From the world-famous Taj Mahal in India to the world’s most spectacular ruins, Machu Picchu, here, we have selected the 10 most iconic places to photograph. It’s not easy to pick up top ten, but it didn’t take long. Certain places attract photographers like magnets attract iron filings. we are drawn to them without quite knowing why. Some places are a must to capture through the lens: Like when in Rome, the obvious choice is the Colosseum and when in Paris, the Eiffel Tower. But far from these popular destinations, there are many more wonders around the world that tourists seek out with camera in hand.
Here, below is our list, with reflections on why these places are iconic to us. We absolutely sure that everyone will have a different top ten. So, after you read our favorites, tell us a few of yours in the comments along with those you love and wish we did, but didn’t.
Top 10 Most Iconic Places to Photograph.
10. Papua New Guinea
In the highlands of Papua New Guinea we come face to face with the parts of our mind that the modern world has hidden away very well. Papua New Guinea is one of the most heterogeneous nations in the world. It is estimated that more than a thousand different cultural groups exist there. Because of this diversity, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, dance, weaponry, costumes, singing, music, architecture and much more.
9. The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
The wonder of ancient world and one of the premier attractions of Egypt. The Pyramids of Giza represent the archetypal pyramid structures of ancient Egyptian civilization. These pyramids were built as the final resting place for pharaohs, which were kings of divine right and were seen as living gods. For some 4,500 years they have been the most wondrous of wonders, in a league of their own, unchallenged for their sheer audacity, paragons of all design.
8. Antarctica
The Antarctica is the windiest, coldest and highest continent, but beyond that, it boasts amazing scenery and tremendous and unique wildlife. It’s notable for being the only continent with no significant land plant life and no native land mammals, reptiles, or amphibians. However its shoreline serves as nesting ground for many species, including penguins.
7. Iguazu Falls, Argentina
One of the New Seven Wonders of Nature in the World. Situated on the border of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, the Iguazu Falls is one of the greatest waterfalls in the world. The name “Iguazu” comes from the Guarani, meaning “water”, and “ûasú “[waˈsu], meaning “big”. Legend has it that a god planned to marry a beautiful woman named Naipí, who fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe. In rage, the god sliced the river, creating the waterfalls and condemning the lovers to an eternal fall.
6. Ta Prahm Temple, Cambodia
Ta Prohm is the modern name of a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built in the Bayon style largely in the late 12th century. Located approximately one kilometre east of Angkor Thom, world’s largest religious structure. Ta Prohm, less grand in scale but more penetrating to the psyche. Here the roots of towering strangler figs cascade over the intricately carved stone walls, framing doorways. They depend on each other, neither the walls nor the trees able to stand without the other. The roots snake over and around the religious symbols, looking like synapses of some ancient central nervous system, connecting lost thoughts set in stone.
5. Easter Island
Easter Island is known as one of the world’s sacred sites. It is most famous for its enigmatic giant stone busts, Standing in their haunting rows called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. A total of 887 monolithic stone statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections so far. Although often identified as “Easter Island heads“, the statues have torsos, most of them ending at the top of the thighs. A small number of them are complete, with the figures kneeling on bent knees with their hands over their stomachs. Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils.
4. Stonehenge, England
Few places invoke timelessness like Stonehenge. It is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is the remains of a ring of standing stones set within earthworks. It is in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.
The absolute knowledge that every year for the past 5,000 years the Earth, the sun, and Stonehenge have all lined up just so that the rays of light glancing across the face of Salisbury Plain slip through the upright stones— it sets our sense of cosmic order on fire. The rocks hulk there, brawny yet graceful, set in place by crafty people we can scarce imagine or recall. Then the moment is gone and we realize that we, too, have been aligned, if only briefly, with time itself.
3. Taj Mahal, India
The Taj Mahal is India’s most recognized monument and one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The monument is a tomb that contains the body of Mumtaz Mahal — the wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. He had it built as an ode to his love. It is made of marble and took 22 years and 20,000 workers to complete.
The Taj Mahal is certainly famous for being beautiful, and perhaps for being the symbol of enduring love. Even if it were not sublime symmetry set in stone, its proportions elegantly tempered by centuries of monumental building by the Mughal rulers of central India, it would still beguile us for its place in the history of world travel. For centuries it was the ‘must see’ tourist sight of them all. Millions of photographs have been taken from the exact same spot at the reflecting pool, each perfect in the same way that the marble monument itself is perfect.
2. Machu Picchu, Peru
One of the most famous and spectacular ruins in the world, Machu Picchu is located 8,000 ft high in the Andes of Peru. Most archaeologists believe that it was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti. Often referred to as the “Lost City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. It was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana (Hitching post of the Sun), the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu.
1. Venice, Italy
Graceful, beautiful, and constantly enchanting, Venice is also a prime example of the tragic, all-consuming lust for wealth, power, and sordid ambitions. Venice is a city in northeastern Italy sited on a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. It is located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. The city in its entirety is listed as a World Heritage Site, along with its lagoon. The lagoon is virtually the same as it was six hundred years ago, making it the most photographed part of the city.