*VISIONS*_*

 

 

England

At London's Tooting Bec pool, four fancifully attired, color-coded women kick off the Cold Water Swimming Championships.

More than 300 bathers, ages 12 to 85, competed and promoted the thrill of the chill.

United States

Looking like a lemon torte on a plate of petals, a lotus blooms in a Maryland garden pool.

The chartreuse circle, three inches in diameter, is dotted with 23 seed holders and ringed by immature pollen sacs.

United Arab Emirates

In Dubai natural and man-made electricity illuminate the night.

As jagged needles of lightning darn an overcast sky, the sail-shaped, 1,053-foot-tall Burj al Arab hotel glows green on the edge of the Persian Gulf.

 

Iraq

Some 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, in a Sulaymaniyah music hall ravaged by war,

looting, and neglect, a violin-playing boy sounds a note of hope.

St. Maarten

Landing at Princess Juliana International Airport, a looming 747 thrills those on Mahó beach.

Spain

Sliding headlong through a tomato-juice torrent, a young man celebrates La Tomatina in Buñol on August 26, 2009.

The event is a one-hour food fight that last year used 275,000 pounds of tomatoes.

 

 

Portugal

Near the Azores, just below the sunlit Atlantic surface, sperm whales float in vertical repose.

Scientists think "drift dives" are a form of communal slumber. This species may sleep the least of any mammal.

Kosovo

In the village of Donje Ljubinje, local tradition calls for painting a bride's face to ward off bad luck.

After the ceremony, women from her new husband's family washed Rasima Biljibani's face clean.

Antarctica

Radiating charisma on a 23°F morning, a three-foot-tall emperor penguin strikes a pose on the pack ice of the Amundsen Sea.

The photographers were taking a month-long cruise aboard a Russian icebreaker.

United States

A kayaker plunges 70 feet into winter water at Washington State's Outlet Falls.

His January 2009 descent was one of only five tallied on the Klickitat River tributary, here swollen by floods and sallow from runoff.