Top 10 Iconic Places to Photograph #Part2

6. Easter Island

Photograph by Jim Richardson

Standing in their haunting rows, Easter Island's statues, called moai, arouse our subconscious thoughts. The stone statuary, at once unreal and yet known to us deeply, conjure up ancestor worship in exactly the way the islanders, lost in the vast Pacific, likely intended. Our imaginations reel at the solitude: Polynesians made their epic journey across the vast Pacific to this speck of an island, and then no one else came for nearly a
thousand years. Left to their own imaginings, the islanders invented their own version of eternity. In the darkness, under the southern starry night, the hulking statues have the power to haunt the mind like few other places on Earth.
Iconic Shot: Tongariki with the long row of moai looming above

7. Ta Prahm Temple, Cambodia

Photograph by Jim Richardson

The temple of Angkor Wat, rising out of the Cambodian jungle, is the world’s largest religious structure. But nearby is another temple, Ta Prohm, less grand in scale but more penetrating to the psyche. Here the roots of towering strangler figs cascade over the intricately carved stone walls, framing doorways. They depend on each other, neither the walls nor the trees able to stand without the other. The roots snake over and around the religious symbols, looking like synapses of some ancient central nervous system, connecting lost thoughts set in stone.
Iconic Shot: The temple's doors framed by roots

8. The Serengeti, Tanzania

Photograph by Jim Richardson

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

9. The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

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

10. Papua New Guinea

Photograph by Jim Richardson

In the highlands of Papua New Guinea we come face to face with the parts of our mind that the modern world has hidden away very well. The Huli Wigmen (and many other peoples and cultures) carry forth traditions rooted deeply in time and mind, dredging out inner spirits and (through intricate outfits and lavish makeup) wearing them proudly at sing-sings. The transformation from everyday folk to apparitions from the spirit world is astounding. Looking into their faces we confront our own unresolved, fractured nature. Throughout Papua New Guinea each group displays, with pride, their own identity and inner being.
Iconic Shot: The faces in the dances, characters brought to life. Source Article
#Part 1