Dearly Beloved

Photograph by Bartek Olszewski , National Geographic Your Shot

I was so lucky, says Your Shot member Bartek Olszewski , who found this scene on entering London s Richmond Park on a July day. He began taking as many pictures as he could of the rutting stags. It only lasted a few seconds, he says. I love to watch and track red deer, finding them and enjoying their natural behavior. I have my camera in my hands at all times when I m going out to take pictures. Always be ready wildlife is unpredictable, so it can surprise you at any time.

Olszewski s picture recently appeared in Your Shot s Daily Dozen .

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Bird Bank

Photograph by Vincent J. Musi, National Geographic

Thousands of brown pelicans find a safe place to nest on South Carolina s Deveaux Bank, one of the largest pelican rookeries on the Atlantic coast. The isolated, shape-shifting island is free of raccoons and other predators that eat eggs and chicks.

Vincent J. Musi recounts the humorous tale of a story eight years in the making on our Photography blog, Proof .

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On the Voltino Road

Photograph by Fulvio Morelli , National Geographic Your Shot

The Voltino is a place near Grosseto in Tuscany, Italy, writes Your Shot member Fulvio Morelli . The road to get there crosses cultivated fields and then coasts along the River Ombrone. It s the place I usually go to shoot a naturalistic photo, usually of birds or dragonflies or bugs.

When I arrived there were a lot of clouds and no wind, and the light was soft the sun was behind the clouds. My first thought when I saw the scene was, This is a beautiful black-and-white landscape."

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Monkeying Around

Photograph by Francisco Mignorance, National Geographic

In Morocco s Middle Atlas mountains, a Barbary macaque pauses for a snack after a bout of playing with other young members of the troop. Macaques eat anything: seeds, grass, young leaves, berries, even mealworms and reptiles.

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The Children s Place

Photograph by Masami Murooka , National Geographic Your Shot

Looking like playfully scattered confetti, children sled a snowy hill in Shizukuishi, Japan. Your Shot member Masami Murooka calls it an extraordinary playground, which emerged at the side of a large festival s parking lot. Anyone trying to photograph only the festival would never notice this place, Murooka writes.

Murooka s picture was featured in Your Shot s Daily Dozen .

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Swimmer, Portugal

Photograph by Peter Essick, National Geographic

Windowpane clear and bracingly cold, the Homem River and other swimming spots draw thousands of visitors to Peneda-Ger s on summer weekends. The seasonal invasion challenges the park's year-round residents and wildlife.

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Seal Dive

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak, National Geographic

Southern Africa has some of the world s richest waters. But debate swirls over how to sustain these seas and the fishing communities that depend on them. Here, a fur seal surfs Atlantic swells off Cape Town. To conserve sea life around the city s coastline, a marine protected area (MPA) one of 23 in South Africa was created in 2004.

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Spiritual Scale

Photograph by Kavya Reddy , National Geographic Your Shot

Thiksey Gompa, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery known for its resemblance to Lhasa s Potala Palace, sits at 11,800 feet in the northern Himalayan region of Ladakh, India. The 12-story complex houses temples, a nunnery, and Buddhist artwork, including a 40-foot statue of Maitreya, or the future Buddha.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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More Than Everest

Photograph by Aaron Huey, National Geographic

For the Sherpas of Nepal, the years spent working on Mount Everest are fraught with danger. Some Sherpa families in the Everest region send their children to live with relatives in Kathmandu so they can attend schools there. The parents hope the next generation won t have to risk their lives working on the mountain.

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Home to Roost

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak, National Geographic

Gulls, gannets, and penguins are neighbors on Mercury Island, near the Diamond Coast of Namibia. The country s first marine protected area aims to reduce human disturbance and increase natural abundance around Mercury and ten other islands along 250 miles of coastline.

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Sky Light

Photograph by Emma Blythman , National Geographic Your Shot

Viewed from a remote ecolodge, the aurora borealis unfurls over a snowy plain in Canada s Northwest Territories. Having always had a love of the stars, I moved to the lodge to see the aurora and to learn to live off the land, writes Your Shot member Emma Blythman . Each night, after learning how to hunt and collecting wood, I would camp out by candlelight at the igloo, set up my camera, and watch the aurora dance above my head for hours. Magical.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Morning Glory

Photograph by Todd Klassy , National Geographic Your Shot

Many photographers prefer to photograph the world as the sun goes down, writes Your Shot member Todd Klassy . Me, I prefer the peacefulness of the morning light. After a night of heavy snow, Klassy made sure to get up before snow plows had a chance to alter the clean white landscape in rural Green County, Wisconsin. Fortunately, the sun painted the horizon a beautiful pinkish hue, and it provided a nice background for this minimalist scene, he writes. Unfortunately, the snow plow driver was up earlier than me and cleared the road before I had a chance to photograph it without the black strip of asphalt.

