Photo of the Day 256

Fire Dancer, Bora-Bora, Society Islands, 1997

Photograph by Jodi Cobb

A riot of light illuminates the night at a Bora-Bora resort. Fire dancing is a relatively recent Polynesian tradition, originated by a Samoan dancer in 1946. It is performed with knives wired with cotton towels soaked with a flammable liquid.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "French Polynesia: Charting a New Course," June 1997, National Geographic magazine)