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)

Participants run through coloured powder during the Colour Run race in Moscow, Russia on June 5, 2022. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

A woman says goodbye to a reservist drafted during the partial mobilisation, before his departure for a military base, in Sevastopol, Crimea on September 27, 2022. (Photo by Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters)

American actress Bella Thorne poses seductively for Roberto Cavalli early December 2022. (Photo by bellathorne/Instagram)

British-Albanian singer Dua Lipa during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2023/2024 on February 23, 2023 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by dualipa/Instagram)

American actress and singer Vanessa Hudgens poses on the red carpet during the Oscars arrivals at the 94th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 27, 2022. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish in the last decade of October 2023 partners with Gucci to advocate for animals and gives us something to contemplate. (Photo by Instagram)

India's Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel assists a dog to perform a stunt during the celebrations to mark country's Independence Day, in Chennai on August 15, 2025. (Photo by R.Satish Babu/AFP Photo)