Photo of the Day: March 2020

National Geographic photographer Robert Sisson set out to find a way to preserve the shape of snowflakes, long after they melted. He succeeded, using a form of casting, and photographed the results-- which appeared in the January 1970 issue.

A story in the June 1994 issue detailed the life cycle and many uses of cotton. Here, a paper maker takes waste from worn denim and uses it to dye paper.

National Geographic photographer Jean Shor picnics with an American family while overlooking the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Jean and Franc Shor wrote and photographed this story together, detailing a journey from Athens to Istanbul. It was published in January 1956.

A piano player tips his hat at the Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado, in this photo from the August 1969 issue. The hotel, built in 1887, still operates today.

A kilted team participates in tug-of-war during the Highland Games in Brodick, Scotland. This story from July 1965 illustrates life on Arran, titled, ‘Scotland's Magic Isle.‘

Before Jim Inhofe was a US Senator for Oklahoma, he was the mayor of Tulsa from 1978-1984. While writing the September 1983 story, writer Robert Paul Jordan got a private ride from the pilot-mayor himself.

Father and son enjoy a game of baseball in their yard. This photo was part of a spread in August 1973 that covered the life and longevity of the Great Lakes.

A story in the October 1990 issue depicts the colourful lives within Cajun country in Louisiana. Here, a car waits to join the parade line at the annual Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival in New Iberia.

Grunions are a unique fish native to southern and Baja California, known for laying their eggs on land. This photo from the May 1969 issue shows people scrambling to catch the fish with their bare hands, as the California law required.

A torrential downpour doesn't stop traffic in Nairobi, Kenya, in this photo from the February 1969 issue.

This eider duck decoy was carved in 1910 and was still in use by the artist-hunter seven decades later. The picture appeared in a November 1983 story about the folk art of hand-carved duck decoys.

Worshippers leaving an Epiphany service at St. Peter's in Vatican City on January 6, 1985, are greeted by the first snowfall in 14 years.

A shepherd in Patagonia moves his herd toward a ship that will carry them to Colombia. Published in the January 1971 issue, the article ‘Housewife at the End of the World‘ is a first-person narrative by Rae Natalie P. Goodall about marrying a rancher in remote Argentina.

Platinum is one of the toughest metals available, and a November 1983 story told the story of all its uses. This photograph shows a machine made out of platinum, used to make and process fibreglass at a plant in New Jersey.

A story in the July 1978 issue tracked the route supertankers took to ship oil all over the world. In this photo, crewmen building a Japanese supertanker start the day with coordinated stretches and exercises.

In this picture published in the May 1971 issue, vacationing children approach a cow on Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. Guernsey cows are famous for their rich milk.

A story in the May 1978 issue chronicled the business of the Nethlerlands' famous tulip industry. Here, a scientist at the Bulb Research Laboratory in Lisse measures the amount of ethylene a bloom gives off.

A sperm whale skims the surface of the ocean off the coast of Dominica. Remoras are seen attached to its underside.

Pearl experts trade and sell goods at an auction in Japan. This story from August 1985 showed the life cycle of a pearl, from its beginnings as a grain of sand to its final form in extravagant jewellery.

This photo from the January 1993 issue shows Japanese stock traders taking a much needed break. Inside the pods soothing music plays.

Individual train cars wait in the switching yard of the Santa Fe railway in Kansas City, Kansas. When this story was published in February 2001, the cars were assembled into trains by a computer system.

This portrait of an American Indian bride appeared in the August 1974 issue. She and her husband were members of the Menominee Indian Reservation in Keshena, Wisconsin.

Gulls take food from travellers on a passenger boat in the Channel Islands. Ferries carry residents between islands, as well as to the shores of France and England.

In South Africa, workers in a platinum mine catch a ride to the surface in a large iron bucket. The mine, featured in a September 1996 story, was almost 200 stories deep into the earth.

A hot air balloon makes a landing in a field north of Paris in June of 1982. The crew members inside were participating in a balloon race to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon flight.

A story from the August 1983 issue profiled the state of Delaware, including its robust poultry industry. Here, Frank Perdue, CEO of one of the largest chicken companies in the world, poses with one of his assets.

A snorkelling tourist floats in a cenote called Las Calaveras—“the skulls”—near Tulum, Mexico. Local Maya used to get their drinking water here until about almost 40 years ago, when divers found bones. Archaeologists have recorded the remains of more than a hundred people, usually shrouded by the water’s primordial darkness.

For eight decades, the Tea and Sugar Train was the sole source of supplies for remote villages in Australia—villages populated by railway workers who tended to the Trans-Australian Railway. The route was shut down in 1996.

A diver experiments with weightlessness at a research center in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In the 1960s, these experiments helped scientists figure out how astronauts would function in zero gravity conditions in space.

In this photo from the March 1982 issue, a tagged polar bear scavenges a dump in Churchill, Manitoba. Located on the Hudson Bay, the town used tagging to track overly aggressive polar bears.