Photo of the Day

a crowded tram at Ocean Park Hong Kong
April 22, 2014

Tunnel Vision

"In the last ten years, mobile data, smartphones, and social networks have forever changed our existence," writes Brian Yen, who submitted this picture of an Ocean Park Hong Kong tram to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. "Although this woman stood at the center of a jam-packed train, the warm glow from her phone told the strangers around her that she wasn't really there. She managed to slip away for a short moment, a node flickering on the social web, roaming the Earth, free as a butterfly. Our existence is no longer stuck to the physical here—we're free to run away, and run we will."

This photo was submitted to the 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest.

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Photograph by Brian Yen
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