Young eagle hunters prepare to compete in the Golden Eagle Festival in Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia. “While I will always be an outsider, coming back to a place often has felt the most satisfying way to travel for me, instead of seeing a new country all the time,” says photographer Hannah Reyes Morales. “Coming back again and again has meant that I can make deeper connections and [have] more understanding.” (Related: Photo story – Traditional hunting in Mongolia.)
“My first trip to the desert was with a group of Saudis that I’d never met before. Although I’m a local to the country with the second largest desert in the world, I never actually spent a whole night in the desert before,” says photographer Tasneem Alsultan. “A friend suggested that I hang out with a group of his friends and sit by a fire and just enjoy the stars and nature. I loved every minute.” (Related: How Saudi Arabia has changed over time.)
“On the surface, Fiordland is a shadowy, Lord of the Rings–like landscape with rugged mountains and tranquil fjords. Underwater is like visiting alien worlds,” says photographer Brian Skerry. “The freshwater rivers flowing into the sea here are stained with tannins, which create a permanent, dark layer that sits on top of the seawater, blocking out much of the sunlight from reaching below. Exploring here was like swimming through the pages of a storybook, with exquisite creatures and dreamlike seascapes on every dive.” (Related: New Zealand has ‘effectively eliminated’ coronavirus. Here’s what they did right.)
An Inupiat hunter patiently waits on the edge of the ice in Utqiagvik, Alaska for a whale—a custom that’s at least 1,000 years old. Photographer Kiliii Yüyan is a descendant of the Hezhe (Nanai in Russian) hunters and fishermen of northern China and southeast Siberia. Over five years, Yüyan spent a total of 10 months camping a crew on the sea ice to watch for whales. “I started this project searching for the feeling of community I lost when my family was displaced from its homeland,” says Yüyan. “I left it with an invisible Inupiat sensibility deeply embedded, and a new community to call my home.” (Related: Meet the bowhead whale hunters of northern Alaska.)
Photographer Camilla Ferrari captures her sister walking along the main street in the trendy Sanlitun neighbourhood in Beijing, China. “I remember meditating on the stillness of the lake waters of Houhai and being mesmerised and confused by the rhythm of people walking and running in the streets and subways,” says Ferrari. “I remember the sounds of a language I didn’t understand and my failed attempts to decode the gestures. That feeling is something that I yearn to deepen as soon as we [are] able to travel again.”
Yaks crest a ridge in the valley of Chu-tang in Dolpo, Nepal. “The villages and monasteries in this remote region seemed timeless,” says photographer Beth Wald. “Buddhist shrines and massive piles of carved mani or prayer stones—often fluttering with prayer flags strung above—line the entrance to most villages, so that the entire landscape seemed to resonate with sacred meaning.”
Traditionally dressed tiliche (men dressed in junk) escort the queen of Carnaval Putleco through the streets of Putla to welcome the festival season. “In Mexico, there is always a good reason to get together and celebrate,” says Luján Agusti. (Related: Here are five spectacular places to celebrate Carnival.)
A double rainbow shines over Mount Tantalus near Honolulu, Hawaii. “My brother is a pilot in the Air Force and was stationed in Hawaii for several years. He met his wife there, and on the year anniversary of meeting her, he planned an elaborate proposal. After my now sister-in-law said yes, her parents, who my brother had flown in from New York, walked up and surprised her and both of our families got to celebrate together,” recounts photographer Maddie McGarvey. “My dad passed away earlier this year, and this memory of pure happiness experienced by my family will always be so special to me.” (Related: amazing images of Hawaii.)
Hohensalzburg Fortress, the largest fully preserved castle in central Europe, offers a 360-degree view of Salzburg. “Since the pandemic, my partner and I hadn’t seen each other for over six months. When Germany allowed couples to visit, we were able to see each other, and during this time, we drove to Austria,” says photographer Ester Ruth Mbabazi. “[We were] stopped in Salzburg because of the COVID-19 restrictions, but we wished to go to Vienna.” (Related: Photos of Europe's most amazing castles .)
