Photo of the Day 259

Shadow of a Boy, Qatar, 2003

Photograph by Robb Kendrick

Unfinished homes dot the landscape as a low sun paints a boy's shadow on the wall of a ruined house in the Qatar desert. Qatar has one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Buoyed by oil and natural gas sales, per capita income there topped $60,000 in 2006, with unemployment of less than one percent.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Revolution From the Top Down: Qatar," March 2003, National Geographic magazine)

Photo of the Day 251

Windblown Kaffiyeh, Near Dukhan, Qatar, 2003

Photograph by Robb Kendrick

A Qatari man in a traditional white dishdasha robe and a wind-blown red-and-white kaffiyeh stands before a sandstone formation near Dukhan. Qatar, a desert-covered Persian Gulf peninsula about the size of Jamaica, may be small, but its oil and natural gas reserves give it big clout. Per capita incomes there are among the highest in the world.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Revolution From the Top Down: Qatar," March 2003, National Geographic magazine)

Photo of the Day 211

Irrigation Fields, Qatar, 2003

Photograph by Robb Kendrick

Irrigated crop fields stand out starkly against an expanse of Qatari desert. Such farms provide Qataris with some fruits and vegetables, but most of their food is imported. Government efforts to increase domestic agriculture are complicated by the paucity of fresh water in this parched desert nation.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Revolution From the Top Down: Qatar," March 2003, National Geographic magazine)