"Earth From Above"

I love interesting photos, especially large, screen-filling ones such as those featured in Boston.com's Big Picture photoessays. This week's edition features aerial photography from the exhibit entiteld "Earth From Above." The 38 photos at the link are so stunning that I had difficulty selecting just a few to feature in TYWKWIDBI. Click to enlarge these, or go to the primary link to enjoy them. Below are the captions for the photos I've embedded (the top photo will also give you a sense of the spectacular foliage those of us lucky enough to live in the Upper Midwest are experiencing this month).

Autumn forest in the region of Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada. The hills of the Charlevoix region along the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec province are dominated by a mixed forest of deciduous trees and conifers...

Road interrupted by a sand dune, Nile Valley, Egypt... Barchans are mobile, crescent-shaped dunes that move in the direction of the prevailing wind at rates as high as 33 feet (10 m) per year, sometimes even covering infrastructures such as this road in the Nile Valley.

"Tree of life", Tsavo national park, Kenya. This acacia is a symbol of life in the vast expanses of thorny savanna, where wild animals come to take advantage of its leaves or its shade.

The Gorges of the Bras de Caverne, island of Reunion, France. Gorges created from volcanic fractures, like the bed of the Bras de Caverne river, make access to the center of the island of Réunion difficult. Some sites were explored only recently, such as the "Trou de Fer", a ravine of 820 feet (250 m) that was discovered in 1989.

Sand dune in the heart of vegetation on Fraser island, Queensland, Australia. Fraser Island, named after Eliza Fraser, who was shipwrecked on the island in 1836, is the world's largest sand island. On top of this rather infertile substratum, a humid tropical forest has developed in the midst of which wide dunes intrude, moving with the wind.