“This is a place charged with the art spirit—haunted, suspended in time,” says photographer Lynn Johnson. “The way the light moves in the landscape and radiates from the walls to the vaulted ceiling keeps these spaces alive.” Today, Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery—the inspiration of Vincent van Gogh’s collection of paintings of Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy—is still a sanctuary, a creative space for women struggling with mental health challenges. “Their paintings vibrate with meaning known only to them and are as addictive as the light that inhabits this realm in southern France,” says Johnson.
Lahaji Lasiddiq works as a nutmeg farmer on Ay Island, one of the 11 isles making up the Banda archipelago in Indonesia. Banda Islands is part of what was historically known as the Spice Islands, and the place where nutmeg originated. “Getting there is not easy but always remarkably enjoyable,” says photographer Muhammad Fadli. “A friend of mine once said, ‘it’s a quiet place with a busy history.’”
Established as a national park in 1978, Badlands National Park in South Dakota offers spectacular views of red and orange rock formations jutting from the earth. “After driving 1,695 miles from New York City, I arrived in Badlands National Park,” says photographer Ismail Ferdous. “Camping there was an unforgettable moment of my life. America is beautiful!” (Discover how this writer found inspiration for the poem ‘America the Beautiful.’)
Amalia Suarez of Fort Lauderdale comforts her disappointed 18-month-old daughter, Aliah, at Delray Beach, Florida, after rough water conditions prevented them from enjoying a dip in the sea. “Somehow the magic of the sea is lost for me when there are people,” says photographer Maggie Steber. “We can’t hear the rush of the waves nor have a personal exchange with the womb of the Earth. But in my exploration, I rediscovered [places] that stretched out along the Atlantic I had not fully explored in my 20 years of living in Miami.” (Related: Soak up the sun at 21 of the world’s best beaches.)
Ceferino González and his son Licho take a moment of rest on their hike through the Sierra Madre Occidental, a massive system of mountain ranges that runs down the west coast of Mexico. “I really miss travelling to remote areas of my country and getting to know the people and their stories, their traditions, and their way of life,” says photographer César Rodríguez.
A young girl sits by the fountain in Plaza Altamira during Venezeula’s Carnival. “I think back to this afternoon often, missing my community there, missing the afternoon light in Caracas, missing these last days of walking and breathing through crowds of people, without fear or thought of contagion,” says photographer Natalie Keyssar. “A couple of weeks after I took this photo, I flew home to the U.S. to be close to my family during the pandemic, but when I imagine life after the pandemic, I know the first place I’ll go back to is Caracas.”
Nestled in the Hindu Kush mountain range, Band-e-Amir is Afghanistan’s first national park. Its cerulean lakes, separated by natural dams made of travertine deposits, are a geological rarity, and the waters attract hundreds of thousands of Afghans from provinces across the country each year. “Afghans believe the [park’s] water is holy,” says photographer Newsha Tavakolian. “I saw a distressed soldier brought to the lake by his family; they put a rope around him and pushed him into the lake. The water would cure him, they said. I asked a woman to push me in. It was the coldest water ever.”
A commuter catches a breeze in the women-only car in Mumbai, India. “There is so much life and color in the streets [of Mumbai]—the population of that one city is nearly the same as my entire home country [Canada], and the energy of the city is contagious,” says photographer Amber Bracken.
Photographer Daniella Zalcman captures one of her cousins pruning his forest of bonsai trees on the roof of his home in Ho Chi Minh City. “I can't wait for life after the pandemic,” says Zalcman, “when I can return and explore Ho Chi Minh City, which in some districts is nearly unrecognizable to me now, and spend more time with my little cousins, who have somehow turned into full-grown adults.” (Related: See mesmerising photos of Vietnam from above.)
