“A topless women's rights activist hacked down a Christian cross in the Ukrainian capital Kiev with a chain saw on Friday in protest at the prosecution of the Russian feminist punk band, p*ssy Riot”. – Reuters. (Photo by FEMEN)

Antonina Yermokhina, 86, does physical exercises during her daily training session on the embankment of the Yenisei River in the Siberian town of Divnogorsk, Russia November 13, 2017. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Esau the ape at the piano. (Photo by Reinhold Thiele/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images). Circa 1900

A Russian trenchmortar crew run to take up a new firing position in the Stalingrad area during the Great Patriotic War. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). October 1942

Breath of an Arctic fox by Marco Gaiotti, Italy. Marco was watching this little Arctic fox as it incessantly called another nearby. Gradually he noticed the fox’s wet breath was quickly freezing in the air after each call. It was late winter in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, and the air was -35C (-31F). Photographing Arctic foxes is often frustrating, as they are normally running around fast in search of food, but this one was very relaxed and let Marco get close enough to focus on it, with the light glowing perfectly in the background. (Photo by Marco Gaiotti/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021)

A Flemish demonstrator, one of thousands who gathered for a march through Brussels to protest against what the Flemings call their subjucation by the French-speaking Walloons, draws back as he is jeered by a crowd of Walloons on the pavement in a Brussels Street, on October 14, 1962. The Flemish demonstrators clashed with Walloon counter demonstrators as riot police sought to maintain order. The Flemings claim that although they form 60% of the population in Belgium, they are inadequately represented in the government, and they say, the Walloons get most of the top jobs in the armed forces and the diplomatic service. (Photo by AP Photo)

Models painted in camouflage colours to blend in with the background pose for Chinese artist Liu Bolin's artwork “Dongji”, or Winter Solstice, on the second day after China's capital Beijing issued its second ever “red alert” for air pollution, in Beijing, China, December 20, 2015. In this artwork, Liu wants to express his concerns about China and its people, including air pollution problem, Liu told Reuters. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

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)