This year’s World Press Photo winners in the nature categories show that our planet can be both brutal and awe-inspiring: A sunbather in a bikini reads lazily on a Sydney beach as a massive cloud tsunami looms overhead; divers surround a gigantic humpback whale and her newborn calf in the Revillagigedo Islands in Mexico; an orange orangutan climbs over 30 meters up a tree in an Indonesian rainforest.
Each year, the World Press Photo selects the best photojournalism produced over the previous 12 months. This year, the Nature category singles winners were photographers Rohan Kelly, Anuar Patjane and Sergio Tapiro. The stories winners were Tim Laman, Brent Stirton and Christian Ziegler.
Selected from among 82,951 images submitted by press photographers, the nature category was one of eight themed categories, including Sports, Portraits and News. The Overall winner, photographer Warren Richardson, captured a refugee father handing his baby to another man as they crossed the barbed-wired border between Serbia and Hungary.
Rachel Lowry is a writer and contributor for TIME LightBox. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @rachelllowry.