The Baiterek, towering over the central promenade in Astana, Kazakhstan, flares green against a dappled evening sky. Intended as a symbol of the new capital, the 318-foot monument evokes a giant tree with a golden egg in its branches. In the Kazakh myth of Samruk, a sacred bird lays a golden egg in the branches of a poplar each year
Whirling dervishes perform the ritual dance of the Sufi sect in a showroom in Ankara. Practitioners believe the act of repeatedly spinning allows them to forget their earthly body and move closer to God.
In 1980s Brooklyn, teenage couples stand proudly before a flashy Trans Am. Photographer Robert Madden shot this image while on assignment for a June 1982 story by Alice J. Hall, who described the ever changing borough as "Much abused, much maligned, and much loved … an authentic American amalgam, with all its achievement and failure."
Kazimierz, the historical Jewish quarter of Krakow, provides a colorful backdrop for an impromptu wedding shoot. "This wonderful place is the Jewish district," Your Shot contributor G. Dzhevelieva says. "It keeps so much paint and history between the streets. Nowadays it's the most interesting art place in Poland."
A world away from the nearby towers of central London, grassy Greenwich Park offers a refuge for city dwellers. One secret to designing cities that are good for the environment lies in luring nature lovers to urban green spaces instead of the suburbs.
Clouds roll in over Shanghai, one of the fastest growing megacities in the world. Just a modest fishing town a century and a half ago, China's most populous city is a free-spending capital regarded as one of the world's most desirable markets.