Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • An adult cat lounges on its back.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114549.jpg
  • A young adult drinks a flaming cocktail at the Baby Face Club in Guangzhou.
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  • A  flamboyant bar in south China attracts new wealth. In the Baby Face Club in Guangzhou, the bartender sets up a stack of glasses, then pours a flaming liquid over the top to make one of the most popular drinks-a Flaming Lamborghini. <br />
<br />
China’s economic engine will change the world. The “Little Capitalist” class or ”Comfort Class” embraces Deng Xiaoping’s revolutionary proclamation, “To get rich is glorious.” <br />
<br />
After 50 years of pent up frustration and stoically weathering the worst social experiment in history—Mao’s Cultural Revolution—this class is ready to lead the charge for the most voracious consumption on the planet.
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  • Young adults enjoying swimming in a water-filled rocky gorge.
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  • Pygmies bend branches to create shelter at hunting camps. The semi-nomadic tribal boys are going through the circumcision ceremony called nKumbi are accompanied the adults to the camp.  They have their own structure and are sent off into the forest to hunt or fish.
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  • Rachel shops for a new dress to go on an upcoming date. The fashion store called Thre3 is run by her friend on the Bund in Shanghai. Her dressing room opens into a stylish shop and the pod doors take two assistants to close. The green frock has a $2,200 price tag.
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  • Leaving  a Johnny Walker/Formula one car event at Granvill Mal in Guangzho, I came upon a woman with a broken shoe on the city street. Her friend was trying to fix it by using his cell phone as a hammer. Cell phones are changed up so frequently, so why not use it as a hammer? She laughed and was embarrassed because their friends were laughing at the scene too.
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  • A young girl sits with her parents at the dinner table in their home. This is from Leslie Chang’s story that accompanied these photographs in National Geographic Magazine:<br />
<br />
"By the time she was ten, Bella lived a life that was rich with possibility and as regimented as a drill sergeant’s. After school she did homework unsupervised until her parents got home. Then came dinner, bath, piano practice. Sometimes she was permitted television, but only the news. On Saturdays she took a private essay class followed by Math Olympics, and on Sundays a prep class for the middle-school entrance exam and piano lessons. The best moment of the week was Friday afternoon, when school let out early. Bella might take a deep breath and look around, like a man who discovers a glimpse of blue sky from the confines of the prison yard."
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  • Women from the rural countryside learn skills like ironing at the Fuping Vocational Skills Training School to be maids for the newly wealthy comfort class. <br />
<br />
Migrant workers in China come from impoverished regions to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. <br />
Since opening up its economy in 1978 and moving toward a market economy, China has lifted about 400 million people out of poverty, which has led to wide income inequalities. The Communist Party is addressing this through a “harmonious society” that calls for more even distribution of benefits from recent economic growth. <br />
<br />
China has experienced the largest mass migration  from rural to city in history. Perhaps 400 million will have migrated by 2025. Many are farmers and workers made obsolete by modern farming practices and factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories. Overall, the Chinese government has tacitly supported migration as means of transforming China from a rural-based economy to an urban-based one.
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  • A woman sits lost in thought at a restaurant that employs dancers, wait staff, and performers that are migrant workers from Xinjiang Province in Northwest China. Most are from impoverished regions who go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. According to Chinese government statistics, migrant workers in China are estimated at 120 million (approximately 9% of the population). China has been experiencing the largest mass migration in history.
