The year’s best photos, as selected by editors at Postmedia News, are a stunning collection of the greatest images from around the world. Take a look through, and let us know which you think are the best examples of the diversity of our planet.
Children play around a man disguised as Batman at the Favela do Metro slum, area just near the Maracana stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Jan. 9, 2014. Families living in this shantytown within a stone’s throw of Rio’s mythical Maracana stadium refuse to have their homes demolished as part of a project to renovate the district before the FIFA World Cup circus pitches camp in June. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)
A man kisses his rescued son, on May 13, 2014 after an explosion in a coal mine in Manisa. At least 157 miners were killed in collapsed coal mine in the western Turkish city of Manisa. (BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)
A competitor competes in the Mud Madness race, at Foymore Lodge in Portadown, County Armagh on Sept. 14, 2014. Some 800 Competitors ran, crawled and belly-flopped their way across four and half miles of bogs and ponds, under cargo nets and through water sprays and muddy trenches in aid of Charity. (PAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images)
This photo taken on Sept. 3, 2014 shows Leng Yuting, 26, posing underwater for her wedding pictures at a photo studio in Shanghai, ahead of her wedding. Her fiance Riyang said they had their wedding photographs taken underwater because ‘its romantic and beautiful’. (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)
Michael Brown Sr. yells out as the casket is lowered during the funeral service for his son Michael Brown in Normandy, Mo., Aug. 25, 2014. Hundreds of people gathered to say goodbye to Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot and killed Aug. 9 in a confrontation with a police officer that fueled almost two weeks of street protests. (Richard Perry/AP)
German pianist Stefan Aaron hovers about the Munich airport Franz-Josef-Strauss, southern Germany, on July 23, 2014. Stefan Aaron is seated in front of his piano on an aluminum structure that is reminiscent of a flying carpet and attached to a helicopter. (CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama makes a face as he reads “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House is Washington April 21, 2014. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
A leopard leaps across an under-construction structure near a furniture market in the Degumpur residential area as a bystander moves out of the way in Meerut on Feb. 23, 2014. A leopard sparked panic in a north Indian city when it strayed inside a hospital, a cinema and an apartment block before evading captors, an official said. (AFP/Getty Images)
Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai gestures after addressing the media in Birmingham, central England on Oct. 10, 2014. The Nobel Peace Prize went to 17-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi for their work promoting children’s rights. Seventeen-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said she was “honoured” to be the first Pakistani and the youngest person to be given the award and dedicated the award to the “voiceless”. “This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard,” she said. (OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images)
A picture taken on Oct. 7, 2014 in Grabels near Montpellier shows a car in an upright position following the overnight flash floods due to heavy showers. Floodwater streamed down roads and highways, engulfing cars as the Lez river burst its banks in the seaside capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region after it was lashed by record-breaking downpours. (SYLVAIN THOMAS/AFP/Getty Images)
Britain’s Prince Charles wears a traditional Saudi uniform as he attends the traditional Saudi dancing best known as “Arda,” performed during Janadriya culture festival at Der’iya in Riyadh, Feb. 18, 2014. (Fayez Nureldine/AP)
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of European Space Agency’s German astronaut Alexander Gerst, Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev and US NASA astronaut Gregory Wiseman blasts off from the launch pad at Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome early on May 29, 2014. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)
Israeli soldiers, family and friends morn over the grave of Sergeant Sagi Erez, an infantry soldier training to be a squad commander, during his funeral at the military cemetery in Haifa, northern Israel July 29, 2014. Erez, 19, was killed in combat after Gaza militants used a tunnel to sneak into Israel. (Ariel Schalit/AP)
Fatima, 13, weeps as she kisses her injured father, Ahmad al-Messmar, 40, who was wounded when a deadly car bomb blew up near a gas station, in the predominately Shiite town of Hermel, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Syrian border in northeast Lebanon Feb. 2, 2014. A shadowy Lebanese Sunni extremist group claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing in Hermel, a stronghold of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, that killed several people in the latest attack linked to the war in neighboring Syria. (Hussein Malla/AP)
A flock of migrating starlings is seen as they perform their traditional dance before landing to sleep, during the sunset near the southern Israeli village of Tidhar, in the northern Israeli Negev desert, on Feb. 12, 2014. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)
A young girl is pictured after she was wounded during clashes between riot-police and protestors after the funeral of Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old boy who died from injuries suffered during last year’s anti-government protests, in Istanbul on March 12, 2014. (BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)
An employee of the Russian Space Training Center hangs out space suits to dry off. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
Pope Francis flanked by Israel’s President Shimon Peres (L) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (R) pray for peace in the Vatican gardens June 8, 2014. Pope Francis waded head-first into Mideast peace-making, welcoming the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican for an evening of peace prayers just weeks after the last round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations collapsed. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)
Protesters use a large slingshot to hurl a Molotov cocktail at police in central Kiev, Ukraine, Jan. 23, 2014. (Sergei Grits/AP)
