sandstorm

On Monday, March 15, 2021, a record-breaking sandstorm descended on northern China, engulfing cities including the Chinese capital, Beijing. In recent decades, northern China has suffered from sandstorms as a result of increasing desertification in the north of the country which is largely dry, arid, and covered with deserts.

One of the windiest nights I’ve ever taken pictures turned into perhaps the single most rewarding — and frightening — landscape photography experience of my life. I was on the Mesquite Sand Dunes in Death Valley, a place I had visited twice in the past, though under much tamer conditions.

National Geographic cameraman Bob Poole was in Mali searching for elephants when he …