Celebrating World Photography Day, from mangoes to volcanoes
In today’s newsletter, Nat Geo’s local language editions show us the world; a Kabul-based photographer is told she had ‘15 minutes to pack’; telling a centuries-old story in images ... and a casual moment in Tibet.
This article is an adaptation of our weekly Photography newsletter that was originally sent out on August 21, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Sign up here.
By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
This year, we’re doing something different in this newsletter to celebrate World Photography Day. We’re presenting everything from a temple in Thailand to the elusive Iberian lynx, to microscopic crystals in Hungary, to luscious Kensington Pride mangoes in southern Sicily (above), ready for shipment.
Each of these images come from recent stories in Nat Geo’s local language editions— our 30 licensed publishing partners around the globe, who bring translated and original National Geographic content to readers in their native languages.
Two photographs—the mangoes (above) and nets protecting fields in Ravenna from hailstorms and pests (below) —come from an award-winning story on how climate change is disrupting Italian agriculture. Alessandro Gandolfi’s images illustrate how new crops are growing in different places, with avocados and mangoes replacing lemons, and vineyards and olive trees creeping into northern mountains.
This small revolution has also led to a change in food habits: Italians are now eating home-grown avocadoes in avocado bars and using more olive oil in mountain environments that used to rely mostly on butter.
The images below show glimpses of the world that may not show up on cable news or in Instagram feeds. Enjoy!
Tiny art: For a photo story on microscopic crystals in Nat Geo Hungary, photographer Peter Woitschikowski lit the crystals with a polarized illumination device and a polarized backlight. “With the help of special lighting techniques, these colors and shapes can be made visible and open up a whole new world for us,” he tells us. Many factors, such as the temperature and degree of the solution's concentration, crystallization time, and thickness of the resulting layers, contribute to the uniqueness of each image.
The magnificent feline: Decades ago, the Iberian lynx was declared extinct in Portugal. But it is making a comeback. In the image above from Nat Geo Portugal, a camera trap captured a female holding its prey.
A second try: Soft soil could not support one of Bangkok’s best-known landmarks. So the Phukao Thong temple, also known as Golden Mountain, has changed over time. Decades after its start, the design was revised and construction resumed, Nat Geo Thailand reports.
Cleaning the canals: The master painter Rembrandt grew up around the canals of Leiden. These days, volunteers weekly clear litter from the waterways. This image comes from a Nat Geo Netherlands story from the academic and research center, on how citizen scientists are contributing to everything from helping astronomers find black holes to studying the effects of plastic waste on wildlife.
Our changing earth: It takes centuries for water to create cracks in gorges—and a few days for lava from an erupting volcano to cover it. Studying the origins of our planet, Nat Geo Spain went to Iceland, capturing this torrent of lava penetrating a deep gorge during the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
Thanks to Nat Geo’s Leigh Mitnick, Darren Smith, Amy Kolczak, Beata Nas, and our local language editors worldwide for helping us round up these images and stories. I hope they’ve enriched your knowledge of the world.
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INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY
A favorite: To celebrate World Photo Day, we asked a few contributing photographers to Nat Geo’s Instagram to choose their favorite image by a fellow photographer. This photo by Celeste Sloman was selected by Tomas Van Houtryve. “This portrait radiates dignity and grace. The composition is simple and timeless, yet it draws me to learn more about the subject, the inspiring Haben Girma,” wrote Tomas. Girma is an American writer, speaker, and disability rights advocate, and she is the first deaf-blind graduate of Harvard Law School. She is also a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice.
OVERHEARD AT NAT GEO
Seeing Afghanistan: One of the most popular stories this week was our visual retrospective of centuries of conflict in Afghanistan. One striking image, from 1997, shows triumphant Taliban riding a captured Russian military tank. See the images.
IN A FEW WORDS
When I got home, a phone call came from the New York Times: You have 15 minutes to pack. Get to the airport now. I got my hard drives and a few pieces of clothing. I forgot to take socks, that’s how quickly I packed.
Kiana Hayeri, Longtime Kabul-based photographer
THE LAST GLIMPSE
A casual moment: Tibet has been a part of Nat Geo’s deep photo archives since the magazine published a series of images from the mountainous region in 1905. Nearly a century later, photographer Maria Stenzel captured this image from Tibet for a feature on embracing the new year. National Geographic Society’s Sara Manco, our senior photo archivist, said this image is one of many Stenzel took of Indigenous groups around the world. “I love the casual nature of the men photographed and the angles at play between the billiard sticks and the sides of the pool table,” Manco tells us.
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard and Monica Williams, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea, a link, or a story to share? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading!
PREVIOUSLY ON NAT GEO DAILY…
• The surprisingly bucolic twists in a walk through San Francisco
• So fast, but so few: How cheetahs are targeted by traffickers
• A 17,000-year-old woolly mammoth’s tusk tells an extraordinary Ice Age story
• How goats have come to help Kenya’s baby elephants
• In Afghanistan, history came to the Taliban’s aid
• How the declining Colorado River has forced America’s parched West to deal with less water
