An officer reviews members of the honor guard as they line up before a welcoming ceremony for visiting Mozambique's President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, May 18, 2016. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

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)

Indian performers painted as tigers take part in the “Pulikali”, or Tiger Dance, in Thrissur on September 17, 2016. The folk-art event is held every year in the town during the “Onam” festival. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

A Zimbabwean subsistence farmer holds a stunted maize cob in his field outside Harare, January 20, 2016. About 14 million people face hunger in Southern Africa because of a drought that has been exacerbated by an El Nino weather pattern, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Monday. In Zimbabwe, 1.5 million people, more than 10 percent of the population, face hunger, WFP said. (Photo by Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters)

A boy wearing a World War II guerrilla cap with the five-point star attends the Victory Day ceremony in Belgrade, Serbia, Monday, May 9, 2022. People are marking the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in WWII. (Photo by Darko Vojinovic/AP Photo)

People dance during a heavy metal concert at Omni Space in Beijing, China, August 14, 2020. China boasts a small but buoyant heavy metal scene, where bands mix genre standards with Chinese elements. Black metal is a sub-genre that creates a dark, moody atmosphere layering heavily distorted guitars and high-pitched vocals. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A black-winged stilt patrols a reservoir in Jezreel Valley in Israel early April 2023. Their eggs are a golden colour mottled with brown. (Photo by Itamar Procaccia/Solent News)

A man talks on his mobile phone in the village of Devmali in the desert state of Rajasthan, India June 14, 2016. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/Reuters)