Gadling

I'm enjoying the unique perspective of the Pyramids in this photo by Flickr user DS355. Too often when photographers take pictures of these amazing Egyptian structures, they focus exclusively on the Pyramids themselves. What I liked about this shot was the way the Pyramid is shifted to the background in a sort of soft-focus haze. Also interesting is the way this shot plays with perspective, making the horses and their riders appear "larger than life" in relation to the wonder that lies before their view.

Have any photos you've taken of the Great Pyramids? Or perhaps during your vacation in Playa del Carmen? Submit them to our Gadling Flickr pool and we might just choose it as our Photo of the Day.

As a resident of New York for just over five years, I frequently take for granted the "relative" cleanliness of my city. Sure, I could do without the many, pungent trash bag piles during summertime, but you quickly get accustomed to a certain level of grit and grime when you live in one of the world's largest metropolises.

In fact, my version of New York circa-2008 is a utopia of clean compared to New York in the 1970's and 80's, when the town was literally coming apart at the seams. As the city suffered a massive financial crisis, crime ran rampant and public services like the subway system fell into decline. As tragic as this period was for residents, it also provided the background for some of the era's most important cultural movements, including the rise of punk at clubs like CBGB, emerging artists like Basquiat and in particular, the first stirrings of the nascent culture of Hip-Hop and graffiti in the Bronx.

Graffiti is perhaps one of the most controversial artistic movements of the end of the 20th Century. As much as its detractors view the form as symptomatic of urban blight, its supporters just as forcefully embrace it as the stirrings of a wholely legitimate new art form. Though vandals have been defacing public buildings with their "art" since the ancient Greeks and Romans, the modern incarnation of graffiti took shape in New York City in the borough of the Bronx in the 1970's. In that regard the current prominence of famous graffiti artists like Banksy owe their rise to the pioneers of the form here in New York several decades ago.

So if you're visiting New York City in 2008, where do you go to see and learn more about graffiti firsthand? Click on through to find out more and learn where to go to find the art form still alive and kicking in the 5 boroughs.

Oh great, Gadling is picking Halloween photos already!? Thankfully not. Flickr user arunchs captured this fearsome character in the far northern reaches of India. My first reaction was very much a visceral one - I was particularly taken by the mask's bold red color, spindly dark horns and striking, hypnotic eyes.

But my second reaction was one of curiosity. For what purpose is our subject wearing this headgarb? From what I can tell in arunchs' caption, the mask is typically worn during a Cham Dance ritual, a Buddhist ceremony involving elaborate dances and "moral instruction." Though the dance is most common among the Buddhists of Tibet, the photo's caption indicates it was taken in Keylong, an Indian city near the Tibetan border.

Have any pictures of fearsome ceremonial masks from your travels? Or even just some fearsome snorkel gear? Why not share it with us by adding it our Gadling pool on Flickr? We might just pick it as our Photo of the Day.

Staten Island. It's a name many New Yorkers invoke with disdain. And tourists? The city is lucky if they venture beyond Manhattan to the borough of Brooklyn. But despite this poor reputation, there are plenty of reasons to visit New York City's fifth borough.

True, it's never going to offer the glitzy shopping and haute cuisine of its ritzy neighbor Manhattan to the north. But urban explorers, history buffs and adventurers take note: what the borough lacks in picturesque vistas, it more than makes up for with "edgy" character and quirky sites of interest. My favorite? The Staten Island boat graveyard.

For those that do not know, Staten Island is home to what used to be the world's largest trash heap at Fresh Kills. For years, the city of New York dumped thousands (if not millions) of tons of garbage on this site, creating one of Staten Island's more imposing geographical landmarks. Gross, right? While even an adventurous traveler like myself might skip a site filled with old diapers and decaying chicken bones, all that trash has provided an interesting side-attraction in the form of huge fleet of half-sunken abandoned boats. Want to know more? Click on through the link to continue.

Doesn't this image have a great personality to it? Flickr user a31sierra caught this shot of two girls while traveling in Lesotho. Photo portraits can make for extremely rich material for any traveling photographer.

I especially like the expressions on their faces. Both girls manage to maintain a shy body language, but you can still catch the faint smiles that peek out just under the surface of their gaze. The bare brick wall behind the girls further emphasizes their dominance in the photo frame. It also makes a nice complement to Abha's recent Photo of the Day entry.

Have any great travel photos to share with our readers? Why not post them to our Gadling pool on Flickr? We might just pick it as our Photo of the Day.