Klassy s picture recently appeared in Your Shot s Daily Dozen .

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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The Bagualero Way

Photograph by Tom s Munita, National Geographic

In the wilds of Patagonia, cowboys called bagualeros pit themselves against the meanest livestock on the planet. Here, bagueleros pause in their search for cattle on Antonio Varas Peninsula, in Chilean Patagonia. Few choose the bagualero way. It s a beautiful life but a tough one, says Sebasti n Garc a Iglesias (at far left).

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Flight of Locusts

Photograph by Michele Martinelli , National Geographic Your Shot

A dense swarm of locusts obscures a view of fields in Madagascar. Most destructive in sustenance farming regions of Africa, locust swarms devastate crops and can cause major agricultural damage, as well as famine and starvation.

Martinelli s picture was recently published in Your Shot's Unexpected Discoveries assignment.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Ballooning Kindness

Photograph by Giorgio Lulli , National Geographic Your Shot

Your Shot member Giorgio Lulli came across a charity event by chance one Sunday in the main square of his hometown of Bologna, Italy. People had responded generously to the charity call, and the big square was almost totally covered with balloons, he writes. This shot was taken with the camera practically at ground level, with framing from bottom upwards.

Lulli s picture recently appeared in Your Shot's Daily Dozen .

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Wild Wetland

Photograph by Vincent J. Musi, National Geographic

Water fresh, brackish, and salt is the lifeblood of South Carolina s ACE Basin. Along the Combahee River, wetlands veined with tidal creeks are nurseries for fish and feeding grounds for birds. Visitors in boats often spy bald eagles.

Vincent J. Musi recounts the humorous tale of a story eight years in the making on our Photography blog, Proof .

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Funny Face

Photograph by Brian Callaway , National Geographic Your Shot

The gaye holud is a traditional Bengali wedding ceremony in which the bride and groom are presented with fish dressed as the couple, writes Your Shot member Brian Callaway , who captured this photo in the town of Mamallapuram, on the east coast of India. Amit and Sofi have an amazing sense of humor and started playing and posing with the fish after their gaye holud. It didn t take too long before I saw that if they held the fish up to their faces, the eyes of the fish would match their own. For me, the photo perfectly captures this cultural part of their wedding, their fun/spontaneous personalities, and, more importantly, how much fun they were having. It's also their favorite photo.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Shores of Durban

Photograph by Juan Pinnick , National Geographic Your Shot

What drew me to this situation were the tempestuous tides and moody skies, writes Juan Pinnick , a member of our Your Shot community. Using a large aperture and a relatively slow shutter speed, Pinnick waited for the waves to crash in front of him while also breaking in the background at this site near the resort village of Umhlanga Rocks in Durban, South Africa. This was a shoot I had been looking forward to for months, he writes.

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Hanging On

Photograph by Valtteri Murto , National Geographic Your Shot

I m an airline pilot interested in both urban decay and aviation history, writes Your Shot member Valtteri Murto , who captured this picture during a day off spent photographing parts of Brooklyn. I came to Floyd Bennett Field out of pure curiosity, and after noticing these hangars, I just couldn t keep myself away, he writes. Though it was a sunny day in March, recent rains had left large puddles that caught reflections like this one. I had to dodge falling pieces of aluminium plating, Murto adds. The hangars are in a state of serious decay, and roof panels and debris were blown across by gusty wind.

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Tasty

Photograph by Rob Daugherty , National Geographic Your Shot

While visiting Alaska s Lake Clark National Park, Your Shot member Rob Daugherty planned to photograph coastal brown bears. He saw 21 bears on the first day alone. He came across this one about two hours into a boat ride on Crescent Lake. He had just finished eating a salmon, Daugherty writes. It was an epic moment to photograph him as he licked his fishy, post-meal chops.

Daugherty s picture recently appeared in Your Shot's Daily Dozen .

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Street Scene, Kolkata

Photograph by Randy Olson, National Geographic

Its steaming streets crammed with vendors, pedestrians, and iconic Ambassador taxis, Kolkata throbs with some 16 million people and more pour in every day from small towns. In 1975 only three cities worldwide topped ten million. Today 21 such mega cities exist, most in developing countries, where urban areas absorb much of the globe's rising population.

