Photo of the Day 411

Flags on Rooftops, Gyangze, Tibet, 2000

Photograph by Maria Stenzel

Prayer flags adorn the rooftops of houses in Gyangze, Tibet, during Losar, the Tibetan New Year. The flags are printed with the images of deities, prayer texts, or symbols of good fortune and placed where the wind will move through them and carry their blessings across the land.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Tibet Embraces the New Year," January 2000, National Geographic magazine)