Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Woman places flowers on a graven in Xoxocotlan for the Mexican fiesta, Day of the Dead celebrations. Día de los Muertos is a celebration of life and death and relatives bring food and drink and spend time with their loved ones in the cemetery.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187043.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 young girl lights a candle at an alter in her home at the beginning of Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos. It is a Mexican fiesta celebrating life and death of loved ones.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187588.jpg
  • 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 young girl lights a candle at an alter in her home at the beginning of Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos. It is a Mexican fiesta celebrating life and death of loved ones.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187588.jpg
  • A young boy carries a bouquet of bright, red zempazuchitl flowers that his family was harvesting to sell for Day of the Dead, the Mexican fiesta celebration. Pickers work late into the evening under the shadow of Popocatépetl, or El Popo as locals call the volcano.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187064.jpg
  • A blurring of cultures as children dance in the street wearing Halloween masks in celebration of Day of the Dead. The American and Hispanic celebrations coincide involving masks and candy in the small Mexican town where families use burros and make mescal from agave plants.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187045.jpg
  • Rain did not stop the celebrations of dancing and singing that followed a historic totem raising ceremony on Prince of Wales Island.<br />
Generations of Tlingit and Haida Native Alaskans retain strong cultural ties with the natural world reflected in their totem art depicting whales and bears.
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  • Rain did not stop the celebrations of dancing and singing that followed a historic totem raising ceremony on Prince of Wales Island.<br />
Generations of Tlingit and Haida Native Alaskans retain strong cultural ties with the natural world reflected in their storytelling totem art depicting whales and bears.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075034.jpg
  • A blur envelopes a young parishioner who carries a candle-lit canvas lantern in a processional that celebrates Christians' Holy Week. It is a centuries-old annual Mendrisio tradition.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024099.jpg
  • Over 700 children carry hundred year old candle-lit lanterns made of canvas as they walk through the streets on Good Friday of Holy Week. The Christian celebration in Mendrisio dates back to the 17th century.
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  • Crowds watch fireworks in celebration of Australia Day, 1/26/04.
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  • The bride and groom put their heads together and share a private moment at their wedding party.  Weekends are full of celebrations complete with traditional food and dancing in the street. After the church wedding, the couple walked through the streets of town following musicians. They collected family members who carried food to the street blocked off for the party. <br />
Mexico's narrowest point is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec--flat, country where the Zapotec culture is still strong.  Women take leading role in business and government.  The Isthmus never became part of the Aztec Empire and resistance to the Spanish was strong in the mid-1500s.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187034.jpg
  • Bachelors in a small rural village of 65 people make a small parade as they continue the region's traditional Carnival celebration. Dressing for a Pagan wedding, unmarried men march ceremoniously from house to house, then families invite them inside for food and spirits as they celebrate the end of winter.
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  • Costumed revelers rest in the shade of a cantina while parading for Day of the Dead celebration in rural Mexico.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187040.jpg
  • Chilean newlyweds in festive paint and feathers celebrate marriage Rapa Nui style. Many of the 100,000 visitors to the island are from Chile which dwarf the less than 6,000 inhabitants.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1477349.JPG
  • Men in suits of tree lichen celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114480.jpg
  • A man in costume celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114477.jpg
  • A wedding is celebrated Rapa Nui style with traditions followed by some tourists on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493933.JPG
  • Dressed in colorful traditional clothing, Tlingit tribe leaders celebrate after a ceremony involving six totem poles that were raised in a Native Alaskan local park.
    MM7258_20050816_04821.tif
  • Young girls in their finest dresses dance as the wedding party in the Khailino town hall that celebrated the first event in several years.
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  • Men in costume celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114482.jpg
  • Men in costume celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114481.jpg
  • Men in costume celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114479.jpg
  • Men in costume celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114478.jpg
  • Men in suits of tree lichen celebrating Schleicherlaufen.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114476.jpg
  • Men and boys dress in white sheep's fur costumes to celebrate Slovenia's traditional version of Carnival. In Ptuj, the oldest town in the Slovenia, they parade ringing bells to scare off evil spirits and chase away winter believed to bring spring and abundance to the land. Kurent is a mythological god of joy and wine and sometimes a creature with a magical instrument who persuades people to dance.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024017.TIF
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribespeople living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328089.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribespeople living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328088.JPG
  • A goat is killed for a wedding celebration.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327876.JPG
  • A goat is killed, roasted and shared at a wedding celebration.
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  • A goat is speared for a wedding celebration.
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  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribespeople living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327873.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327813.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327812.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327811.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327809.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327808.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327807.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327806.JPG
  • Gatherings such as this wedding celebration are important ceremonial occasions for tribesmen living around Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2281794.JPG
  • Nyangatom children at a peace treaty celebration.
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  • Meat is prepared for a celebration in Nyangatom village of Lokulan.
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  • Kara children kick up dust during a bull jumping celebration.
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  • Kara boys and girls dance at a celebration.
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  • Kara men prepare for an evening dance celebration.
