whooper swans taking flight, Japan
women wearing white hats and dresses at church in French Polynesia
drying laundry in Armenia
two white horses in Montana
whirling dervishes in Istanbul, Turkey
side of Canada Glacier in Antarctica
a model on a runway at a New York fashion show
a flowering dogwood along the Merced River, California
Asaro Mudmen in Papua New Guinea
king cobra eggs, India
rows of heliostats at a solar plant in Spain
a woman wearing traditional bridal attire, Japan
brown bears gathered at a river in Alaska
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Whooper Swans, Japan

Innocence, purity, peace. The color white evokes images of everything from brides to blizzards, from cleanliness to a blank canvas. Its meaning in culture and custom throughout history is as varied as its range of shades. See how white shows up in the unexpected and the everyday in this gallery.

Here, whooper swans take flight above a frozen landscape in Japan. The swans take off mostly on water, but can also do so on solid ground, using a short run and beating their massive wings to achieve liftoff. (For more pictures of the amazing colors of our world, buy the National Geographic book Life in Color.)

Photograph by Stefano Unterthiner, National Geographic

Life in Color: White

See pictures of the color white in this Life in Color photo gallery, from National Geographic.

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