NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S PHOTORAPHY CONTEST 2010

Suradita Village, West Java, Indonesia. Children playing with their roosters. Actually it was not a real cockfight because the roosters didn't wear blades on their feet. Children like to play this game because they almost never have toys in their life.

National Geographic is once again holding their annual Photo Contest, with the deadline for submissions coming up on November 30th. For the past eight weeks, they have been gathering and presenting galleries of submissions, encouraging readers to rate them as well. National Geographic was again kind enough to let me choose some of their entries from 2010

Kanana Camp, Botswana. Pulling over by the side of the road to watch a grazing giraffe, we spotted an amber head lurking behind a small mound. A hungry lioness. Watching, waiting, camera to my eye, she eventually chose her moment and pounced just as the giraffe sensed danger. The lioness gave chase, but failed. Hungry, she lay down, invisible, in the grass not ten feet from us and waited again.

A supercell thunderstorm rolls across the Montana prairie at sunset.

Salvation. Appreciate life to save the world.

The Great Pyramids. The people of Ancient Egypt believed that death on Earth was the start of a journey to the next world. The embalmed body of the King was entombed underneath or within the pyramid to protect it and allow his transformation and ascension to the afterlife.

The Music Of Love. This picture was taken in Tenganan Village, Bali (2010). Tenganan is the most famous Bali Aga (original Balinese) village and is located close to Candi Dasa in East Bali. A man was playing bamboo music to entertain a disabled child which is not his son, but he loves this child likes he loves his own son.

Liquid Planet. Another picture from the Liquid Vision Series, which shows a different point of view of waves. An angle that people are not used to seeing.

Brown bear, Buskin River, Kodiak Alaska. This bear had been fishing in the river on this morning. It climbed onto the bank and laid down in the grass. This photo was taken about an hour after sunrise just as the sun was starting to clear the trees. The temperature was near the dew point and steam was rising off its body. It didn’t seem at all concerned by the fishermen in the river or the photographer on the bank.

Praying Mantis - Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii. This beautiful whalbergii evolved through two of its nymph-stages on the Barberton Daisy at left, surviving because of its bright color which blended so well with the flower. Towards the end of its growth into an adult, it became a little more adventurous (but not much more) as pictured here. Once it had shed the layer in this picture, it became a fully-fledged adult, and departed after about two weeks. Total stay in this tiny ecosystem was approximately six weeks.

A Wrinkle in Time. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Alone. I was up in the air in an helicopter, taking images for the community and suddenly I saw one tree surrounded by thousands of spruces and I got only one shot in this perfect light.

The archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil is considered a wildlife sanctuary, but today, even in this isolated archipelago dolphins are victims of the bad habits of consumption.

Cosmic. Mother nature doing what she does best.

The child in us. Traveling from Zhangmu (Nepal-Tibet border) to the Tibetan capital - Lhasa you can see road workers all along the Friendship Highway. The Chinese industrialization has affected Tibet a great deal. But despite the Chinese government's attempts to settle Chinese population across the Tibetan Plateau, the Roof of the World still remains a place where only the Tibetans can survive its harsh climate conditions. A Tibetan boy holding the hand of his father who works on the road construction, Tibet.

The baboon in front was harassing one of the babies in the troop. This male facing the camera attacked him. The whole fight was over in a few seconds but it was loud and seemingly vicious. The rest of the troop was scrambling around trying to get out of their way. There is, needless to say, always a lot of drama going on in a baboon troop.

Unsafe Journey. A woman is riding between the railway carriages of a local train heading north from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Her luggage is tucked under the carriage in front of her. It is the month of Ramadan, a fast which culminates in Eid-ul-Fitr, a three-day celebration. Tens of thousands of people leave the city to go to their home village and celebrate with their families. Trains are packed and many who fail to get tickets before they sell out or can't afford buying them at the black market ride on the roof of the train or, like this woman, finds a quiet spot between the carriages.

Lightning Strike NY Harbor. This shot was captured during a major electrical storm. There was little wind and no rain which allowed me to stay safely inside and shoot from an open window. This was the 82nd exposure out of 150 made that night. The camera was mounted on a tripod, exposures made with a cable release for 5 seconds at f10. Except for a some minor level adjustments and a square crop this was what came out of the camera.

Boise Sunrise. With the fog and morning light this looks like a place I'd love to be. If you look very closely, you can see a deer in a clearing in the center left area of the picture

Yes it's spring. Fishing on the end of the bridge.

