Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Vendors carry wares on bicycles on Congo's muddy roads.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_1001270.JPG
  • Fresh clear cut and logging roads on Prince of Wales Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114615.jpg
  • Logging roads through a clear cut on Prince of Wales Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114610.jpg
  • More than 5,000 miles of roads are carved into the remote landscape to clear-cut large swatches of forests on Chichagof Island. An aerial picture after a winter snow reveals the patchwork on lower reaches of the mountains where logging traditionally occurs. <br />
Taxpayer money has subsidized the timber industry since 1980. Tongass National Forest timber management has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly one billion dollars, making it the largest money loser in the entire national forest system.
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  • Logging roads zig zag through a recent clear cut forest creating a barren slope on Admiralty Island. Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass National Forest is composed of high-volume old growth. The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075047.jpg
  • A horse cart on a road passing an abandoned granary and church.
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  • A dirt road cuts through a sagebrush sea to dark, cloudy skies of a distant, looming, rain storm. Sagebrush ecosystems cover vast stretches of western North America creating rangeland habitat for animals such as pronghorn antelope, black-tailed jackrabbits and sage-grouse.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705738.jpg
  • Boys horse race on the road to Hanga Roa from Tonga Riki.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493937.JPG
  • A view through the windshield while traveling a bumpy dirt road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763271.JPG
  • Hamar head to market day on a dirt road to Kaifur.
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  • An oil-industry Chinese-built road going through a Hamar village.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7661_1306486.TIF
  • Elephants cross a busy road to find water along the Grumeti River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7314_985611.JPG
  • The road to Beni is nearly impassable during the wet season.
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  • The road to Beni is nearly impassable during the wet season.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976465.TIF
  • Vehicular traffic crossing a flooded road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763255.JPG
  • A truck stuck up to its axles in mud on a flooded road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763244.JPG
  • A truck stuck in a muddy road with people standing about watching.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763243.JPG
  • Unloading a boat from a trailer to cross a flooded road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763198.JPG
  • A truck stuck up to its axles in mud on a flooded road near Wyndham, Australia. The driver is attempting to place rock and tree limbs under the tire for a more firm foundation to drive out of the muck.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112.tif
  • Pan American highway in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. The series of roads connects North America to the southern tip of South America through a variety of landscapes. This desolate stretch of the road is south of Antofagasta, Chile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187633.jpg
  • Marriage is different in China, from mass weddings like this, to the “bare branches” phenomenon where there are not enough women for all the men to marry. Couples aspire to the ideal of the billboard above them—the one-child family. But will their son be able to find a girl? According to the 2010 census, there were 118.06 boys born for every 100 girls, which is 0.53 points lower than the ratio obtained from a population sample survey carried out in 2005. However, the gender ratio of 118.06 is still beyond the normal range of around 105 percent, 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. So maybe everyone eventually has a car, but can every boy have a girl? It is important for China’s leaders to placate the Comfort Class. From issues of grave consequence to trivialities, the government has made clear that it will do whatever it takes to keep the swelling middle class happy. 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.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176370.TIF
  • A bachelorette party waits for taxis on busy Lincoln Road.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1312332.jpg
  • A woman checks her cell phone on busy Lincoln Road.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5959_1312315.jpg
  • A 1925 Model T drives down an old strip of National Road.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06341_515736.jpg
  • A 1931 Ford Cabriolet drives down National Road.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06341_515728.jpg
  • Traffic sweeps past an American chain restaurant on East Nanjing Road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176518.JPG
  • Cars drive down a misty stretch of National Road in winter.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06341_515723.jpg
  • A lone jogger runs down a rural road in early morning fog.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06189_503203.jpg
  • A cyclist with his son rides down East Nanjing Road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176520.JPG
  • Shoppers in pajamas in the 200 block of Guangdong road near the Bund.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176335.JPG
  • Shoppers in pajamas in the 200 block of Guangdong road near the Bund.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176334.JPG
  • Car lights blur on a switchback road above San Gotthard tunnel.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_1114594.jpg
  • A Burmese python released by its owner crosses a Florida road.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_956201.jpg
  • A dragon dance for promotional purposes on East Nanjing Road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176424.JPG
  • Snow blows across an icy, wintery back road in Steens Mountain as harsh weather comes to Oregon's high desert.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7517_1222778.jpg
  • A black bear sow and her cubs cross a gravel road on Kayford Mountain.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023737.jpg
  • A road in the Ozark Mountains.
    RANDY OLSON_RF4319_1114312.JPG
  • Bicyclists on a road in Kakuma.
