Visions of Earth 2009 - Photo Gallery - National Geographic Magazine

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Visions of Earth

Each month, National Geographic magazine features breathtaking photographs in Visions of Earth. Browse through visions of the world as seen through a photographer's eye.

/visions-of-earth/img/1209-lights-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1209-lights-60.jpg Japan—Covered in chrome and gleaming neon, big rigs from across Japan shine at a truck show in Aichi Prefecture. Known as dekotora, most are working trucks—though on long hauls, they're typically not driven with all their lights on.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1209-ross-shelf-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1209-ross-shelf-60.jpg Antarctica—Cliffs higher than a hundred feet mark the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, a glacier-fed slab the size of France connected to the Antarctic coast. Fissure lines near the edge show where the next iceberg may calve.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1209-japan-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1209-japan-60.jpg Kosovo—In the village of Donje Ljubinje, local tradition calls for painting a bride's face to ward off bad luck. After the ceremony, women from her new husband's family washed Rasima Biljibani's face clean.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1109-crop-circle-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1109-crop-circle-60.jpg Switzerland—Curiosity seekers stroll inside a crop circle etched in a Corcelles-près-Payerne wheat field in 2007. More than 200 feet in diameter, the pattern was spied by a Swiss military pilot flying over the Broye region.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1109-chimps-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1109-chimps-60.jpg Cameroon—At the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, more than a dozen residents form a gallery of grief, looking on as Dorothy—a beloved female felled in her late 40s by heart failure—is borne to her burial. Read the story behind the photo. ]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1109-antarctica-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1109-antarctica-60.jpg Antarctica—Radiating charisma on a 23°F morning, a three-foot-tall emperor penguin strikes a pose on the pack ice of the Amundsen Sea. The photographers were taking a month-long cruise aboard a Russian icebreaker.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1009-kayaker-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1009-kayaker-60.jpg United States—A kayaker plunges 70 feet into winter water at Washington State's Outlet Falls. His January 2009 descent was one of only five tallied on the Klickitat River tributary, here swollen by floods and sallow from runoff.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1009-swimmers-england-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1009-swimmers-england-60.jpg England—At London's Tooting Bec pool, four fancifully attired, color-coded women kick off the Cold Water Swimming Championships. More than 300 bathers, ages 12 to 85, competed and promoted the thrill of the chill.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/1009-swiss-pilot-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/1009-swiss-pilot-60.jpg Switzerland—Neither a bird nor a plane, "Jet Man"—aka adventurer Yves Rossy—soars above the Alps on jet-propelled wings during a five-minute, 186-mile-an-hour flight. He has since flown over the English Channel.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0909-two-walk-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0909-two-walk-60.jpg Romania—Two young women stroll through Budești, chic heels and jackets augmenting traditional church attire. Such styles reflect a migratory trend: After working abroad, many here are carrying back money and modernity.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0909-rainbow-band-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0909-rainbow-band-60.jpg United States—Like brushes saturated with paint, the wing scales of a sunset moth drip with color. Shot in a Washington State photo studio using a microscope, their iridescence is revealed only in this close-up view.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0909-elipse-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0909-elipse-60.jpg Philippines—Children gaze at the storybook sight of a partial solar eclipse over Manila Bay. The result of a syzygy—an instance when the Earth, moon, and sun are aligned—it was visible on parts of four continents.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0809-pakistan-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0809-pakistan-60.jpg Pakistan—Women and children await registration and relief at the Jalozai refugee camp. Since last summer, some one million Pakistanis have fled the fighting between the military and militants near the Afghan border.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0809-greenland-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0809-greenland-60.jpg Greenland—Eight hundred miles south of the North Pole, a cavern of stalactite-like stratus clouds—churned by 90-mile-an-hour winds—and the light of a bruised dawn paint an apocalyptic portrait over Inglefield Bay.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0809-shark-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0809-shark-60.jpg Mexico—Thirteen feet and a thousand-plus pounds of great white shark bump a diver's cage and roil the waters off Guadalupe Island. The region, rich in seal and sea lion rookeries, is a hot spot for the powerful predators.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0709-tonga-volcano-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0709-tonga-volcano-60.jpg Tonga—Plumes of ash, smoke, and steam billow thousands of feet into the air as an undersea volcano erupts on the uninhabited island of Hunga Ha'apai. The fallout, rock detritus known as scoria, has since enlarged the landmass.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0709-tanganyika-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0709-tanganyika-60.jpg Tanzania—After two weeks of in-mouth incubation, a school of perhaps 200 cichlid fry—each less than half an inch long—swim free of their mother, searching for a plankton meal in the cerulean waters of Lake Tanganyika.