Today marks the first post in a new series for Gadling called "Undiscovered New York." According to the latest statistics, there were 46 million visitors to New York City in 2007. There's no doubt New York ranks among the world's great tourism destinations in the U.S., if not the world. And with hotspots like the Empire State Building, Times Square, shopping in Soho and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's hard to argue otherwise.

But beneath the glitzy veneer of shiny skyscrapers, gaudy neon lights and trendy downtown boutiques, lies a New York that some visitors never get a chance to see. Beyond Broadway and away from Times Square are more than 300 square miles of territory spread across 5 unique boroughs, just begging to be explored. Join along as Gadling's New Yorker-in-residence takes you inside some of the city's lesser known highlights, hidden gems and forgotten spaces. We'll hit some old favorites with a fresh look, and also visit some out of the way spots that wouldn't find their way on to a "typical" New York tourist itinerary.

First up is this week is a closer look at one of Manhattan's most famous landmarks, Grand Central Terminal. Though a train terminal has sat in this location since the 1870's, the building as it is seen today dates to 1913. Sure, thousands of commuters pass through this majestic old structure every day without a second glance. And plenty of visitors also hurry through its wide passageways, stopping to check out the amazing ceiling in the main atrium before heading to the United Nations and Chrysler Building nearby. But If you haven't had a chance to meander through all the parts of this amazing structure, here's five reasons you should give it a second glance. Keep reading after the jump for our top 5 Grand Central hotspots.

A mailbox is not exactly the most fascinating subject for a photo. But somehow, I can't take my eyes off of this particular mailbox, captured by Flickr user arex while in Taiwan China. There's a number of things that caught my eye. It's a flat photo but yet it manages to give an impression of pattern and texture - the yellow mail slot, the peeling paint of the walls, and the bright blue signage combine to make the image jump out at you. Add in the ghostly black edges around the frame and the result is something that seems almost cinematic. Nice work.

Have you taken any photos of mailboxes in Beijing? Or perhaps just the post office in Boston? Why not add them to the Gadling pool on Flickr? We might just pick it for our Photo of the Day.

Between the satellite dishes and the barren, otherworldly landscape in this photo, you could be forgiven for thinking it had been taken on the moon. It's all the more amusing therefore, to find out that Flickr user konakoka, got this spacey shot on top of Mauna Kea, the dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The lack of light pollution and the high altitude make Mauna Kea a top spot for astronomy. The summit is littered with all manner of observatories and satellite dishes, as we see here in this photo. I like the way the focus of the image has been pushed to the very bottom, leaving an almost limitless blue sky to dominate.

Have you taken any great travel photos you'd like to share with our Gadling readers? Add them to our Gadling pool on Flickr and we might just use your image as our Photo of the Day.

Sometimes all you need for a really interesting photo is just a change of perspective. That's what I liked about this image from Flickr user larixk. Instead of shooting this abstract sculpture head on, it looks like we're directly underneath it, looking up at the sky. Each of the metallic spheres also offers us a faint reflection of the scene behind, providing further intrigue. It almost looks like a model of a giant 3-D chemical compound at a science museum.

Have any travel photos you've taken of cool sculptures? Why not share them with our readers here on Gadling? Just add it to our Flickr pool and we just might choose it as our Photo of the Day.

Location: This week Tony finds himself in Egypt, home to the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx and plenty of other tourist stereotypes. Egypt is one of the world's great cradles of civilization as well as a crossroads of many cultures (and great cuisine) from all points north, south, east and west.

Episode Rating: Three bloody meat cleavers out of five. Bourdain indeed delivers the unexpected when it comes to Egypt. Some interesting culinary discoveries but also some "snoozefest" segments that could have been left on the editing table. Also, I must say...you came all that way and didn't go to the Great Pyramids? I don't care how jaded you are towards tourists - how do you skip that?

Summary: Egypt is the kind of place most of us know at least a little something about. Whether you've already been, or it's the trip of your dreams. most of us with an urge for exploration and discovery reasonably know what to expect. Ancient pharaohs, the Nile, papyrus, mummies. But then again, we are talking about Anthony Bourdain here...

Bourdain sets a manifesto from this episode's outset - he's going to skip the prototypical Egyptian tourist spots. Why you might ask? He doesn't want the view to be cluttered by all of those tourists. But still, one has to admit the man has a unique method to his madness. Much like a Egyptologist cracking open a pharaoh's tomb for the very first time, Tony's urge to push his boundaries leads us into some interesting culinary crevices. Was Tony attacked by mummies? Does he eat more camel like in the Saudi Arabia episode? Read on to get the full story.