27 Downright Amazing Photos From The 2018 Sony World Photography Awards

Horsemen fight for a headless calf carcass during a buzkashi match on the day of Nawroz, or Persian New Year, in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, on March 21, 2017.

Soldiers in China. 

A Rohingya refugee boy desperate for aid cries as he climbs on a truck distributing aid for a local NGO near the Balukali refugee camp on Sept. 20, 2017, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

The most graceful lady of her neighborhood in Hamburg, Germany -- always stylish, colorful, in good spirits, smiling, never complaining, even through everyday struggles. She is never seen without her best friend – her little dog.

Every Wednesday at Spurgeons Academy, a school in the middle of the indecipherable maze of Kibera's narrow streets and alleys, students take the chairs and benches out of a classroom and sweep the floor. The school uniforms are switched to bright-colored clothes.
When teacher Mike Wamaya enters the classroom, the students get into position and place one hand on the concrete wall as though it were a ballet bar.
Classical music plays out of a small portable speaker, and the class begins.

A young white rhino waits in a boma, blindfolded and partially drugged after a long journey from South Africa, before being released into the wild in Botswana as part of efforts to rebuild Botswana's lost rhino populations.

A very impressive starling murmuration. 

Zamira Myrabekova of Kazakstan keeps her eyes on the ball while being held underwater by Russian defense during the Women's Water Polo Group D preliminary round match between Russia and Kazahstan during the 2017 Budapest FINA World Championships on July 20, 2017, in Budapest, Hungary.

Aerial view of Glacial river in Iceland. 

An image from "Horsestyle" series by Wiebke Haas. 

Child Disability Swimming Championships at the disability swimming pool in Tehran Province, Iran.

Every day, before sunset, thousands of Palestinian workers spend between two and four hours clumped together to cross the so-called "CheckPoint 300," which divides Bethlehem and Jerusalem, in order to go working in Jerusalem and surrounding areas.

Omid, who doesn't know his age, stands for a portrait with his homemade skis in Aub Bala's village mosque. 

A thermal vacuum test area. 

A portrait of a woman with freckles.

The high-dive competition at the 17th FINA World Championship. 

A 40-year-old orangutan named Azy at the Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Ilona at home with her daughter, Michelle, 4, in Moscow. Ilona’s sweater was produced for her in a custom color by her friend Andrey Artyomov, whose Walk of Shame fashion line is popular among the wives of oligarchs.

Rasidatou and Latifatou, 4, pose for a portrait on a street in the Koumassi district of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on July 25, 2017.

Taken on the outskirts of Hong Kong, this large residential area is supposed to resemble North American-type suburbs with individual homes and even yellow school buses. However, this large lake in the center of it all may have been designed a particular way, which can only truly be recognized from above.

An area in Kazakhstan.

"The Roar."

Female genital mutilation is the partial or complete removal of external female genitalia. A series called "Scars," which this photo belongs to, shares the personal stories of 12 Gambian women who survived the procedure as children.

A view of Torano’s "marble valley" in the Apuan Alps, one of Italy’s most marble-rich areas. 

In China, students have their military training at the beginning of the school term.

An elderly woman is driven through the city on the back of one of Golden Division’s Humvees. The temperature is nearly 50 degrees Celcius, and she’s too weak to get away from the frontline on her own.

"Veterans" is a series of portraits of people who took part in World War II.