National Geographic's Photo of the Day Selects from July | August | September
After a little haitus from creative inspiration, I've resumed seeking out new design and products and beautiful photographs. Looking through the NatGeo's photo of the day from the past few months, I found these gems:
JULY 3, 2014
A Watery Underworld
Photograph by Halszka Tutaj-Gasinska
A wooden boat floats down a canal in Venice. The Italian city is one of the most visited destinations in the world—its old section receives up to 80,000 tourists a day.
JULY 5, 2014
50 Shades of Ray
Photograph by Eduardo Lopez Negrete
A large school of mobula rays fades into the waters of Baja, Mexico. “The rays were moving quite fast and it was hard enough keeping up with them from the surface, let alone diving down to take a closer look,” writes photographer Eduardo Lopez Negrete. Mobula rays are often referred to as flying rays due to their fondness for breaching.
JULY 6, 2014
Leaps and Bounds
Photograph by Mark Bridger, National Geographic Your Shot
A young female otter runs toward photographer Mark Bridger at a wildlife center in Lingfield, Surrey, in England. “I’ve always wanted to try and get a shot of an otter running straight at me with all four feet off the ground,” writes Bridger. “They were like really little dogs the way they chased each other around, so I lay on the ground with a 300mm lens on my camera and tried to capture one running straight at me.”
Bridger’s picture recently appeared in Your Shot’s Daily Dozen.
JULY 9, 2014
Pangong Lake, India
Photograph by Sanjeev Bhor
Blue water swirls with green at Pangong Lake in Ladakh, India. The Himalayan lake lies on the Sino-Indian boundary and is the subject of many territory disputes between China and India.
JULY 10, 2014
Madain Salih, Saudi Arabia
Photograph by John Stanmeyer, National Geographic
A pre-Islamic people, Nabataeans carved palatial tombs at Madain Salih. In 2008, UNESCO named Madain Salih a World Heritage site, making it the first destination in Saudi Arabia to receive the title.
JULY 17, 2014
Flying Confetti
Photograph by Steffen Reichle, National Geographic Your Shot
A cloud of butterflies descends upon the Tucavaca Valley in eastern Bolivia. In years with shorter, wetter dry seasons, millions of butterflies will arrive at the beginning of the rainy season. “We probably saw several millions of butterflies in the approximately ten miles that we drove through the valley,” writes photographer Steffen Reichle, who waited 11 years to get this shot after first visiting the region in 2001 without a camera.
Reichle’s picture recently appeared in Your Shot’s Daily Dozen.
JULY 19, 2014
Freeze Frame
Photograph by Keith Szafranski, National Geographic Your Shot
"On my last day in Antarctica photographing emperor penguins at their nesting grounds, I came across this little hole (a little more than a foot across) in a small piece of blue ice," writes Keith Szafranski, a member of our Your Shot community. Originally hoping it would make a good frame for the landscape, Szafranski then saw a string of penguins moving toward it. "I stuck my camera with a wide-angle lens into the hole and waited."
Szafranski's picture recently appeared in the Your Shot assignment Embrace the Untamed.
JULY 23, 2014
Volcanic Selfie
Photograph by Andrew Hara, National Geographic Your Shot
Lava glows red-hot, churning and rumbling in Kilauea Volcano’s Halemaumau Crater in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. “It is quite an experience when Earth feels incredibly large and one feels microscopic and insignificant in comparison,” writes Your Shot member Andrew Hara.
"I was able to legally access the edge of Halemaumau crater while volunteering for the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park," Hara explains. After cautiously hiking through a closed-off area of the national park, respirator in tow, Hara deployed his tripod and camera. “I carefully set the timer for two minutes and walked around to the farther, visually stable edge of the crater to create this self-portrait.”
Hara’s picture recently appeared in the Your Shot assignment Embrace the Untamed.
JULY 28, 2014
Standing Guard
Photograph by Jim Richardson, National Geographic
The Stones of Stenness may be Britain’s most ancient stone circle. Erected during the Stone Age on the Orkney Islands at the northern tip of modern-day Scotland, the stones likely formed part of a larger complex linked by religious ritual.
AUGUST 10, 2014
It's Tokay
Photograph by Iwan Pruvic, National Geographic Your Shot
A tokay gecko shows its true colors in the woods around Tangerang, Indonesia. Tokays are among the largest geckos and range from northeast India to the Malay Archipelago. Here, one of the tokay's ears can be seen as a small hole on the side of its head. It's possible, peering through the hole, to see through its head to the other side.
AUGUST 13, 2014
Croc Tail
Photograph by Mike Korostelev, National Geographic Your Shot
"I met this crocodile face-to-face underwater," writes Your Shot member Mike Korostelev. "There was only my underwater camera between it and me."
Having long dreamt of photographing a crocodile in its natural aquatic habitat, Korostelev traveled to Banco Chinchorro, Mexico, a biosphere reserve in the Caribbean Sea and a breeding ground for American crocodiles. "We lived in a fisherman's hut that stood right on the sea on stilts. During the day we searched for crocodiles, which swam out of mangroves to hunt fish. This one was quite friendly and showed its beauty all around."