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  • Wildebeests cross road in front of jeep.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7314_1023439.JPG
  • Two men with dogs sitting in mud along a road as a storm approaches.
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  • Moonlight over a deserted road at Point Reyes National Seashore.
    RANDY OLSON_06103_495728.JPG
  • Three vehicles traverse rolling hills across the green tundra in summer months as the "haul road" runs 414 miles north to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay. The Dalton highway was built during construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the 1970s, mostly gravel highway with a few paved sections. It follows nearby the pipeline through rolling, forested hills, across the Yukon River and Arctic Circle, through the rugged Brooks Range, and over the North Slope to the Arctic Ocean.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-29.JPG
  • Sand dunes encroach on the Pan American Highway, on Peru's coast blown from a secluded beach by strong coastal winds.  The paved but isolated section of the road hugs the coastline in the Sechura Desert south of Casma, Peru. <br />
The Pan American highway connects a myriad of countries and cultural experiences along the 10,000-mile portion of road that stretches through Latin America.  Bustling sophisticated cities contrast desolate desert and rural countryside in Mexico, Peru and Chile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187474.jpg
  • A lone truck moves down the Dalton Highway also known as the "haul road" running 414 miles north to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay. Built during construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the 1970s, this mostly gravel highway travels through rolling, forested hills, across the Yukon River and Arctic Circle, through the rugged Brooks Range, and over the North Slope to the Arctic Ocean.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705771.jpg
  • The Pan American Highway is an empty, lonely, desolate road as it runs along Peru's Pacific desert coast along the ocean for hundreds of miles.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187603.jpg
  • A woman walks by homes and up the road in a holler that is at the base of a mountain mine site.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023661.jpg
  • Rain that never hits the ground, virga of low-lying clouds paints a dramatic sky above Steens Mountains, a 30-mile long massif in southern Oregon. Tail lights cresting a hill are barely visible on a single lane road shared by ranchers, miners, and recreational users.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680976.jpg
  • A car rounds a curve along a scenic section of the Pan American highway north of Oaxaca in Mexico.<br />
The Pan-American Highway is a network of road that passes through the America's many diverse climates and ecological types – ranging from dense jungles to arid deserts.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187636.jpg
  • Headlights and brake lights illuminate the darkened road at dusk as traffic moves both directions through customs at the Texas and Mexico border. Commercial trucks and private vehicles cross one of the four international bridges that connect Laredo and Nuevo Laredo over the Rio Grande River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187567.jpg
  • There are 2.6 billion armpits in China, according to an ad man, and someone has to sell them deodorant. This shop-owner (right) thinks a guy wandering Nanjing Road in a full knight suit will do the trick for his snack shop.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176447.JPG
  • Twilight scene from above snow-covered New York's Central Park. An elevated view shows a curved road planned by Frederick Law Olmsted to create a greater sense of space and mystery about what was to come around the next bend.<br />
Olmsted partnered with Calvert Vaux to plan “Greensward,” and won a design competition to make the what became a beloved urban park. When the idea was conceived, New York was much smaller and no one could imagine the open space surrounded by a city with tall buildings. Olmsted was a visionary and understood that man needed nature to combat the stresses of city life.  Construction began in 1858  and was completed fifteen years later. Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and is now managed by Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit which contributes eighty five percent of the park’s $37.5 budget. More than thirty-five million visitors to Manhattan come to the park annually.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968596.jpg
  • 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.
    MM7593_20080730_02970.tif
  • Villagers carrying firewood outside Millenium Village - an experimental village run by the UN.  The UN tried to find a cluster of villages that lacked food security, and then tried to solve some of the problems in a controlled environment.  This village has been going for one year, and they just gathered benchmark data for the first six months.
