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Iconic Places to Photograph

Iconic Places to Photograph

Antarctica

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Photograph by Jim Richardson
Even today, Antarctica overwhelms us. Already iconic, seared into our imaginations from the tales of heroic exploration and tragic, fatal failure of the last century, Antarctica overpowers us from afar, humbling even seasoned travelers, more vast in reality than our imaginations can muster. Relegated to obscurity at the bottom of our schoolroom globes, our scant knowledge ill prepares us for the stunning outbursts of towering mountain ranges ripping across the face of the deep blue sky, the sublime blue and turquoise icebergs and glaciers, and the inconceivable abundance of life. Indeed it is the limitless nesting colonies of penguins, always comical but utterly indifferent to human visitors, that ultimately define Antarctica as a world unto itself.
Iconic Shot: Besides penguins? Any view that encompasses Antarctica’s vast scale and distances.

Venice, Italy

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Photograph by Jim Richardson
Graceful, beautiful, and constantly enchanting, Venice is also a prime example of the tragic, all-consuming lust for wealth, power, and sordid ambitions. That all these contradictions coexist in such a sumptuous milieu makes it, rightly, a destination synonymous with worldly experience. “See Venice and die” puts the city squarely at the ultimate conclusion of any bucket list. For the Victorians life was not quite complete, youth not adequately finished until Venice was crossed off the list. Yet it surmounts all the clichés; it’s never tawdry, always remarkable. Today, this island city of lost hegemony is a museum unto itself, a time capsule we can’t quite bear to relinquish. It is so ravishing.
Iconic Shot: Gondolas on the Grand Canal

Machu Picchu, Peru

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Photograph by Jim Richardson

Machu Picchu, Peru

Photograph by Jim Richardson
Lost to most for 400 years under the encroaching jungle of the high Andes, Machu Picchu’s magic was rekindled after iconic explorer Hiram Bingham rediscovered it in 1911 and brought it to the modern world. A century later it is still astounding, evoking wonder for the Inca kings and their opulent retreat in the high mountains, a stupendous sanctuary wrapped by surrounding mountains, plunging valleys, and ever swirling clouds. Even the llamas seem to be able to hear their ghosts. The stone houses and avenues, the plazas and sacred sites all speak to us of life still present but unseen.
Iconic Shot: From the terraces above, where Hiram Bingham made the original photographs for National Geographic magazine

Stonehenge, England

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Photograph by Jim Richardson
Few places invoke timelessness like Stonehenge. The absolute knowledge that every year for the past 5,000 years the Earth, the sun, and Stonehenge have all lined up just so that the rays of light glancing across the face of Salisbury Plain slip through the upright stones— it sets our sense of cosmic order on fire. The rocks hulk there, brawny yet graceful, set in place by crafty people we can scarce imagine or recall. Then the moment is gone and we realize that we, too, have been aligned, if only briefly, with time itself.
Iconic Shot: The sun’s rays intersecting with the stones in some way
The Serengeti offers an epiphany to most visitors: Wildness still has a place in our world. Out on the sun-drenched grasslands of Tanzania, life is elemental, the food chain obvious and unsentimental, the art of survival an everyday thing, kindness and mercy totally without relevance. The great migrations combine the many actors into a vast, thronging drama. The immense vistas are tranquil but for the stalking shape of a lion in the tall grass. We are intruders here redeemed by accepting our insignificance. It is both humbling and comforting.
Iconic Shot: Symbolic views and shapes that evoke primeval emotions
Photograph by Jim Richardson
The Pyramids virtually define the concept of iconic, their very triangular shape instantly recognized, seared into our collective human cultural blueprint, defining place, time, and ethos. That shape! And so for some 4,500 years they have been the most wondrous of wonders, in a league of their own, unchallenged for their sheer audacity, paragons of all design. And then there is the Sphinx, a riddle evoking a mystery that we don’t want solved. Lurking always, somehow more intriguing the less we know about it, especially beguiling in old photographs when it was buried up to its neck in the sands of the Egyptian desert. Tombs to kings, monuments to human aspiration, all under the blazing Egyptian sun.
Iconic Shot: Exploring their many alignments, from a distance for stacked shapes, up close for the intimate connections
 

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