Our beautiful world: Star Tribune photographers share their travel pictures

Many of us have spent recent days poring over our travel photographs, reminded of a time when we could immerse ourselves in a new place with hardly any worry. I asked Star Tribune photographers to do the same and was rewarded with a global gallery, some of which I am sharing here. Among those from Brian Peterson was an image of a snow monkey, taken when he was in Japan to cover the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. The mutual interest between man and monkey charmed me. Other photographers' shots — a man atop a gravel pile in Pakistan, a souvenir hawker in Paris, a patriotic VW Bug set off against a white barn — stirred different emotions. These days, travel destinations are quiet, their streets and beaches empty. But the pictures here let us slip away for a moment to places that will one day bubble again with life.