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  • A man works on his sawed-off shot gun in his home.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512733.JPG
  • A crowd enjoying drinks at a bar.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763187.JPG
  • A young child is dressed up in pink with a large flower on her hat to visit an elderly family member for tea in Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512712-1.JPG
  • Cloistered nuns pray seven times a day and otherwise remain silent.  Contemplation is the most important thing in their lives. Santa Catalina Convent, the Monasterio de Santa Catalina was built in 1580 and enlarged in the 17th century. In the chapel, the 30 cloistered nuns come together who live secluded inside the convent.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187059.jpg
  • Restaurant patrons are inspired to join mariachi bands in song at a restaurant  in Garibaldi Plaza. Since the 1920s, traditional musicians have dressed in their finest matching suits and brought their guitars to serenade locals and tourists with heartfelt ballads and earn a few pesos.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187050.jpg
  • A Zapotec Indian woman in traditional clothing serves food to wedding guests while others dance into the night. Weekends are full of wedding celebrations in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico, the narrow and flat part of the country where the Zapotec culture is still strong. <br />
Women are noticeably open and confident, taking a leading role in business and government. <br />
The Isthmus never became part of the Aztec Empire and resistance to the Spanish was strong in the mid-1500s.  This party was complete with traditional food and dancing. After the church wedding, the couple walked through the streets of town following musicians. They collect family and carry food to where the street is blocked off for the party.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187048.jpg
  • A family eats together in the home they all share.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176606.JPG
  • Cloistered nuns pray seven times a day and otherwise remain silent.  Contemplation is the most important thing in their lives. Santa Catalina Convent, the Monasterio de Santa Catalina was built in 1580 and enlarged in the 17th century. In the chapel, the 30 cloistered nuns come together who live secluded inside the convent.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187059-1.JPG
  • A young child is dressed up in pink with a large flower on her hat to visit an elderly family member for tea in Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512712-2.JPG
  • A young child is dressed up in pink with a large flower on her hat to visit an elderly family member for tea in Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512712.jpg
  • A businessmen crosses a street where patterns of reflected buildings make a geometric pattern in Chile's bustling capital city.<br />
Approximately three decades of uninterrupted economic growth have transformed Santiago into one of Latin America's most sophisticated metropolitan areas, with extensive suburban development, dozens of shopping malls, and impressive high-rise architecture.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187067.jpg
  • Novices studying to become cloistered nuns take a break from their prayers at Santa Catalina Convent to sing in the garden.<br />
The young, cloistered nuns never leave convent grounds and live a life of contemplation in Arequipa, Peru. Older nuns allow the young women free time once a day to help them adjust to the cloistered, regimented life. Having just left their families they will never see again, the vow of commitment the novices take is a serious lifelong decision.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187062.jpg
  • Business men take a break at an upscale coffee bar. Coffee shops are on every block in downtown Santiago where men catch a cup of coffee and maybe a kiss. The waitress wearing a short red dress works for substantial tips at Cafe Cousino or Coffee with Legs. She can make $800 a week by flirting, lighting cigarettes and serving coffee.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187038.jpg
  • Boy riding in back of car.
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  • Visitors in the cellar of a craft brewery in the Over the Rhine neighborhood.
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  • A couple samples pre-Prohibition brand Christian Moerlein beer at a craft brewery.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT6872_1777186.jpg
  • A couple enjoys a private moment at an outdoor restaurant.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1376323.jpg
  • Walking in Lummus Park along Ocean Drive in South Beach.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1376315.jpg
  • Musicians play lively dance music on a small outdoor stage for a crowd.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1376314.jpg
  • Waterfront Scotty's Landing offers alfresco dining with a local twist.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1312335.jpg
  • A couple take in a view from Cape Florida Lighthouse, rebuilt in 1847.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1312320.jpg
  • The Logger of the Year winner hugs his girlfriend in red boots to celebrate after he won in the annual logging show held in Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island. The Southeast Alaskan competition is the “real thing”—not a tourist show—where loggers, former loggers, and “wannabe” loggers compete, climbing trees and sawing timber.
