Photo of the Day: Best of October 2012

Get Wallpaper

Moai, Easter Island

Photograph by Randy Olson, National Geographic

Their backs to the Pacific, 15 restored moai stand watch at Ahu Tongariki, the largest of Easter Island's ceremonial stone platforms. Rapanui artisans carved the moai centuries ago from volcanic rock at a quarry a mile away. By the 19th century all of Easter's moai had been toppled—by whom or what is unclear. In 1960 these moai were swept inland by a tsunami, which fractured some (left).

See more pictures from the July 2012 feature story "If Only They Could Talk."

Buy a print of this photo

Red Elephants, Kenya

Photograph by Brent Stirton, National Geographic

The "red elephants" of Kenya's Tsavo East National Park owe their color to the red soil, which they roll in as a dirt bath. Across Africa, sustained poaching of bulls and large females makes orphans of the young and distorts the gene pool in favor of weaker, smaller animals.

See more pictures from the October 2012 feature story "Blood Ivory."

Get Wallpaper

Prayer Flags, Wyoming

Photograph by Aaron Huey, National Geographic

Nine-year-old Wakinyan Two Bulls places prayer flags in a tree near Mato Tipila ("bear lodge"), or Devils Tower, in Wyoming. The story of the Oglala—their spirituality and their fight to remedy old wrongs—goes well beyond the Pine Ridge Reservation.

See more pictures from the August 2012 feature story "In the Shadow of Wounded Knee."

Get Wallpaper

Monk, China

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann, National Geographic

A monk seeks shelter from a snow shower in the Shaolin complex, lavishly rebuilt in recent years. Stone tablets throughout the grounds testify to the generosity of patrons from all over the world.

See more pictures from the March 2011 feature story "Battle for the Soul of Kung Fu."

Lightning, Oklahoma

Photograph by Mitch Dobrowner

Near Guymon, Oklahoma

Most storms move fast. This one crept over a farming community for more than an hour, bristling with electricity. "No two storms are the same," says James LaDue, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. "No two skies are either."

See more pictures from the July 2012 feature story "Epic Storms."

Buzescu, Romania

Photograph by Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky

A fantasia of styles, from villa to temple to castle, lines the main street of Buzescu, population 5,000. Men are often away on business; women, wealthy or not, stay to cook, clean, and raise the kids.

See more pictures from the September 2012 feature story "Home of the Roma Kings."

Get Wallpaper

Dragon’s Blood Trees, Socotra

Photograph by Mark W. Moffett, National Geographic

A full moon rises over the Diksam Plateau, where dragon's blood trees grow in scattered groves. The limestone of Socotra's interior plains formed when ancient seas covered the land.

See more pictures from the June 2012 feature story "Where the Weird Things Are."

Buy a print of this photo

Get Wallpaper

Divers, Easter Island

Photograph by Randy Olson, National Geographic

Tourists diving on Easter Island's reef encounter a fake moai, made for a 1994 Hollywood movie and then sunk offshore. The reef is healthy, though it is overfished. Tuna and salmon are imported, primarily for tourists.

See more pictures from the July 2012 feature story "If Only They Could Talk."

Buy a print of this photo

Get Wallpaper

Hverfjall Crater, Iceland

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg

When Hverfjall erupted 2,500 years ago, no one saw it—no one lived in Iceland. On a March evening photographer Orsolya Haarberg watched alone as a north wind scoured Mývatn lake's thin ice, sweeping snow into a drift that looked like a path to the crater.

See more pictures from the May 2012 feature story "Iceland's Resilient Beauty."