International photographic competition, which runs in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, awards special prize for the best close-up images. Here: Winner – Mayflies by Petar Sabol, Goričan, Croatia. (Photo by Sabol Petar/International Garden Photographer of the Year)

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 woman wearing a protective mask walks through a platform of a train station during the afternoon rush hours as the Omicron variant continues to spread, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Jakarta, Indonesia, January 3, 2022. (Photo by Willy Kurniawan/Reuters)

Palestinians react as they gather at the site of an explosion, following Israeli strikes in Gaza City on August 5, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

A health worker gives a polio vaccine to a girl on a street in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, June 27, 2022. Pakistan launched a new anti-polio drive on Monday, with the goal to vaccinate a million children across Pakistan. (Photo by K.M. Chaudary/AP Photo)

A Palestinian carries a gas cooker as he walks amidst the debris of a destroyed building in the city of Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on April 18, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant Hamas group. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

A girl wears a cheongsam during a fashion show at a shopping mall in South Tangerang, Banten province, Indonesia on February 8, 2024. (Photo by Sulthony Hasanuddin/Antara Foto via Reuters)

Steamed Chinese-style buns, known locally as salapao, are decorated with faces during the start of the annual 10-day vegetarian festival in Bang Saphan, southern Thailand on October 13, 2015. (Photo by Matthew Richards/Courtesy Image)