    RANDY OLSON_BDGHANA_20060925_03156.tif
  • A bride hangs on for a four-wheel drive wild ride over boulders and rough slick rock trails near Moab, Utah. The Bureau of Land Managements designates specific trails for off-road vehicle riders like this who although dressed in traditional white, wants to be married in an untraditional way in the wilderness during a Jeep Safari.<br />
Most riders stick to BLM's loosely enforced straight-and-narrow rules are plentiful, but thousands more disregard the rules, answering the call of their combustion engines to chart new paths through roadless areas which had great ecological consequences.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-8.JPG
  • A bride  smooths our her long, white dress after a four-wheel drive wild ride over boulders and slick rock to reach a spot for the wedding near Moab, Utah. The Bureau of Land Managements designates specific trails for off-road vehicle riders in the wilderness during the annual Easter Weekend Jeep Safari.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-9.JPG
  • Bandit-style bandannas shield law abiders from dust on a well-worn trail in the Fisher Towers region of the Castle Valley near Moab, Utah. Off-road vehicle riders who stick to BLM's loosely enforced straight-and-narrow rules are plentiful, but thousands more disregard the rules, answering the call of their combustion engines to chart new paths through roadless areas. The degradation from rogue ATV riders has growing ecological consequences.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680970.jpg
  • Views along the Dalton highway reveal the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). The oil transportation system spanning 800 miles across Alaska lies partly in the foothills of the Brooks Range. It includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, running through Alaska's wilderness to the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is elevated and cooled by refrigeration coils to keep the warmed oil from melting the permafrost. Completed in 1977, it is one of the world's largest pipeline systems.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-28.JPG
  • Rock climbers practice technical moves on boulders in Crackhouse cave Castle Valley near Moab, Utah. Climbing ranks high with the non-mechanized crowd where strength and balance are measured athletic abilities. Climbers tape their wrists and use rub chalk on their fingers to grasp the slick surface.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-39.JPG
  • Mountain bikers’ Main Street is the Slickrock Trail that undulates for 13 miles over Navaho sandstone outside of Moab, Utah. Silhouetted on a ridge, clouds put the red rock into deep shadow making the ride more challenging.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-37.JPG
  • Hamar tribe in a small village next to Omorate where the first bridge across the Omo River is being built. This town is experimenting with wind power supplied by one of the NGO’s.
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  • The first bridge over the Omo River in this area is at Omorate. This man arranges building materials used in temporary supports for the bridge.
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  • A former wild horse stands steadfast while patiently waiting for a shepherd to check on a lamb as they work together on the Wyoming range.
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  • An animal activist watches a young mustang foal roll in the dirt. They were out for a walk when the young foal stopped and dropped. <br />
Horses roll for pleasure and to clean their coats with sand and soil.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7517_1222822.jpg
  • A former wild horse, adopted and trained, now works the Wyoming range with a sheepherder and his dog. Owners find that mustangs are sure-footed on a trail and spook less than domesticated horses.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7517_1222788.jpg
  • A girl leads Cayuga ducks to taro fields to eat invasive apple snails.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_956221.jpg
  • Views along the Dalton highway reveal the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), an oil transportation system spanning Alaska that includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, running through Alaska's wilderness to the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is elevated and cooled by refrigeration coils to keep the warmed oil from melting the permafrost. It is one of the world's largest pipeline systems.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705684.jpg
  • Hundreds of cars line up to pay a toll on the New Jersey Turnpike.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06460_668288.jpg
  • Ugandan children embrace a photographer on assignment.
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  • Residents of a remote village ride a motorcycle.
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  • Girls wearing pretty dresses walk through a remote village.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260914.TIF
  • Residents of a remote village rush to meet the supply helicopter.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248213.TIF
  • Laundry hanging to dry in a village in Kalimantan.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222962.TIF
  • A village with a satellite dish in Kalimantan.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222960.TIF
  • Men load a wooden plank onto a bicycle.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_1001271.TIF
  • Traders push goods hundreds of miles by bicycle.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976436.TIF
  • Pygmies travel the trans-African highway in Epulu.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976411.TIF
  • Traders push goods hundreds of miles by bicycle.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972263.TIF
  • The massive walls of Nineveh.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7129_743044.JPG
  • Men standing around a truck while women wade in a flooded roadway.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763269.TIF
  • Villagers carrying firewood.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_1182073.JPG
  • The first Camel Beauty contest was in March of 2007 and this area was just a dusty piece of desert on the edge of the empty quarter.  About an hour outside of Abu Dhabi the Al Dhafra Festival put on by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage is under the patronage of His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
    MM7803_20081226_1778.tif
  • Rose Wedding Festival couples in a motorcade to Century Park. Seventy couples participated in a mass marriage event that started at a shopping mall and ended up in Century Park for the ceremony.
    MM7493_20060925_15436.tif
  • Rock climbers practice technical moves on boulders in Crackhouse cave Castle Valley near Moab, Utah. Climbing ranks high with the non-mechanized crowd where strength and balance are measured athletic abilities. Climbers tape their wrists and use rub chalk on their fingers to grasp the slick surface.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-38.JPG
  • Children in the rural countryside outside of Harappa.
