Irish Headlands, Ireland, 1993
Photograph by Sam Abell
"Kindred headlands called The Three Sisters look to sea near Smerwick on the Dingle Peninsula. For the ambitious, country lanes lead past sheep paddocks to cities already bursting with job seekers."
—From "Ireland On Fast-Forward," September 1994, National Geographic magazine
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乐山大佛的脚丫～～～^_^
March 18, 2002
Leshan Buddha, China, 1982
Photograph by Jodi Cobb
"A 231-foot sitting Buddha, the world’s largest, overlooks the convergence of three rivers at Leshan. The statue was carved out of a cliff in the eighth century in the hope that its benign influence would protect boatmen from the dangerous currents. An ingenious drainage system inside the Buddha channels off water and prevents weathering. From its head at the cliff’s crest, a path winds down to the Buddha’s foot."
—From the National Geographic book Journey Into China, 1982
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Balgo Hills, Western Australia, 1990
Photograph by Sam Abell
"To my eye the landscape of the Balgo Hills was blistering. I’d never seen a dry landscape so hot and bright that it shone.
"To the Aborigines accompanying me, it looked different. They saw the green stream of vegetation draining into the desert. Beneath it, they knew, was a real stream of water, and in and around it was food. It was their garden, which wouldn’t last long in the heat of the Great Sandy Desert."
—From the National Geographic book Seeing Gardens, 2000
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Bathing Tigress, India, 1996
Photograph by Michael K. Nichols
"With feline grace abandoned, Bachhi takes her picture by breaking an infrared beam at an unmanned remote-camera in Bandhavgarh. Sweltering in 120-degree heat, she seeks relief in a pool, despite its fetid brew of rotting leaves and monkey urine."
—From "Making Room for Wild Tigers," December 1997, National Geographic magazine
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Rose Peddler, Naples, Italy, 1996
Photograph by David Alan Harvey
"For soulless efficiency, go north to Milan, sneer proud Neapolitans. But for the ’real’ Italy of street smarts, passion, and arrangiarsi—the art of making do—come south to the clamorous world of Naples. In this gritty labyrinth of a city, crammed with churches and slums, notorious for crime and corruption, beauty somehow survives, as insistent as the red in a peddler’s bouquet."
—From "Naples Unabashed," March 1998, National Geographic magazine
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Byzantine Tiles, Petra, Jordan, 1998
Photograph by Annie Griffiths Belt
"Petra’s heyday ended when the Romans rerouted trade in the second century A.D., sending the city into a long decline. In a fifth-century Byzantine church archaeologists found detailed mosaics."
—From "Petra: Ancient City of Stone," December 1998, National Geographic magazine
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Italian Fisherman, Naples, Italy, 1996
Photograph by David Alan Harvey
"Romancing the sea, a fisherman waits to haul in his net off the city coast. On a good day the depleted waters yield only fistfuls of octopus and squid. The Mediterranean has fed Neapolitans since 600 B.C., when Greeks founded Neapolis, ’new city,’ later a favored resort of Roman emperors."
—From "Naples Unabashed," March 1998, National Geographic magazine
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Boot Track Burgers, Mentone, Texas, 2000
Photograph by Jodi Cobb
"Charles Derrick grills cheeseburgers at the Boot Track Cafe."
—From "ZipUSA: Mentone, Texas," September 2000, National Geographic magazine
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Pope Shoes, Vatican City, 1985
Photograph by James L. Stanfield
"Gilded and jeweled trappings of Pope Pius XII, on display in the Vatican’s Liturgical Treasury, attest to the pageantry of the papacy."
—From the National Geographic book Inside the Vatican, 1991
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Medersa ben Youssef, Marrakesh, Morocco, 1998
Photograph by Sam Abell
"The word ’paradise’ comes from Arabian culture and so probably does our idea of enclosing nature with walls. And in arid Morocco, as in the rest of the Arab world, the nature worth enclosing begins with water.
In the case of the Medersa ben Youssef garden, in Marrakesh, it ends with water as well. In a cut-stone courtyard, a dark rectangle of still water reflects the intricate architecture. Otherwise there is nothing—no foliage, no flowers. But in a teeming desert city the effect is cooling and serene."