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  • Ranch hands and workers share an early breakfast in a local diner, a ritual before working with wild horses.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2737088.jpg
  • A Huastec Indian woman arranges shoes to sell at the Ciudad Valles Sunday market in the mountain region of northern Mexico.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187068.jpg
  • American tourists don sombreros and sing with a mariachi band at a cantina bar in Nuevo Laredo, a quirky border town.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187052.jpg
  • Mescal factory workers taking a lunch break.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187051.jpg
  • Couples weather fog while lounging on a rocky beach in Miraflores, an affluent neighborhood in Lima. Some read newspapers and others sleep while a food vender carries treats looking for sales on a Sunday morning.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187049.jpg
  • Zapotec Indian women wearing colorful, traditional clothing dance into the night at a wedding party in the streets of Juchitan, Mexico. Weekends are full of wedding celebrations in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrow and flat part of the country where the Zapotec culture is still strong. Women are noticeably open and confident, taking a leading role in business and government in matrilineal traditions. The Isthmus never became part of the Aztec Empire and resistance to the Spanish was strong in the mid-1500s. After the church wedding, the couple walks through the streets of town following musicians. They collect family and carry food to where the street is blocked off for the party.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187020.jpg
  • A grandmother works picking flowers with her family under the smoking volcano Popocatepetl in nearby Atlixco, flower capital of Mexico.  Workers harvest bouquets of zempazuchitl flowers for Day of the Dead celebrations.  Fields full of yellow flowers are cultivated to decorate altars and graves for the Mexican fiesta.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187016.jpg
  • A diner watches people cross El Zócalo, Mexico City's grandiose main square, from the elegant Gran Hotel's rooftop restaurant. Built atop ruins of the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, the zócalo is now surrounded by sprawling Spanish colonial architecture, the most prominent being the Metropolitan Cathedral.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187014.jpg
  • Huastec Indian seller and an indigenous woman haggle over the price of a pig at the local outdoor market held every Sunday morning in Ciudad Valles.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187012.jpg
  • Residents of a remote village  in Kamchatka rush to meet the supply helicopter. Original inhabitants Khailino are indigenous. Dogs run wild in the street and locals on board a motorcycle race to try to get a woman on board to be taken where she can get medical attention. <br />
<br />
In Northern Kamchatka, indigenous Koryak people and Russians came for “Northern money” when the Soviet Union wanted to tame the area. Income paid was eight times more than a similar job in Moscow, so some people figured out how to get all the necessary permits to work. When default happened, no one in the remote outposts received salaries.  People made a living from salmon caviar and created fishing brigades with distribution systems. Living in a very small community of 700 residents, and the temperatures drop to –40° in the winter, everyone works hard to merely survive and are kind to each other.
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  • Three generations play in the home they share.
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  • In curlers, B&B manager Delta Craft looks out a window.
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  • A teenage boy plays banjo on the porch for parents.
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  • A close view of beads of sweat on an Australian man's head.
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  • Australian Aborigine man with body paint on legs watched by two women.
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  • An Aborigine and white man lighting up cigarettes together.
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  • An Australian woman boating across a flooded road.
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  • A woman draining rainwater off her porch awning.
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  • Three men contemplate the best way to cross a flooded dirt road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763208.JPG
  • A cattleman and his herd in a muddy pen preparing for coming rains.
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  • Sisters with Laron syndrome and their children shopping for toys at the mall.
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  • Woman with Laron syndrome and her son at the mall.
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  • Woman with Laron syndrome and her son at the mall.
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  • Masai family and their herd of goats.
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  • Masai family and their herd of goats.
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  • Villagers gather to see volunteer nurses and clinic workers.
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  • Koryak residents of Khailino, Kamchatka, Russia, rush to get their mother to the poacher's helicopter so she can get medical treatment in Petropavlovsk. The poaching situation in these areas allows some individuals to pay for helicopter time and on return trips the helicopter is often empty. If you know poachers it's possible, in this case, to get medical care.
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  • A couple at at a table visit with a friend and his dog.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1376326.jpg
  • A couple talk and laugh at an outdoor restaurant at night.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1376325.jpg
  • A couple talk and laugh at an outdoor restaurant at night.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1376324.jpg
  • Visitors under Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate Sculpture.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5887_1349692.jpg
  • Unloading a boat from a trailer to cross a flooded road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763198.JPG
  • Woman with Laron syndrome and her son at the mall.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512775.JPG
  • Woman with Laron syndrome and her son in their home.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512772.JPG
  • Sisters with Laron syndrome and their children at their home.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512771.JPG
  • Ghanaians carrying volunteer's supplies.