Protesters pose with a police shield outside the parliament in Ouagadougou on Oct, 30, 2014 as cars and documents burn outside. Hundreds of angry demonstrators in Burkina Faso stormed parliament on Oct. 30 before setting it on fire in protest at plans to change the constitution to allow President Blaise Compaore to extend his 27-year rule. Police had fired tear gas on protesters to try to prevent them from moving in on the National Assembly building ahead of a vote on the controversial legislation. But about 1,500 people managed to break through the security cordon and were ransacking parliament. (ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)
Pro-independence supporters push each other in a shopping trolley in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sept. 19, 2014, following a defeat in the referendum on Scottish independence. Scotland rejected independence in a referendum that left the centuries-old United Kingdom intact but paved the way for a major transfer of powers away from London. (Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. first lady Michelle Obama practices tai chi with students at Chengdu No.7 High School in Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan province March 25, 2014. (Andy Wong/AP)
An Orthodox priest tries to stop clashes between protesters the police in the center of Kiev on Jan. 22, 2014. Ukrainian police stormed protesters’ barricades in Kiev as violent clashes erupted and activists said that one person had been shot dead by the security forces. (SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
US Secretary of State John Kerry kicks around a soccer ball while talking on his cellphone during an airplane refueling stop at Sal Island, Cape Verde, enroute to Washington, DC, May 5, 2014. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of European Space Agency’s German astronaut Alexander Gerst, Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev and US NASA astronaut Gregory Wiseman blasts off from the launch pad at Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome early on May 29, 2014. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)
An Israeli soldier gestures in relief as he walks with comrades near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip after returning from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian coastal enclave, on Aug. 4, 2014. (GIL COHEN MAGEN/AFP/Getty Images)
A giant cloud of hot volcanic ash clouds engulfs villages in Karo district during the eruption of Mount Sinabung volcano located in Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Feb. 1, 2014. (SUTANTA ADITYA/AFP/Getty Images)
The car of Caterham-Renault driver Kamui Kobayashi of Japan veers off the track during an accident at the start of the Formula One Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 16, 2014. (SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)
A picture taken on May 3, 2014, shows people visiting “The Gateway to Hell,” a huge burning gas crater in the heart of Turkmenistan’s Karakum desert. The fiery pit was the result of a simple miscalculation by Soviet scientists in 1971 after their boring equipment suddenly drilled into an underground cavern. Fearing that the crater would emit poisonous gases, the scientists took the decision to set it alight, thinking that the gas would burn out quickly and this would cause the flames to go out. But the flames have not gone out in more than 40 years, in a potent symbol of the vast gas reserves of Turkmenistan, which are believed to be the fourth largest in the world. (SASIN/AFP/Getty Images)
Protesters advance to new positions in Kiev on Feb. 20, 2014. Top officials were evacuated from Ukraine’s main government building close to clashes in the heart of Kiev. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Police arrest a man as they disperse a protest in Ferguson, Mo., early Aug. 20, 2014. On Aug. 9, a white police officer fatally shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, in the St. Louis suburb. (Charlie Riedel/AP)
Lucy Hamlin and her husband, Spc. Timothy Hamlin, wait for permission to re-enter the Fort Hood military base, where they live, following a shooting on the base April 2, 2014, in Fort Hood, Texas. (Tamir Kalifa/AP)
Senior soloist of the Joburg Ballet Kitty Phetla performs in a classroom at the Nka-Thuto Primary School in Soweto on Oct. 16, 2014. Using ballet and dance to promote healthy and positive choices, Joburg Ballet will provide lecture demonstrations to twenty schools in Soweto, raising awareness and informing students of the available free classes they provide together with the provincial department of education. (MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images)
People look on as a woman reacts after her husband is suspected of dying from the Ebola virus, in the Liberian capital Monrovia, on Oct. 4, 2014. (PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images)
An aerial picture taken on Sept. 14, 2014 shows a plane flying over the Bardarbunga volcano spewing lava and smoke in southeast Iceland. Bardarbunga, at 6,500 feet, is Iceland’s second-highest peak and is located under Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajoekull. (BERNARD MERIC/AFP/Getty Images)
US actor George Clooney and British lawyer Amal Alamuddin leave the palazzo Ca Farsetti on a taxi boat on Sept. 29, 2014 in Venice, after a civil ceremony to officialise their wedding. (PIERRE TEYSSOT/AFP/Getty Images)
An alleged sniper and member of the pro-government forces is beaten by anti-government protestors in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014. The regime of Ukraine’s president appeared close to collapse on February 22 as the emboldened opposition took control of central Kiev and key government and parliament positions and voted to immediately free its jailed leader Yulia Tymoshenko. (BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)
Lukas Michul, a member of the ‘dream walker’ group jumps from atop the rugged rocks overlooking the azure waters of Navagio beach, one of the Greece’s most renowned leisure spots on the popular tourist island of Zakynthos on June 23, 2014. This is rope jumping — part diving, part rock climbing, with a touch of engineering. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images)
“Aloitadores” (fighters) struggle with a wild horse during the “Rapa Das Bestas” (Shearing of the Beasts) traditional event in the Spanish northwestern village of Sabucedo, some 40 kms from Santiago de Compostela, on July 5, 2014. During the 400-year-old horse festival, hundreds of wild horses are rounded up from the mountains, trimmed and groomed. (MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images)
General view during a fire in Valparaiso, 110 km west of Santiago, Chile, on April 12, 2014. Authorities decreed a red alert for the area after a fire consumed more than 100 houses. (ALBERTO MIRANDA/AFP/Getty Images)
