Summer Pattern

Photograph by Sven Zacek , National Geographic Your Shot

Sunbathers make a haphazard pattern on the sand at P rnu, the so-called summer capital of Estonia. Your Shot member Sven Zacek had been thinking up ideas for a book showing the country as our national bird, the barn swallow, sees it. One of the motifs he hoped to capture was a summer day on the beach in P rnu, where people come together at the height of the season. With aerial photography, the most important thing is to get the weather right, he says. On a July day at around 2 p.m., when the sun was at its hottest, I hired an airplane and we circled the beach and got some nice waves from the people. After a while they stopped paying attention and then I got the photos I wanted.

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