AUGUST 14, 2014
Falling River
Photograph by Rennis Kauffman, National Geographic Your Shot
A tight angle captures the McCloud River falling in tiers to an unseen swimming hole below. The Middle McCloud Falls are one of three on the clear, chilly river in northern California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest. From an overlook at the Middle Falls, visitors can take in Mount Shasta and Castle Crags among other natural features.
AUGUST 23, 2014
Spider Hole
Photograph by Fay Stout, National Geographic Your Shot
"The Dallas Arboretum in Dallas, Texas, is my 'happy place' to spend time photographing the flowers and garden critters," writes Your Shot member Fay Stout. "I was fascinated by the webs covered with water droplets on a low hedge in the Women's Garden but didn't immediately see the tiny spiders that were crawling out of the holes in the webs' centers. When I looked more closely, I saw them and tried to capture one with my macro lens."
Stout’s picture recently appeared in Your Shot's Daily Dozen.
AUGUST 24, 2014
Tree of Life
Photograph by Jeff Nelson, National Geographic Your Shot
Tourists flock to a lone tree along the path of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. Built between 122 A.D. and 128 A.D., the wall spans a 73-mile neck of land between the Tyne and the Solway Firth—a solid northern boundary for the entire Roman Empire. It’s often considered the most important relic of Roman rule in Britain.
"I wanted to get the photo without people, but that wasn't possible," says photographer Jeff Nelson. "In the end, I feel they give the photo better perspective."
SEPTEMBER 1, 2014
Cold Encounter
Photograph by Nicolas Le Boulanger, National Geographic Your Shot
Hoarfrost settles on a moor along the border of Espace Rambouillet, a wildlife reserve near Paris, France, that’s home to deer like this stag and other wildlife. Having heard noises on the moor one day, Your Shot member Nicolas Le Boulanger returned early the following morning “to see the author of these sounds.” He had just arrived at the path when the deer appeared. “It literally jumped up in front of me as if to block access to its secret garden,” Le Boulanger writes. “We watched each other for five minutes, and I took hundreds of photos, but many of the others were missed due to the hoarfrost on the subject, my own shivers, and the rising morning mist that blurred the perspective.”
Le Boulanger's picture recently appeared in Your Shot's Daily Dozen.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2014
Big and Little Dipper
Photograph by Marco Mattiussi, National Geographic Your Shot
Fortunately for Your Shot member Marco Mattiussi, the bears on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula were busy eating salmon during the week he spent in a small wooden house in the wilderness frontier. “You had to be very careful,” he writes. “It’s a dangerous place to meet a grizzly because they’re not used to humans.”
To get this shot, Mattiussi spent several hours lying on the shore of Kurile Lake during the ascent of salmon. “The little bear seemed to enjoy holding its head under the water. Its mother was very protective. She didn’t lose sight of her cub for even a second.”
Mattiussi’s picture recently appeared in Your Shot’s Daily Dozen.
SEPTEMBER 16, 2014
Autumn Portrait
Photograph by Regina, National Geographic Your Shot
A forested park is suffused with the golden glow of autumn in the northern European country of Lithuania. Bordering the eastern Baltic Sea, the country’s landscape consists of gently rolling plains and extensive forests.
Regina's picture recently appeared in Your Shot's Daily Dozen.
SEPTEMBER 18, 2014
Frozen
Photograph by Felix Inden, National Geographic Your Shot
Hunched like an animal in repose, a large piece of ice catches the light at Breidamerkursandur, a black-sand beach in southeastern Iceland. Just after sunrise, Your Shot member Felix Inden had left behind a portion of the beach crowded with photo tours. “I just wanted to be alone and look at those waves, patterns, and ice,” he writes. This particular piece caught his eye quickly as he walked down the beach. “Somehow I felt that we were friends and called him Luigi.”
Inden’s picture recently appeared in Your Shot’s Daily Dozen.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2014
Green Day
Photograph by Nicolas Le Boulanger, National Geographic Your Shot
Famous for changing the color of their skin, chameleons are more like mood rings, with their color changes reflecting mood, temperature, light, and other stimuli.
Le Boulanger’s picture recently appeared in the Your Shot assignment Not Your Average Pet.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2014
Hollow Greeting
Photograph by Karthik Vilwanathan, National Geographic Your Shot
An owl peers from a tree hollow in Northumberland, United Kingdom. After unlucky weather derailed a trip to see puffins on the Farne Islands, Your Shot member Karthik Vilwanathan drove with a friend around a nearby woodland area, hoping to see birds of prey. “This time we were lucky,” he writes. “I saw this little owl pop its head out a few times from the tree, so I waited patiently, and 20 minutes later I captured this image.”
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SEPTEMBER 28, 2014
Withered
Photograph by Matsuura Tomoya, National Geographic Your Shot
“I live in a typical Japanese town and often go for a walk at dusk,” writes Matsuura Tomoya, a member of our Your Shot community. “On my walking route, there are small plants that nobody ever takes any notice of growing in the cracks of the asphalt road.” Tomoya picked up some of the withered plants and used a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to capture this image.
“There is even more magnificent nature existing in each small part of what we often think of as nature, and a life-and-death drama is repeatedly played out there,” he writes.
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