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  • Nyangatom women dance at a peace treaty celebration.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306466.JPG
  • A Nyangatom man cooking a goat at a peace treaty celebration.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306465.JPG
  • Nyangatom women prepare to dance at a peace treaty celebration.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306464.JPG
  • Nyangatom women prepare to dance at a peace treaty celebration.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306462.JPG
  • Nyangatom women prepare to dance at a peace treaty celebration.
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  • Masaai men celebrate the end of the weeks-long orpul ritual.
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  • Schoolgirls at a ceremony celebrating the opening of a new clinic.
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  • Schoolgirls at a ceremony celebrating the opening of a new clinic.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_1182067.JPG
  • Masaai men celebrate the end of the weeks-long orpul ritual.
    MM7314_20050711_15444.tif
  • A child carries a torch with the flame lighting the way during a Good Friday procession at the beginning of the Christians' Holy Week. Parishioners wear clothing of Jews and Romans as they walk through the darkened streets in a Christian celebration that dates back the 17th century.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024146.jpg
  • Children carry canvas lanterns lit by candles in an evening passion play processional. Christian Holy Week is celebrated annual in Mendrisio with this tradition.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7139_1024142.JPG
  • A hat seller helps load a stack of straw hats onto a truck at a market that sells flowers for Day of the Dead fiesta.<br />
Heavily-loaded trucks carry red Terciopelo flowers to celebrate Mexico’s premier fiesta. Atlixco is the flower capital of Mexico exporting roses and gladiolas from the state of Puebla.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187046.jpg
  • A man sits with family members during a Day of the Dead vigil at a family grave in Xoxocotlan with candles and flowers. Dia de los Muertos is Mexico's most characteristic fiesta where it is believed that souls of the dead return to the earth. Families sit in the cemetery and sharing stories, music and their loved ones favorite foods.<br />
Some grave sites such as this one had a three dimensional sand painting done just for the celebration.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187017.jpg
  • Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation areaattracts many artists with eclectic costumes. Flags line the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-13.jpg
  • A costumed artist hangs onto plastic banners that fly in the wind along the vast playa of the Black Rock Desert. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience. Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival is in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area , a salt flat, dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-08.jpg
  • Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area attracts costumed artists. A bicyclist pulls red wagons wheeling along the Black Rock Desert, a vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-07.jpg
  • Fire and glowing smoke are part of the festivities at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience in the Black Rock Desert on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-04.jpg
  • Costumed stilts carefully plod toward festivities of Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-03.jpg
  • A Laufarija carnival festival participant, Daisy, holds her mask carved from Linden wood. She is one of 25 characters that symbolize the features and weaknesses of particular groups of people. The cultural tradition is an annual play held in the streets to celebrate the coming of spring to Slovenia.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024021.jpg
  • Schleichers ride in ornately decorated horse-drawn carriages in a parade that is part of a traditional celebration. Schleichers wear masks and elaborate hats that weigh 50 pounds - quite an ordeal to balance.  Hats are passed down generations and stored in museums.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024011.jpg
  • A bride and groom drive away in a vehicle decorated with balloons as party goers light sparklers to celebrate.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260942.JPG
  • Wedding guests create a heart-shape on the floor with candles to celebrate the big event in Khailino.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260919.JPG
  • Dressed in her finest party dress, a young girl is mesmerized by wedding celebration at a rare event in Kailino in Kamchatka, Russia.
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  • Burning Man statue is erected  for the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Participants gather and wheel along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-15.jpg
  • A fish out of water bicycle, one of the eclectic modes of transportation at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Beyond wheels, the wind blows dust along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-14.jpg
  • An artist with a flaming hat rides under a glowing night sky at Burning Man, at the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of the flattest places on Earth.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-12.jpg
  • Costumed and on stilts, an artist joins the festivities of Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert. A unique mobilized vehicle is part of the art. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience in Nevada's National Conservation area, one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-11.jpg
  • Aerial photograph showing the city with roads built in the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival. The vast playa is a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience  in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-10.jpg
  • An artist with a flaming hat rides by glowing Burning Man, at the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of the flattest places on Earth.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-09.jpg
  • Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area attracts costumed artists. Many wheel along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-06.jpg
  • A tent city is erected for thousands of people at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert. They create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-05.jpg
  • Fire and glowing smoke are part of the festivities at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience in the Black Rock Desert on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-02.jpg
  • A neon statue of Burning Man is steadied above the costumed crowd that gathered for the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada's National Conservation area.  Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on a dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-01.jpg
  • A costumed Uncle Sam wheels along the vast playa, the Black Rock Desert, a salt flat, dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience. Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival is in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-17.jpg
  • Bachelors in a small mountain village don festive costumes and parade house to house to visit neighbors. They gather around the kitchen table to share food, drink and friends' news during the annual, traditional celebration of Carnival that welcomes spring after a long winter. Traditions are important throughout villages in the Slovian Alps.
