Photo of the Day 407

Smoke and Prayer Flags, Lhasa, Tibet, 2000

Photograph by Maria Stenzel

Incense smoke clouds the air as sun streams through strings of prayer flags during New Year celebrations in Lhasa, Tibet. The fragrant smoke of juniper and artemisia is thought to be pleasing to the spirits of land and sky.

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