    RANDY OLSON_06569_1071264.TIF
  • Villagers gathering and carrying firewood.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_1182074.JPG
  • Workers repair electrical power lines above pedestrians. The need for electrical power is so great in Shanghai that migrant workers are hired to hook them up by strapping a high voltage wire around their waist and pull it across an already stressed net by walking on the actual wires that bring the electricity.  There is a (dirty) coal power plant coming online every four to five days in China that could power a city the size of San Diego. Energy is wasted on an epic scale. One hundred cities with populations over 1 million faced extreme water shortages last year. China’s survival has always been built on the notion of a vastly powerful, infallible center. Thus, China has poor foundations on which to build the subtle network of institutions and accountability necessary to manage the complexities of a modern economy and society. The lack of independent scrutiny and accountability lies behind the massive waste in the Chinese government and destruction of the environment. Air pollution contributed by these plants kills 400,000 people prematurely every year.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176331.TIF
  • Workers pull electrical power lines above pedestrians.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176329.JPG
  • The need for electrical power is so great in Shanghai that migrant workers are hired to hook them up by strapping a high voltage wire around their waist and pulling it across an already stressed grid by walking on the actual wires that bring the electricity.  There is a (dirty) coal power plant coming online every four to five days in China that could power a city the size of San Diego. Energy is wasted on an epic scale. One hundred cities with populations over 1 million faced extreme water shortages last year. China’s survival has always been built on the notion of a vastly powerful, infallible center. Thus, China has poor foundations on which to build the subtle network of institutions and accountability necessary to manage the complexities of a modern economy and society. The lack of independent scrutiny and accountability lies behind the massive waste in the Chinese government and destruction of the environment. Air pollution contributed by these plants kills 400,000 people prematurely every year.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176327.TIF
  • Morning sunlight reflections dapple W. Adams Street near Berghoff restaurant.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MT5887_1345833.jpg
  • World's first elk-activated crosswalk sign in Sequim, Washington.
    MELISSA FARLOW_IR6164_751702.jpg
  • Land yachts race the wind and each other across the Alvord Desert playa’s flat, dusty terrain. Fans of the sport flock to the ancient lake bed in search of speeds beyond most posted interstate highway limits. The world record stands above 116 mph. Sports enthusiasts race in high temperatures when the playa is dry enough to drive on.<br />
The desert lies to the east of Oregon's Steens Mountain, and Steen's Mountain Wilderness which is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  It abruptly falls to the dry Alvord Desert 6,000 feet below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-58.JPG
  • Blazing sunset leaves in shadow the famous gap in Kiger Gorge, atop Oregon's Steens Mountain. Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.<br />
Bulldozing down to basalt, Ice Age glaciers carved our huge gorges out of the Great Basin's largest fault block mountain. Beyond, Steens's east face plummets a vertical mile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-56.JPG
  • Explosives set in pit at mile-wide Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
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  • Women panning for gold in the dust of streets full of garbage.
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  • Trucks hauling waste rock at Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
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  • The town of Portales, New Mexico with a community without well water.
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  • Migrant workers in China are mostly people from impoverished regions of the country moving to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. An estimated 230 million Chinese in 2010, roughly equivalent to two-thirds the population of the U.S., have left the countryside and migrated to the cities in recent years. About 13 million more join them every year. Many are farmers and farm workers made obsolete by modern farming practices and factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories. Men often get construction jobs while women work in cheap-labor factories. So many migrants leave their homes looking for work they overburden the rail system. In the Hunan province, 52 people were trampled to death in the late 1990s when 10,000 migrants were herded onto a freight train. To stem the flow of migrants, officials in Hunan and Sichuan have placed restrictions on the use of trains and buses by rural people. In some cities, the migrants almost outnumber the residents. One young girl told National Geographic, “All the young people leave our village. I’m not going back. Many can’t even afford a bus ticket and hitchhike to Beijing.” Overall, the Chinese government has tacitly supported migration as means of transforming China from a rural-based economy to an urban-based one. From the New York Times: “As a result, China’s rulers face a dilemma: the very policies that cater to the urban middle class come at the expense of the rural poor. The revised law on property ownership pushed through despite objections from old-line conservatives, the law for the first time gave equal weight to both state- and private- ownership rights. But a look at the fine print shows that the law only protects things dear to the rising middle class: real estate, cars, stock-market assets. Farmers, on the other hand, will still be unable to purchase their land and instead will be forced to lease plots from the government.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176463-2.tif
  • Street Scene Beijing China.
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  • Susanne is marrying her boyfriend in Hong Kong next week and they are moving in together. This is the view from her apartment.
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  • The Kumkapi neighborhood, primarily immigrant, in Istanbul.
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