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  • A lone man is silhouetted while watching a bonfire burn in the street outside the Cathdral in Loja.  San Pedro Y San Pablo is a Catholic religious-themed fiesta. Many of the indigenous festivals celebrating the movements of the sun and the harvests were incorporated into the Christian tradition, resulting in a syncretism of Catholic religious imagery and older indigenous beliefs.<br />
The Ecuadorian city is nestled in the Cuxibamba Valley at 7,000 feet in elevation.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_2512714.jpg
  • For an anniversary celebration, a husband surprised his wife with a romantic candle-lit dinner in a tent perched above a secluded beach on Prince of Wales Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075169.jpg
  • Spring Carnival paraders in Cerkno dress in costumes to celebrate Laufarija. There are 25 different characters wearing costumes--Pust, Ivy Man, Fleece Man and others who convict Pust in a play charging him for all the bad things that happened the past year. The cultural tradition is slightly varied in numerous communities throughout the Alps.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024022.jpg
  • Fur-costumed revelers at a spring festival surround a woman during their parade through the streets.  Men dressed in white sheep's fur don tall hats to celebrate Slovenia's version of Carnival. In Ptuj, the oldest town in the Slovenia, they ring bells to scare off evil spirits and to chase away winter which brings spring and abundance to the land. Kurent is a mythological god of joy and wine and sometimes a creature with a magical instrument who persuades people to dance.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024019.jpg
  • Schleichers don colorful, traditional costumes and masks for the Schleicherlaufen parade held every five years. Schleichers wear masks and elaborate hats that weigh 50 pounds - quite an ordeal to balance.  Hats are passed down generations and stored in museums brought out only for the celebration.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024012.jpg
  • A father and son head to an early morning parade for a Carnival type festival celebrated every five years in spring when light wins over darkness in the mountains. Ancient Pagan traditions and festivals such as Schleicherlaufen  are held in the Tyrol where the Savages wear grotesque masks and costumes of moss, representing winter. Men go into the woods nearby Telfs and collect lichen while wives and mothers sew it onto clothing creating "wild ones" for the festival.
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  • A wildflower blooms in the Black Rock Desert as California costume designer dons a neon costume and pink scarf to brave a sandstorm at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Beyond, Uncle Sam wheels along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958.jpg
  • A bridge and groom stand before a heart-shaped candles of live that the community of Khailino made to celebrate their wedding. A rare event in Kamchatka, Russia. It was actually as beautiful and touching a scene as I’ve ever experienced though in the setting of a basketball court in a small town on the same latitude as Siberia.
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  • As twilight falls on a darkened street scene in Mendrisio, candle-lit banners from the 17th and 18th century glow depicting Christ's passion. Villagers rush home to prepare for a somber processional that flows through the streets celebrating Holy Week.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7139_1024141.JPG
  • Brides numbered 32 through 43 line up in their queue at the Rose Wedding Festival. Seventy couples in this mass marriage ceremony traveled to Century Park for the ceremony. The marriage-age consumer is a prime target for first-world companies. The middle class’s under-30-consumer market alone is estimated to grow to the size of the entire EU market in the next decade.
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  • Couples ride in a long line of flower-decorated convertibles for a mass wedding in Shanghai. They aspire to the ideal of the billboard above them—the one-child family. <br />
<br />
According to the 2010 census 118.06 boys are born for every 100 girls, and experts warn of increased social instability should this trend continue. For the population born between 1900 and 2000, it is estimated that there could be 35.59 million fewer females than males.  In Beijing, for example, newly prosperous residents are snapping up automobiles at a rate of 1,000 a day. The number of vehicles on the capital’s sclerotic roads has doubled in the past five years, to 3 million, or about a million more vehicles than in all of New York City.
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  • Costumed revelers march on the Pan American highway in San Pedro Totolapán, Mexico, on Day of the Dead. They stop traffic to solicit handouts from drivers; if no pesos appear, the driver is generally treated to verbal abuse.
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  • An elderly woman has a front-window view of a Good Friday procession.
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  • On her 15th birthday, a Zapotec Indian girl in Juchitán attends communion at the Catholic church before her Quinceañera, which marks her passage from girlhood to womanhood. <br />
Dressed in her finest white dress and holding a bouquet of flowers, she kneels to light a candle.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187019.jpg
  • This Indian festival in the Ramblas Catalunya area of Barcelona is called Vaisakhi.  These are Sikhs from Punjab that started a procession in Ramblas Raval and carried it thru Ramblas Catalunya and ended at the Plaza St. Augustine. The festival includes the passing out of huge amounts of food.  The men in this street hauled cart after shopping cart of fresh fruit and passed it out to the public.
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  • Easter Procession in the town of Orosei on the island of Sardinia.
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  • A Ratha Yatra religious festival in temple town of Puri.
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  • A Ratha Yatra religious festival in temple town of Puri.
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  • During Holy Week in Mendrisio, Christians dressed in white robes carry canvas lanterns, some over a hundred years old, The crosses are lit by candles and somberly carried through the streets for a passion play processional.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7139_1024143.JPG
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