A setting sun silhouettes two pedestrians as they descend Kunming Lake’s Seventeen Arch Bridge. The footbridge leads from the Pavilion of Broad View, visible at left, to South Lake Isle. All are part of the opulent Summer Palace in western Beijing, a summer retreat built in the mid-1700s for Qing Dynasty imperial rulers.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, the National Geographic book Journey Into China, 1982)