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Kallur Lighthouse

Photograph by Gr goire Sieuw , National Geographic Your Shot

From a northern promontory on the Faroe island of Kalsoy, the Kallur lighthouse boasts a panoramic view of the sea and neighboring islands. About a hundred people inhabit four villages on remote Kalsoy, one of 18 islands making up the North Atlantic archipelago.

Sieuw s picture recently appeared in Your Shot's Daily Dozen .

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Temple Dawn

Photograph by Andy Ferrington , National Geographic Your Shot

Burma (Myanmar) is one of those special countries that will never fail to inspire and excite even the most well-traveled photographers, writes Your Shot member Andy Ferrington . There is nothing more awe inspiring than watching sunrise from the top of one of the 2,000-plus temples in the central plain in Bagan. This was my third consecutive 5 a.m. start to climb yet another temple in the cold, dark morning in bare feet. I opted for a super telephoto shot, as I wanted to really pull the punch of those warm sunrise colors. As I was tracking the flight path of this solo balloon, I estimated that it would pass between a perfect gap in the temples.

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A Perilous Profession

Photograph by Aaron Huey

In April 2014, a devastating avalanche killed 16 expedition workers on Mount Everest, becoming the worst accident in the peak s hundred-year climbing history. For the Sherpas 13 of whom were victims of the avalanche the climbing profession brings both prosperity and peril. Here, Da Nuru Sherpa coils rope at Camp II on Ama Dablam, perched like a spectacular bird s nest at 19,600 feet.

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Royal Velvet

Photograph by Szymon Bakota , National Geographic Your Shot

Victorious in autumn clashes with rivals, a fallow deer luxuriates in the fog of London s Richmond Park. This is a great time to simply wander around the park with a camera, writes Your Shot member Szymon Bakota . I found the ideal place in a small woodland, where bucks rub their foreheads and antlers against the bases and branches of trees. There were a couple of deer competing and clashing antlers. After one fight, the winner made this magnificent, royal pose. I got the camera as low to the ground as possible. My intention was to underexpose the photo a bit to capture an almost fairy-tale mood.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Blacktip Grouper

Photograph by Brian Skerry

Blacktip grouper at Starbuck Island in the southern Line Islands are among the predators that dominate fish communities on healthy reefs. Long-lived and slow-growing, groupers are among the first casualties of overfishing.

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Sea Challenge

Photograph by Ulrich Lambert , National Geographic Your Shot

Walking on the beach in Aqaba, Jordan, at sunset, Your Shot member Ulrich Lambert saw teenagers jumping from a pier into the Red Sea. I shot from the pier using a wide-angle zoom because I wanted to capture not only the diver, but also his audience, as it was a kind of challenge between them, he writes.

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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River Lady

Photograph by Vincent J. Musi

South Carolina s ACE Basin harbors a wealth of wildlife and history. Here, a moss-hung cypress keeps watch over the placid waters of the Lowcountry basin, named for three rivers that run through it: the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto.

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Owl in the Snow

Photograph by Sven Zacek , National Geographic Your Shot

While on assignment photographing great gray owls for a Wild Wonders of Europe project, Your Shot member Sven Zacek got a call that a few owls had been sighted nearby. Zacek had been busy with another mission shooting winter landscapes but was able to find and spend four days with this female near Oulu, Finland.

This photo is from the first evening, when I had just arrived. It was snowing, and after observing the owl for a while I decided to try and creep closer. The snowfall really makes the shot.

Zacek s picture recently appeared in Your Shot s Daily Dozen .

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Mirror Image

Photograph by Torsten Muehlbacher , National Geographic Your Shot

On a stretch of road between S derhamn and G vle on the Swedish coast, Your Shot member Torsten Muehlbacher noticed this small island reflected in a lake. I drove to a nearby parking area and walked a few minutes for the perfect view, he writes. I put my camera on a tripod and made a long-exposure shot for a better mirror on the lake, because it was not windless.

Muehlbacher s picture recently appeared in Your Shot s Daily Dozen .

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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Tree Swing

Photograph by Francisco Mingorance

A maple tree provides a perfect swing for a playful Barbary macaque in Morocco s Middle Atlas mountains. Illegal logging threatens forests where the endangered monkeys live, and overgrazing damages the area s food-rich underbrush.

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Turning Tail

Photograph by Lance Isackson , National Geographic Your Shot

Turkey tail mushrooms, a type of bracket fungi, are spied on a fall day in Belcarra, British Columbia, Canada. Known particularly in Chinese medicine for its healing properties, the mushroom is believed to strengthen the immune system against disease and infection.

Lance Isackson s picture recently appeared in Your Shot s Daily Dozen .

This photo was submitted to Your Shot . Check out the new and improved website, where you can share photos, take part in assignments, lend your voice to stories, and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.

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