The Look. There are only 400 of these birds in existence.

Against the windstorm on Mont Blanc. My friend Laszlo Varkonyi is leading a group on Mont Blanc, he died on Everest this April in a fatal accident: a big serac fell down.

Mystery Bug. This was on my clothesline. I have no idea what it is. I have used a macro lens as the insect was only an inch or so long. We live in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales, Australia. The rainforest around our house sometimes brings forth intriguing creatures like this. I know it looks like a studio shot but it isn't. The photograph was was taken in natural light. The background is a sheet that was serendipitously drying on the clothesline at the time. I have rotated the image to make the insect easier to examine. If anyone can tell me what it is I would be grateful.

Pure Elements. I drove my 4x4 over rivers to get a view of the Volcano eruption at "Fimmvorduhals" in Iceland. It was a full moon and strong winds gave me problems standing still outside the truck. I had my camera with me and zoom lens but no tripod, suddenly there was a magical moment, I was experiencing a display of nature rarely seen by man. I found my camera with the zoom lens, rushed out of the truck, trying to fight the strong wind. I pushed the camera on to the hood of the truck trying to stand still, holding my breath, I shot 30 frames, and only one shot was good.

Bicycle Crash. Zestful BMX (Bicycle Moto-Cross) rider crashes after a failed attempt to grind the handrail. When in pain, even the ambitious, strong, extreme sports loving man looks like a simple, tired, vulnerable person.

The Serra da Leba Road near Lubango (Huíla, Angola). This is Serra da Leba, a landmark in Angola. A road built in the 70's, it's been in the country's postcard images for decades, but all shots were taken by day. I wanted something different and tried a night shot. But it seemed impossible: pitch dark, foggy, altitude of 1,800m (5,000ft). I wanted no more than 60sec of exposure, max, to avoid digital noise. But a car takes a few minutes to climb or descend this section of the road. The fog was dense and blocking the view! Suddenly the fog cleared, a few cars went down, others went up, they met in the middle in under 60sec... Painting done!

A Llama stands at the crest of a hill as the sun sets behind it at Chavín de Huántar, Peru.

Fallen Angel. A legionnaire from the French Foreign Legion's 2REP (Foreign Parachute Regiment) sits in an armored personnel carrier en route to an operation near Badpash Kusa Kala, Afghanistan on June 16, 2010.

Foot and Thistle, Mountain Gorilla of Rwanda. I was fortunate to visit the rare and endangered Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda, February of 2010. This young gorilla had fallen asleep with a thistle grasped in his foot. The thistle is one of their food sources. They learn to extract the pith from the spine-defended inedible stem. This particular gorilla demonstrates syndactyly of the third and fourth toes, a common congenital malformation also found in humans.

Lightning Crashes. A lightning bolt strikes the antenna of The Center building in Central Hong Kong during a storm on September 13, 2009.

Oasis.

Me'enit Boy, Southwestern Ethiopia. One of our neighborhood friends, Sintiyu, looking on. A rare opportunity to see him undistracted by the camera, and absorbed in his family.

Moths to Light. Moths attracted to a light in front of my home.

Surva, the International Festival of the Masquerade Games held in the town of Pernik, Bulgaria is the biggest event of this type not only in Bulgaria but on the Balkan Peninsula as well. It promotes variations of ancient Bulgarian customs that are still alive today. These are an important part of the Bulgarian folklore tradition and are meant to be performed by single men and women. With its competitive nature, the festival is not only a venue but also a contest for the living vessels of this tradition, namely the Kukeri and Survakari.

Ki Gompa. This picture was taken when I visited the Buddhist Monastery of Ki. Ki is a tiny village in the middle of the Himalayas, and next to it is Ki Gompa (Ki Monastery). I lived with the monks for about a week, and this picture reflects the peaceful, almost heavenly atmosphere that characterizes this place. The Monastery is almost 4,000 meters high, and I had to climb almost 500 meters more to get this panorama. This place is a touch of heaven.

Haunting Glimpse. An encounter with an elusive Canada Lynx is said to be a rare privilege. I am honored to have had the opportunity to see a Lynx up close and personal. As I photographed this beautiful cat, I felt transfixed by its wild, untamed, haunting eyes. This is a once in a lifetime chance that I will cherish forever.

Silhouetted against the headlights of their engine, Firemen attempt to put out a blaze caused by a gigantic natural gas line explosion near San Francisco in September of 2010. The fire destroyed 37 homes, and resulted in seven fatalities.

