Newfoundland’s January 2020 Blizzard: The Full Photo Gallery
Some winter photographs need a second look. A doorway becomes a tunnel. A parked car disappears into a white mound. Familiar streets suddenl...
Explore the World
Photography: Remarkable Images in Context
Look beyond the first impression of a striking photograph. These stories explore the subject, setting and creative choices behind the image, with historical context where an older picture needs it.
Start with Lavender in Provence: How to Plan a Beautiful Summer Visit and Salar de Uyuni: Mirror Reflections or Dry Salt Patterns?.
Drew Doggett’s Icelandic Horses: In the Realm of Legends
A pale horse against black sand. A flowing mane beside falling water. Drew Doggett’s Iceland photographs bring together two subjects that se...
Michael Schneider’s Alpine Halo Photographs and Their Annotated Arcs
Sometimes the most memorable sight on a mountain is above the mountains. In late November 2019, Michael Schneider photographed an elaborate ...
Houtouwan’s Green-Covered Houses: Tang Yuhong’s Village Photographs
From a distance, Houtouwan looks like a hillside that has quietly learned the shapes of houses. Green growth follows walls, frames windows a...
Travel Expectations and Reality: 40 Comparisons of Framing and Crowds
The beach looks empty. The museum gallery looks silent. The person in the photograph seems to have an entire famous landmark to themselves. ...
Benjamin Von Wong’s Bali Shipwreck Fashion Shoot: Images and Production Story
Fabric drifts through a flooded wreck. A human figure seems suspended between the rusted structure and the blue beyond it. Benjamin Von Wong...
Where Waters Meet: River Confluences and Coastal Boundaries in 12 Images
Two rivers meet, and for a while the water seems to have a seam. One side may be pale and cloudy, the other dark or green. Seen from a bridg...
Chatillon’s Car Graveyard in Belgium: Photographs and an Uncertain Legend
Rows of old cars beneath trees make a wonderfully unsettling picture. Branches replace the open road, leaves settle inside the vehicles and ...
30 Places in an Archive of Ruins, Reuse and Changing Landscapes
A room filling with sand, a ship carrying its own little forest, a house disappearing under vines: photographs of places changed by time can...
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17 Flowers and Plant Forms That Resemble Familiar Figures
Once you see a little face in a flower, it can be surprisingly difficult to unsee it. Orchids become dancers, white petals become wings and ...
Jeff Williams’s View of Earth from the International Space Station
Clouds curl over a coastline, a desert changes colour across the frame and the edge of Earth curves into darkness. Views from the Internatio...
The Weeping Stones: Okayama’s Sea-Firefly Photographs
Blue light seems to pour down dark rocks on an Okayama beach. The photographs are beautiful—and easy to misunderstand if they arrive without...
Valerio Vincenzo’s Borderline: Photographing Europe’s Quiet Frontiers
A line on a map can pass through a meadow, a forest or a quiet lane. Stand beside it and there may be very little in the landscape to announ...
Oliver Curtis’s Volte-Face: Thirty Views Facing Away from Famous Landmarks
You arrive at a famous landmark, lift the camera and recognise the composition before taking the picture. So many people have photographed i...
Seventeen Places with a Fantasy-Film Atmosphere: Castles, Caves and Landscapes
Some places invite a story before you know anything about their history. A castle above a forest, a curved canyon wall or a station carved i...
2016 National Geographic Travel Photographer Contest: A Gallery of Entries
A snowstorm transforms a city corner. A cloud formation makes a familiar landscape feel enormous. A quiet scene becomes memorable because a ...
Ballerinas in Cuba’s Streets: Dance Photography in Everyday City Settings
A dancer’s leap cuts across a familiar street scene. Around it, doorways, walls and everyday movement remain visible. The contrast is what d...
Tsuneko Sasamoto: Curiosity, Photojournalism and Flower Glow
Some photographers teach us where to look. Tsuneko Sasamoto also reminds us to keep looking: at public events, at changing streets and at th...
Beach Drawings That Appear to Rise from the Sand
A little building seems to stand on the sand. Elsewhere, an imaginary structure appears to rise above the beach. The surprise arrives when y...
Twenty-Eight Nature Images: Look Closely and Read the Captions Carefully
Sometimes a nature photograph stops you because you cannot immediately work out what you are seeing. Is that fruit inside a tiny cage? Is a ...