—From the National Geographic book Seeing Gardens, 2000
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Channel Islands Anemone, California, 1996
Photograph by David Doubilet
"Creatures as tiny as tentacled green anemones and as massive as blue whales thrive in the rich broth of sanctuary waters, a blend of warm southern and cold northern currents."
—From "Blue Refuges: U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries," March 1998, National Geographic magazine
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Dal Lake Sunset, Kashmir, India, 1998
Photograph by Steve McCurry
"A 16th-century fortress looms over the dawn-burnished waters of Dal Lake in the Vale of Kashmir. India controls this densely populated, predominantly Muslim area. Pakistan depends on rivers flowing out of Kashmir—the Jhelum, the Chenab, and the Indus—to irrigate fields and generate electricity."
—From "Kashmir: Trapped in Conflict," September 1999, National Geographic magazine
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Bulunkul Lake, Afghanistan, 1932
Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams
"As in ages past, camels still provide dependable transportation for inner Asia: skirting the waters of Bulunkul Lake. To carry ... supplies and equipment required a large number of pack animals. Camels, yaks, and ponies were used. Generally speaking, the first named, although not so fast as the ponies, proved the best carriers for fragile objects."
—From "First Over the Roof of the World by Motor," March 1932, National Geographic magazine
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Floral Nuptials, California, 1999
Photograph by Sisse Brimberg
"A bouquet of Charles Austin roses complements Kathryn Storke’s serene gaze at her sister Abigail Paulsen’s wedding in California."
—From "Flower Trade," April 2001, National Geographic magazine
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Pope on Easter Sunday, Vatican City, 1991
Photograph by James L. Stanfield
"In St. Peter’s Square, flowers from the Netherlands frame the Pope on Easter Sunday."
—From the National Geographic book Inside the Vatican, 1991
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Classic Aircraft Pilot, Loyalton, California, 1997
Photograph by Karen Kasmauski
"Classic aircraft pilot Hal Wright, age 93, delivers copies of his newspaper, Sierra Booster, to rural subscribers around Loyalton, California. Reporter, writer, editor, and ad salesman, Wright is lively proof that birthdays are no reliable measure of the complicated, individual process of aging. Asked when he’s going to slow down, he replies, ’What for? I wouldn’t know what to do with my time.’"
—From "Aging—New Answers to Old Questions," November 1997, National Geographic magazine
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Royal 22nd Regiment, Canada, 1996
Photograph by Maggie Steber
"A relic of British pomp and pageantry, the marching band of the Royal 22nd Regiment performs during a flag-lowering at the Citadel in Quebec City, with the Château Frontenac Hotel as a backdrop. Founded in 1914 by French Canadians, the Royal 22nd has served overseas in both World Wars, in Korea, and in the United Nations’ peacekeeping. Most members are French-speaking Quebecers, and if the province breaks away, they will face a dilemma: Resign, join a new army, or exit Quebec as an intact Canadian unit?"
—From "Quebec Quandary," November 1997, National Geographic magazine
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Victoria Falls Moonglow, Victoria Falls, Africa, 1997
Photograph by Chris Johns
"Built of moonglow and water spray, a bridge of colored light arches over the chasm at Victoria Falls. Besides moonbows, special effects at the falls include a roar so loud it once broke windows six miles away and a spray so thick that at times the falls vanish from sight."
—From "Down the Zambezi," October 1997, National Geographic magazine
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Antlered Fly Fight, 1996
Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
"These are New Guinea’s half-inch-long antlered flies—harmless relatives of the Mediterranean fruit fly and other fruit pests. Astonishing in their similarities to their counterparts, male antlered flies fight over breeding territories and release a special breeding scent from glands, visible on the fly at right as a lump on the underside of his abdomen. With their weird projections and rainbow colors, these are flies worthy of Dr. Seuss."
—From "Flies That Fight," November 1997, National Geographic magazine
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Fish Among Giant Kelp, California, 1996
Photograph by David Doubilet
"A towering grove of giant kelp harbors grazing señorita wrasses and orange garibaldi—a protected subtropical fish that rarely ranges farther north than the Channel Islands. Giant kelp is the Jack’s beanstalk of algae, capable of growing two feet a day to lengths of a hundred feet . Though harvested for algin (used in paints, foods, and makeup), kelp provides sustenance and shelter for so many forms of life that Darwin likened kelp forests to rain forests in their bounty."
—From "Blue Refuges: U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries," March 1998, National Geographic magazine
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