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0709-fire-breathing-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0709-fire-breathing-60.jpg India—In Jammu, a flower of flame blooms from a man's kerosene-filled mouth. Devotees of Sikhism, the world's fifth largest organized religion, were marking the 342nd birthday of Guru Gobind Singh, a founder of the faith.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0609-dust-tornado-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0609-dust-tornado-60.jpg United States—A brown tornado towers perhaps 4,000 feet above the parched plains of Kansas. In 2007 the state set a U.S. record, tallying 141 twisters. The mark was short-lived, though: 187 tore through in 2008.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0609-nasa-jet-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0609-nasa-jet-60.jpg United States—The shuttle Endeavour—deft in orbit but incapable of terrestrial flight—catches a post-mission piggyback on a 747, soaring over California's Mojave Desert en route to Florida's Kennedy Space Center.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0609-belarus-ice-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0609-belarus-ice-60.jpg Belarus—Naked on an 18°F day, Valentsin Tolkachev clears an icy canal for swimming. The 69-year-old started the Optimalists—a Minsk-based club with 200-some members—in 1989 to promote hale activities in rural settings.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0509-elephant-seal-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0509-elephant-seal-60.jpg South Georgia Island—A snowy morning offers a peaceful study in contrasts as southern elephant seals and king penguins share a rookery. Antarctic spring brings some 400,000 of each species to this remote British territory.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0509-field-green-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0509-field-green-60.jpg England—Lost in a wending laurel maze at Cornwall's Glendurgan—a series of verdant subtropical gardens planted privately in the 1820s and bequeathed to the National Trust in 1962—two visitors huddle in a hut.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0509-sculpturs-475.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0509-sculpturs-60.jpg China—All is alabaster at a sculpture factory in Dangcheng, where marble and chalk dust suffuse the air and workers churn out relatively inexpensive copies of iconic Western works for foreign and domestic clients.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0409-fisherman-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0409-fisherman-60.jpg Indonesia—See dusk in the Dampier Strait through a half-submerged lens and glimpse two distinct worlds. Under a cloud-slung sky, fishermen work on wooden boats. Beneath a mirror-calm surface, waters flash with baitfish.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0409-china-guard-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0409-china-guard-60.jpg China—A member of a ceremonial honor guard inspects his cohort's alignment, making sure it's suitable for the arrival of world leaders at the 2008 Asia-Europe Meeting, held at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0409-dubai-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0409-dubai-60.jpg United Arab Emirates—Peninsulas of prosperity, the "fronds" of the $14-billion Palm Jumeirah—the first of three planned resort islands in Dubai—jut into the Persian Gulf. Building began in 2001; it may end in 2013.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0309-croc-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0309-croc-60.jpg Thailand—In a race to emerge at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, one eight-inch Siamese crocodile wins by a head. Few such crocs exist in the wild, yet 20,000 are born each year during the zoo's May-to-August hatching festival.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0309-marines-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0309-marines-60.jpg Djibouti—A break in training exercises lets Marine Cpl. Brett Herman try out his break-dancing moves during a "freestyle" contest at Camp Lemonier. The former French barracks is the sole U.S. base on the Horn of Africa.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0309-oxcart-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0309-oxcart-60.jpg Madagascar—Sunrise reveals light traffic—a lone oxcart—along the Avenue of the Baobabs. The 80-foot-tall "upside-down trees" in the Menabe region could become the island country's first national monument.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0209-fetus-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0209-fetus-60.jpg England—Like a porcelain figurine carved into repose, the fetus of a foal floats in a jar. The 85-day-old, 5.5-inch-long colt was removed postmortem and preserved in formaldehyde after its mother, a Thoroughbred, died.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0209-pool-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0209-pool-60.jpg United States—Limned by Hurricane Ike, an abstract expressionist expanse of oil-sheened floodwater surrounds a pump jack—a mechanical device used to extract oil—near High Island, Texas.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0209-pamungkas-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0209-pamungkas-60.jpg Indonesia—On the first day of Ramadan, in a mosque filled with white-robed women, one child stands up and stands out. During the month-long holiday, Muslims seeking spiritual purification fast from dawn till dusk.]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0109-1-bulgaria-cross-jumpers-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0109-1-bulgaria-cross-jumpers-60.jpg Bulgaria—Epiphany Day at an icy Sofia lake finds young men in hot pursuit. Belief holds that the first to reach the wooden cross, thrown by an Eastern Orthodox priest, will enjoy a year of good health. ]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0109-2-china-power-plant-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0109-2-china-power-plant-60.jpg China Daily]]> China—Workers apply a rust-resistant primer to a coal-fired power plant in Huaibei, a major industrial center. Soon they'll paint it black, adding a second, waterproof coat to this 470-foot-tall cooling tower. ]]> /visions-of-earth/img/0109-3-elephant-victoria-falls-714.jpg /visions-of-earth/img/0109-3-elephant-victoria-falls-60.jpg Zambia—A lone bull elephant breakfasts at first light near the precipice of Victoria Falls. With the Zambezi River near its seasonal ebb, once submerged walkways—and fresh foraging possibilities—present themselves. ]]>