Power of childhood. City: Lençois; Estate: Bahia; Country: Brazil.

North Atlantic seals enduring winter storm. It was already -1 and with a strong wind it was colder still, Had to position myself so as to shield the camera from the wind to keep the image sharp the snow was being blown horizontally away from me.

Great Blue Heron with fish. The largest and most widespread heron in North America. When foraging, they stand silently along riverbanks, lake shores, or in wet meadows, waiting for prey to come by, which they then strike with their bills.

A walk along the river bank. This photo was taken in Zhenyuan, Guizhou Province, China this summer. I was taking a walk along the river bank of Wuyang in the mist of a late afternoon shower. Refreshing smell after rain was mixed with the aroma from nearby food stands. In the distance, kids were playing and laughing. The tranquil and harmonious life of the local people reminds me of the joyful time I grew up in a similar small town in Southwest China.

Heavy load. One morning in August, I was on my way to pick up the newspaper. Everything was moist and wet, and I spotted this little fly on a small white flower, just outside my bedroom window. Two hours after I shot this picture I went outside again, and the fly was still sitting on the same flower - still not able to fly.

Table Mountain. I took this picture in June 2009 while I was just outside of Cape Town, South Africa. I was working at a kids camp and took a quick shot of the sun setting over Table Mountain as we were headed in for dinner. I was in such a rush to capture the sunset while trying to keep an eye on a bunch of kids on the playground that I didn't even notice the boy in the right edge of my viewfinder. It wasn't until I was back home in Tennessee that I discovered the huge impact of this picture. The duality of the not-quite-teenage boy and the 260-million-year-old mountain in the same shot absolutely amazed me.

Herring Gull with Guillemot Chick. Taken on the Farne Islands, Northumberland, UK, the herring gull circled around the guillemot colony three or four times before dropping in and picking up this chick with the guillemot colony watching.

Pyramid mountain. Maelifellssandur volcanic dust desert in Iceland.

Giraffes at Savannah. Unusual perspective shot depicting two giraffes and a tree in Masai Mara, Kenya.

Cloud and ship. Ukraine, Crimea, Black sea, view from Ai-Petri mountain.

VIEWS OF JUPITER AND THE SUN

The gibbous phase of Jupiter's moon Europa. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured this image mosaic during its mission orbiting Jupiter from 1995 - 2003. Evidence and images from the Galileo spacecraft, indicated that liquid oceans might exist below the icy surface.

Jupiter is in the news again, this time because its "Baby Red Spot" - a storm less than a year old - appears to have been swallowed up by the massive storm known as the Great Red Spot. This is good occasion to share some of the best photographs of Jupiter and its larger system of rings and moons, as seen by various probes and telescopes over the past 30 years.

Jupiter's moon Io floats above the cloudtops of Jupiter in this image captured January 1, 2001. The image is deceiving: there are 350,000 kilometers - roughly 2.5 Jupiters - between Io and Jupiter's clouds. Io is about the size of our own moon

This image of Jupiter's moon Europa rising above Jupiter was captured by the New Horizons spacecraft in February just after it passed Jupiter on its way to Pluto and the outer Solar System.

This view of the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa, is a mosaic of two pictures taken by the Solid State Imaging system on board the Galileo spacecraft during a close flyby of Europa on February 20, 1997. The area shown is about 14 kilometers by 17 kilometers (8.7 miles by 10.6 miles), and has a resolution of 20 meters (22 yards) per pixel. One of the youngest features seen in this area is the double ridge cutting across the picture from the lower left to the upper right. This double ridge is about 2.6 kilometers (1.6 miles) wide and stands some 300 meters (330 yards) high.

A composite of several images taken in several colors by the New Horizons Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera, or MVIC, illustrating the diversity of structures in Jupiter's atmosphere, in colors similar to what someone "riding" on New Horizons would see. It was taken near the terminator, the boundary between day and night, and shows relatively small-scale, turbulent, whirlpool-like structures near the south pole of the planet. The dark "holes" in this region are actually places where there is very little cloud cover, so sunlight is not reflected back to the camera.

This image, acquired during Galileo's ninth orbit around Jupiter, shows two volcanic plumes on Io. One plume was captured on the bright limb or edge of the moon, erupting over a caldera (volcanic depression) named Pillan Patera. The plume seen by Galileo is 140 kilometers (86 miles) high, and was also detected by the Hubble Space Telescope. The second plume, seen near the terminator, the boundary between day and night, is called Prometheus. The shadow of the airborne plume can be seen extending to the right of the eruption vent.