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  • Overcome by religious frenzy, men help a woman lying on the ground.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_1198737.JPG
  • Three woman wearing felt fedoras laugh and watch friends at a community gathering in a rural, mountain area of Ecuador. The traditional hats as similar to the Cholita or bowler hats worn by women in Bolivia.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512713.jpg
  • Bar patrons dance among flashing red, blue and purple neon lights at a nightclub in Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512709.jpg
  • Young people dance to music at a bar in a district full of clubs that attract night life in Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512708.jpg
  • Mother Superior's dogs greets her in the morning in the courtyard of Convento de Carmen Alto. The cloistered convent is located in the historic, Colonial district of Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512705.jpg
  • Mother Superior's dog greets her in the morning in the courtyard of Convento de Carmen Alto. The convent is home to cloistered nuns in the center of the historic district of Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512704.jpg
  • A client admires her braid, flowers in her hair and freshly applied makeup at Princess de Gales, a beauty school in downtown Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512703.jpg
  • A nun makes wafers for communion at Convento de Carmen Alto, a cloistered convent in the Colonial historic district of Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512702.jpg
  • Mother Superior joins other nuns for a tasty breakfast at Convento de Carmen Alto, a cloistered convent. Women in the cloistered Carmelite religious order in Quito have jobs and duties performed throughout the monastery daily.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512700.jpg
  • Mother Superior leads prayer during morning mass at Convento de Carmen Alto.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512698.jpg
  • A woman knits a pink bootie for a baby at Casa Matilda, a non-profit safe house. Women seeking refuge are given a place to sleep and eat, medical attention and help to relocate safely with their children.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512672.jpg
  • Otavolan woman in traditional dress in the Northern Sierra.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512741.JPG
  • Miss Ecuador puts on make up and does her hair in her home.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512738.JPG
  • An indigenous woman uses the phone in a public office.
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  • A robotic leg with electrodes monitors changes in muscle activity.
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  • In the shadow of huge cargo ships, freighters and battleships, a Valparaiso fisherman paints his boat. The primary gateway for Chile's thriving export business, ships are loaded with copper, fruit, wine and timber to ports worldwide.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187028.jpg
  • A personal trainer helps a client at the Ozone Fitness Club.
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  • The Kakuma Refugee Camp is near Lake Turkana and the northern border of Kenya. 123K  people have lived in this camp since the beginning of the war between Sudan and Ethiopia and have continued to live there thru the 20 year conflict in South Sudan. The town of Kakuma has grown to 70,000 because of the UN presence. Turkana are the local tribal people and would normally be agrarian but they now spend their time cutting firewood and making charcoal for the refugees in the camp. The exchange is generally for food. There are many Nuer and Dinkas in this camp as well as DRC folks from Kivu and Goma primarily.
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  • A couple kissing in the streets of downtown Reykjavik.
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  • A young boy picks flowers with his family who was harvesting to sell for Day of the Dead, the Mexican fiesta celebration. <br />
Workers harvest bouquets of cempasuchil or marigold flowers from fields full of yellow flowers cultivated to decorate altars and graves for the Mexican fiesta.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187064-1.JPG
  • A fisherman ties up his boat on the coast of Valparaiso where other brightly painted fishing boat are dwarfed by freighters and battleships. The city of Valparaiso is a busy seaport located west of Santiago.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187028-1.JPG
  • The bride and groom at their wedding reception.
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  • The bride and groom at their wedding reception.
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  • A busy jewelry store in Chennai. India is the top gold consumer with buyers collecting for investment as much as adornment.
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  • Woman is wrapped in plastic after getting electric stimulation "medical" treatment to lose weight "passively."
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  • Japan has a program that brings in Filipino and Indonesian workers to care for elderly.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386436.TIF
  • Japan has a program that brings in Filipino and Indonesian workers to care for elderly.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386436-2.TIF
  • Japan has a program that brings in Filipino and Indonesian workers to care for elderly.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386433.TIF
  • Japan has a program that brings in Filipino and Indonesian workers to care for elderly.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386435.TIF
  • A robotic leg with electrodes monitors changes in muscle activity.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386431-2.TIF
  • The town of Kamikatsu keeps the primarily elderly population employed.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386427.TIF
  • A 113-year-old, the oldest man in Japan.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386425.TIF
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