A fishing boat (L) heads out to sea at dawn in Lhokseumawe, Aceh on August 9, 2021. (Photo by Azwar Ipank/AFP Photo)

A lenticular cloud is seen during sunrise from Gokmen Aerospace Training Center (GUHEM) in Bursa, Turkiye on January 19, 2023. (Photo by Halit Mirahmetoglu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

A picturesque supercell formation in the northwest of Booker, Texas from June 2013. (Photo by Mike Olbinski/Barcroft Media)

A visitor looks at a creation by Russian artist Irina Nakhova presented at the Russia's pavilion during the 56th International Art Exhibition (Biennale d'Arte) titled “All the Worlds Futures” on May 5, 2015 in Venice. (Photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP Photo)

The possible surface of TRAPPIST-1f, one of seven newly discovered planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system that scientists using the Spitzer Space Telescope and ground based telescopes have discovered. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Two wolfhounds take part in a dogfight in a stadium in the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek on November 5, 2017, during fights organized by a local breeders aiming to improve the Asian Shepherd breed, organizers said. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP Photo)

Juanita Robinson (L) from Ohio and Trenaya Blackburn pose as Quan White from Michigan takes their picture as they vacation on South Beach on May 16, 2016 in Miami Beach, Florida. The Florida government announced it broke a tourism record in the first quarter of this year, attracting 29.8 million tourists, an increase of 4.8 percent over the same time frame in 2015. (Photo by Joe Raedle/AFP Photo)