Anguilla, a British territory in the Caribbean, is a nation of
tranquility, but Sandy Island takes it to another level. This speck of
sand in the bright blue waters is constantly reshaped by the ocean and
weather, and visitors to the cay are encouraged to make reservations. PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTHEW WADE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
A Walk on the Wild Side
Ye Ye, a 16-year-old giant panda, lounges in a wild enclosure at a
conservation center in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve. China has
been creating reserves to restore and protect disappearing panda
habitat and is now introducing captive-bred pandas into the wild.
Life on Mars
Bryan Geiger’s early morning visit to the summit
area of Haleakalā volcano in Hawaii’s Haleakalā National Park
yielded this extraordinary image of an otherworldly landscape. “I
woke up at 3 a.m. and drove to Haleakalā summit,” Geiger writes.
“As the sun came up it revealed only a white wall of mist. After
a couple of hours, disappointed and cold, I decided to leave. While
driving back I jumped out at the overlook to see if anything had
changed. At that moment the clouds retreated and I had only an instant
to snap this photo of the [alien-looking] land.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN GEIGER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
A Walk in the Park
Graham De Lacy captured this shot of an African elephant
taking a sunny-day stroll in South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve.
“[It was] one of the many close encounters … I’ve
had the pleasure of experiencing,” De Lacy writes. African
elephants are the largest land mammals on Earth.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GRAHAM DE LACY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
'Whispers of Prayer'
A priest in Ethiopia reads a pre-King James Bible by candlelight during
an all-night prayer vigil. “His head would bob up and down as he
went in and out of sleep,” “Occasionally, in the silence of the
11th-century rock-hewn church, I would hear his whispers of
prayer.”
Photograph by Neil Thomas, National Geographic
Whale of a Time
A whale shark—the biggest fish in the sea—swims along,
“extremely curious” about his observers. David Robinson, who researches whale shark ecology,
captured this image in Qatar on a day with “great
visibility” in an area with waters that are usually full of
plankton.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID ROBINSON, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
Night Falls
By day, the water of Arizona's Havasu Falls is a remarkable, bright
blue-green. In this image submitted by Jes Stockhausen, it’s a
milky ribbon, illuminated at night by the light of a camper’s
headlamps. “While camping in the Havasupai [Indian Reservation],
you hear the roar of the falls 24/7. My friend and I went to see if we
could see the stars and were blown away [by] the sheer darkness of the
canyon. This shot was [made] with two headlamps, one at the
subject’s feet and one on his head.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY JES STOCKHAUSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
Fast Food
In Cokyasar, Turkey, this chameleon snatches a meal from a neighboring
branch. A chameleon’s tongue can be several inches longer than
its body and can go from 0 to 60 miles an hour in 1/100 of a second.
Photograph by Mehmet Karaca, National Geographic Your Shot
Hoop Dreaming
“I wouldn't have imagined that watching a Hula-Hoop performer
could be so relaxing,” Calin Strajescu of
this performer he met while photographing a yoga camp in Karise,
Denmark. “ After she had warmed [up] … It was like the
circle wasn't a different object anymore.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY CALIN STRAJESCU, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
A Popular Perch
Birds gather on a rock formation—a popular attraction for both
seabirds and people—at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz,
California. Laurence Norah writes that
it’s “a wonderful place to get the sunset … A long
exposure added a slightly surreal element to the shot.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY LAURENCE NORAH, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
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