I have below the top 10 Nat Geo photographs for the year 2009. Many photographers are commissioned on projects to capture and illustrate topics given to them through real life photographs. Photography is an art form to express one's own take on a topic, one's own opinion through the emotion one aims to capture. Photographs not only capture an emotion but puts these emotions in place through the canvas of the world that is also included in the backdrop.
I wouldn't blame you if you can think that you can also capture such photographs as those given below, if you had the equipment and the money to travel to exotic places to capture such snaps. But, in reality, the photographers biggest virtues are not just still hands and an excellent eye for locating a moment worth capturing, but patience to wait for days together sometimes and also the much lesser touted but equally important thing called courage and endurance. Have a look at these pictures, I had taken the snapshots from the documentary video to share with the readers, every picture has a very interesting story behind it and also other thousands of snaps which were discarded with....
I love NG for its pictures. Have a good collection of about 2/3 years of NG. Thanks for following my blog. I accepted/published the comment you posted, but looks like it has got lost in the cyberworld. I can't see it anymore.