National Geographic Rarely Seen: Photographs of the Extraordinary

This is such a great book. Took a chance and ordered as a gift on strength of the description on Amazon. Fortunately I was not disappointed and I am sure that a lot of people would be happy to find this under the Christmas tree! Book is packed full of photo's of things you wouldn't normally see. These range from the open mouth of a hippo to an aircraft landing on a small caribbean island seemingly just a few feet above the heads of sunbathers on a nearby beach! Ideal book to browse through with a glass of wine in front of a fire. I think that even those who don't normally like reading would enjoy this as there is very little text ;- the photo's speak for themselves. Good gift idea for people who have everything apart from a copy of this book. Can see myself buying additional copies for a few birthdays in the coming year.

Bought for my Dad who is 85.He absolutely loved it,he doesn't have the internet so it was lovely to see his face light up at all the wonderful and interesting pictures in this book that was well worth the money.

A beautiful book with a captivating selection of images that can be enjoyed by all, not just photography buffs. As a coffee table book the larger size is the one to go for, but it is large (and heavy) so the smaller size might be better if it’s going to spend most of its time on a shelf.

I purchased this book for my husband's 50th Birthday as he is a keen amateur photographer. It is absolutely brilliant and he loved it. The photos are amazing, varied, interesting and some are just astounding. The book is high quality and I would highly recommend it.

Gorgeous book!

Absolutely beautiful book, but arrived with the sleeve and inside cover damaged. Saw a similar review saying the same and had assumed it must have been a one-off but sadly not! Had ordered this as a gift so particularly disappointing.

I like it

Absolutely brilliant book A great gift for a traveler or photographer

Many of these color photos are almost unbelievable and I can't recall having seen them in the NGS Magazine.The cover is like a photo from another planet. The opening title spread shows a supercell storm cloud that looks like its from a SyFy movie and is hiding an alien star ship. So unusual are the subjects of these photos that even the "Cave of Crystals" that show men in red space suits climbing through a maze of giant icycle-like 30 foot long white shafts of selenite as thick as pine tree trunks located 1,000 feet below ground level don't seem all that odd. It's as if men making a journey to the center of the Earth are in danger of getting lost in the maze of support beams for the Earth's surface. A few pages after the spacemen in the bowels of the Earth there is another one from the Journey to the Center of the Earth is another underground passage of Basalt Columns of Fingals Cave from an uninhabited island Staffa, Scotland. Once back on the Earth's surface there is picture of Fly Geyser near Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Apparently when a drilling company punched a hole in the desert they tapped far enough into a geyser pocket that hasn't closed up and now provides a fantastic geographical formation that graces the cover of this table-top book. While the pictures of the alien-looking geography are great, the people pictures included in the volume are even better starting with the double page spread of "Bog Man" who was hanged 2,300 years ago and then placed in a bog. The bog turned the executed man's mummy into a leather statue that today appears like a solid bronze statue with a leather rope still wrapped around his neck. Men hanging from the ceilings by their toes with their hands folded like bats are part of the training for Shaolin Monks in a Shaolin Montastery in Zhengzhou, China. Those photographs almost give the viewer the creeps. "Wisteria Whimsy" in Japan must have been the inspiration for the Trees of Life and Souls in the movie "Avatar." There are also pictures of Venus Flytraps and Lady Slippers, both carnivorous plants. And then, on page 167 is a Plant-Hopper Perwig that looks like a tiny native with a crazy head dress leaning over to see his reflection in a pool of water. It's even more weird looking than the double-page picture of leaf-tailed gecko that has almost perfect camouflage. There are samples of cave art from Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc as well as more recent art comprised of Graffiti covering the walls and ceilings of tunnels under Paris.There are photos taken on the moon as well as a glove worn when walking on the moon. R2D2 is shown sitting in a half opened shipping crate when he at the Smithsonian. By the time the reader has finished examining the photos in the book he will have to catch his breath because of all the truly breath taking images the beautifully done photographs. And that's no Jellyfish Lake. That lake is also represented in the fine art photographic book.This is one of my favorites of all the NGS Book Long Photo Essays. It's amazing how their publications seem to get better and better.

Superbes images. Commentaires un peu trop US mais bon, c'est National Geographic, donc c'était à prévoir. Existe aussi en français sous le nom "rare".

Ha delle fotografie davvero eccezionali!!!!!

The title of the book aptly describes the contents. A bunch of colorful lively photographs depicting rarely seen moments, places, objects that seldom can be experienced in lifetime...

wundervoller bildband zum staunen.