A part of the southern hemisphere of Io, seen by the spacecraft Voyager at a range of 74,675 km. In the foreground is gently undulating topography, while in the back-ground are two mountains with their near faces brightly illuminated by the sun. The mountain in the right is approximately 150 km across at its base and its height is probably in excess of 15 km which would make it higher than any mountain on Earth.

A volcanic plume rises over 300 kilometers above the horizon of Jupiter's moon Io in this image from cameras onboard the New Horizons spacecraft. The volcano, Tvashtar, is marked by the bright glow (about 1 o'clock) at the moon's edge, beyond the terminator or night/day shadow line. The shadow of Io cuts across the plume itself. Also capturing stunning details on the dayside surface, the high resolution image was recorded when the spacecraft was 2.3 million kilometers from Io. Later it was combined with lower resolution color data by astro-imager Sean Walker to produce this sharp portrait of the solar system's most active moon.

Jupiter's moon Io, seen by NASA's Galileo spacecraft against a backdrop of Jupiter's cloud tops, which appear blue in this false-color composite.

A mosaic of Jupiter's ring system, acquired by NASA's Galileo spacecraft when the Sun was behind the planet, and the spacecraft was in Jupiter's shadow peering back toward the Sun.

The first color movie of Jupiter from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows what it would look like to peel the entire globe of Jupiter, stretch it out on a wall into the form of a rectangular map, and watch its atmosphere evolve with time. The brief movie clip spans 24 Jupiter rotations between Oct. 31 and Nov. 9, 2000. The darker blips that appear are several moons and their shadows.

An image of the leading hemisphere of Ganymede seen by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Many fragmented regions of dark terrain split by lanes of bright grooved terrain cover the surface. Several bright young craters can be seen, including a linear chain of craters near the center of the image which may have resulted from the impact of a fragmented comet, similar to comet Shoemaker-Levy/9 which hit Jupiter in 1994.

The area of Nicholson Regio and Arbela Sulcus illustrates many of the diverse terrain types on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, as seen in this image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The image covers an area approximately 89 by 26 kilometers (55by 16 miles).

Jupiter's Great Red seen by NASA's Voyager spacecraft. July, 1979 Around the northern boundary a white cloud is seen, which extends to east of the region. The presence of this cloud prevents small cloud vortices from circling the spot in the manner seen in the Voyager 1 encounter. Another white oval cloud (different from the one present in this position three months ago) is seen south of the Great Red Spot. This image was taken on July 6, 1979 from a range of 2,633,003 kilometers. The Red Spot is 20,000 km across

This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced. Although Cassini's camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter here looks the way that the human eye would see it.

NASA's STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet on April 4, 2007. The collision caused the complete detachment of the comet's plasma tail. Comets are icy leftovers from the solar system's formation billions of years ago. They usually hang out in the cold, distant regions of the solar system, but occasionally a gravitational tug from a planet, another comet, or even a nearby star sends them into the inner solar system. Once there, the sun's heat and radiation vaporizes gas and dust from the comet, forming its tail. Comets typically have two tails, one made of dust and a fainter one made of electrically conducting gas, called plasma.

The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times.


A sweeping prominence, a huge cloud of relatively cool dense plasma is seen suspended in the Sun's hot, thin corona. At times, promineces can erupt, escaping the Sun's atmosphere. Emission in this spectral line shows the upper chromosphere at a temperature of about 60,000 degrees K (over 100,000 degrees F). Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structure. The hottest areas appear almost white, while the darker red areas indicate cooler temperatures.

Detailed closeup of magnetic structures on the Sun's surface, seen in the H-alpha wavelength on August 22, 2003.

Image of an active solar region taken on July 24, 2002 near the eastern limb of the Sun. The image highlights the three-dimensional nature of the photosphere when seen at these large angles. The structures in the dark sunspots in the upper central area of the image show distinct elevation above the dark "floor" of the sunspot. The height of the structures has been estimated by Dr. Bruce Lites of the High Altitude Observatory to be between 200 and 450 km. The smallest resolvable features in the image are about 70 km in size. There are also numerous bright "faculae" visible on the edges of granules that face towards the observer.

The total solar eclipse of February 16, 1980 was photographed from Palem, India, by a research team from the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The photograph of the solar corona was taken with a camera system developed by Gordon A. Newkirk, Jr. This specialized instrument photographs the corona in red light, 6400 A -- through a radially graded filter that suppresses the bright inner corona in order to show the much fainter streamers of the outer corona in the same photograph.

