Photo of the Day

dead trees in Namibia
January 3, 2016

“Island of Silence and Heat”

Your Shot member Carsten Krüger submitted this otherworldly photo of Namibia’s Dead Vlei: withered trees anchored in a white-clay pan, standing in striking contrast to an intensely colored, towering sand dune. The trees have been there for hundreds of years, reminders of when river waters cooled and hydrated this now scorched earth. Krüger writes, “[It was] a surreal island of silence and heat … We hiked one lonely mile without navigation and maps to find Dead Vlei … [It was] a masterpiece of nature: abstract shapes and unbelievable bright colors.”

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Photograph by Carsten Krüger, National Geographic Your Shot

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