. I hiked out to these ruins at night hoping to photograph them with the Milky Way, but instead a thunderstorm rolled through, creating this dramatic image. – Max Seigal. National Geographic Traveler Director of Photography Dan Westergren, one of this year's judges, shares his thoughts on the second place winner: “This photo combines two different scenes into one: the small kiva in a cliff dwelling and the grand vista of Canyonlands National Park across the valley. I really like the two different color palettes – warm inside and purple outside. This two-for-one scene was caused by the lightning storm outside the dwelling, which lit up the landscape like it was a huge electronic flash. Looking at this picture I can imagine what a wonderful sight it must have been for the ancient people who lived here. It doesn't seem too amazing now in our modern world, but might have been mind-blowing for the prehistoric residents”. Location: Utah. (Photo and caption by Max Seigal/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Fossilized whale bones are on display outside the Wati El Hitan Fossils and Climate Change Museum, a UNESCO natural World Heritage site, on the opening day, in the Fayoum oasis, Egypt, Thursday, January 14, 2016. Egypt has cut the ribbon on the Middle East's first fossil museum housing the world's largest intact skeleton of a "walking whale" in an attempt to attract much-needed tourists driven off by recent militant attacks. The construction of the much-hyped Fossils and Climate Change Museum was covered a 2 billion euros (2. 17 billion dollars) grant from Italy, according to Italian Ambassador Maurizio Massari. Its centerpiece is an intact, 37-million-year-old and 20-meter-long skeleton of a legged form of whale that testifies to how modern-day whales evolved from land mammals. The sand-colored, dome-shaped museum is barely discernible in the breathtaking desert landscape that stretches all around. (Photo by Thomas Hartwell/AP Photo)

Using body paint and a woodland like location, Gesine appears to have created a model to look just like a red panda, Dortmund, Germany, October, 2016. An artist brings animals to life using body paint and contorted models. At first glance, these images could be mistaken for portraits of wildlife in their natural habitat were created with paper and paint. However, they are actually the incredible works of illusion by talented body painter Gesine Marwedel, who paints models to creates realistic animals. (Photo by Gesine Marwedel/Barcroft Images)

A coil-shaped Helix Nebula showing a fine web of filamentary “bicycle-spoke” features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth. A planetary nebula is the glowing gas around a dying, Sun-like star. (Photo by Reuters/NASA)