Nora Mork of Norway celebrates scoring a goal during the women's bronze medal handball match between Norway and Sweden of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo on August 8, 2021. (Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)

Twenty-year-old women dressed in kimonos walk during sunset after the “Coming-of-Age Day” celebration Yokohama Arena in Yokohama on January 11, 2021 under a state of emergency over the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Philip Fong/AFP Photo)

A South African police officer speaks to residents of the densely populated Alexandra township east of Johannesburg Friday, March 27, 2020. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

A grey-bellied Night Monkey (Aotus Lemurinus) plays with a teddy bear at the veterinary clinic of the Cali Zoo in Cali, Colombia on January 27, 2020. They monkey is being raised by personnel of the Cali Zoo after a worker found it near the complex. Apparently it fall from a tree with his father who had health problems. (Photo by Luis Robayo/AFP Photo)

Desmond Boylan, a photographer who covered war and conflict across the world before dedicating his life to documenting the daily joys and tribulations of life in Cuba for Reuters and The Associated Press, died suddenly while on assignment on Saturday, December 29, 2018 afternoon in Havana. Here: Cuban President takes a glass during a ceremony in the Oporto Bourse where he and other Ibero-American leaders were made members of the Port Wine Brotherhood in Portugal, October 1998. (Photo by Desmond Boylan/Reuters)

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)

In this October 14, 2013 photo, ecology professor Ricardo Freitas catches a broad-snouted caiman to examine, then release back into the water channel in the affluent Recreio dos Bandeirantes suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Caimans are like tanks, a very old species with a remarkable capacity for renovation that allows them to survive under extreme conditions where others couldn't, said Freitas, who runs the Instituto Jacare, or the Caiman Institute, which aims to protect the reptiles. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A cat sits in the flooding waters from Hurricane Matthew in downtown Nichols, South Carolina, October 10, 2016. (Photo by Randall Hill/Reuters)