The planet Venus is seen by NASA's TRACE satellite, at the start of its transit across the sun on June 8, 2004.

A view of a sunspot and granules on the Sun's surface, seen in the H-alpha wavelength on August 4, 2003.

Solar flares produce seismic waves in the Sun's interior that closely resemble those created by earthquakes on our planet. On May 27, 1998, researchers observed this flare-generated solar quake that contained about 40,000 times the energy released in the great earthquake that devastated San Francisco in 1906, equivalent to an 11.3 magnitude earthquake, scientists calculated. Over the course of an hour, the solar waves traveled for a distance equal to 10 Earth diameters before fading into the fiery background of the Sun's photosphere. Unlike water ripples that travel outward at a constant velocity, the solar waves accelerated from an initial speed of 22,000 miles per hour to a maximum of 250,000 miles per hour before disappearing.

Hinode (formerly known as Solar-B) successfully captured a massive solar flare on 13 December 2006. It was one of the largest flares occurring in that period of solar activity minimum.

The image shows the corona for a moderately active Sun, with some (red) hot active regions in both hemispheres, surrounded by the (blue/green) cooler plasma of the quiet-Sun corona. Notice also the north polar-crown filament, the trans-equatorial loops, and the coronal hole in the south-east (lower-right) corner of the image and the smaller one over the north pole. This image shows the solar corona in a false-color, 3-layer composite: the blue, green, and red channels show the 171Å, 195Å, and 284Å wavelengths, respectively (most sensitive to emission from 1, 1.5, and 2 million degree gases).

A view of an irregular-shaped sunspot and granules on the Sun's surface, seen on August 22, 2003.

On November 8, 2006, Mercury is seen, beginning a transit in front of the Sun.

This TRACE 171Å-wavelength image from November 11, 2006 shows a sizeable active region at the east limb of the Sun (rotated clockwise 90 degrees so north is to the right) just as it rotates onto Earth-facing hemisphere. Notice the low-lying dark structures of filaments at the leading edge of the region, some "levitating" dark material on the right-hand side of the region, and the small ephemeral region towards the lower right.

The Sun, observed on May 22, 2008. With the Sun persisting in a near-minimal state of activity, only a few small regions of some activity are seen on the disk. The cell-like appearance is formed by the multitude of small clusters of magnetic flux that are collected in the downflow regions of the supergranular network of convective motions.

TRACE 171Å image of an erupting solar filament above Active Region 9077 on July 19, 2000. Filaments are concentrated bundles of magnetic field filled with relatively cool gas, suspended in the solar corona. When they become unstable, they can erupt, triggering coronal mass ejections and solar flares. The dark material here is relatively cool, while the bright material is hotter than a million degrees. As this hot material cools, it condenses and drains down the lines of magnetic field in the corona much like beads moving along a wire, a process some scientists refer to as "coronal rain."

This LASCO C2 image, taken 8 January 2002, shows a widely spreading coronal mass ejection (CME) as it blasts more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour. The C2 image was turned 90 degrees so that the blast seems to be pointing down. An EIT 304 Angstrom image from a different day was enlarged and superimposed on the C2 image so that it filled the occulting disk for effect

Detailed closeup of magnetic structures on the Sun's surface, seen in the H-alpha wavelength on August 22, 2003.

NASA's STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft observed this visually stunning prominence eruption on Sept. 29, 2008 in the 304 wavelength of extreme UV light. It rose up and cascaded to the right over several hours, appearing something like a flag unfurling, as it broke apart and headed into space. The material observed is actually ionized Helium at about 60,000 degrees. Prominences are relatively cool clouds of gas suspended above the Sun and controlled by magnetic forces.

A transit of the Moon across the face of the Sun on February 25, 2007 - but not seen from Earth. This sight was visible only from the STEREO-B spacecraft in its orbit about the sun, trailing behind the Earth. NASA's STEREO mission consists of two spacecraft launched in October, 2006 to study solar storms. STEREO-B is currently about 1 million miles from the Earth, 4.4 times farther away from the Moon than we are on Earth. As the result, the Moon appears 4.4 times smaller than what we are used to.

On September 30, 2001, TRACE observed an M1.0 flare in an active region very near to the solar limb. Fragments of a prominence hovered above the regions, with filamentary dark (relatively cool) material moving along the field lines, which then spread to form this dragon-like bright outline.