A mahout rides an elephant at Tad Sae Waterfall outside Luang Prabang, Laos July 31, 2016. Protected by the United Nations cultural heritage agency UNESCO, Luang Prabang is one of the most alluring places in the region – a city that evokes old-world romance that has gained a reputation as a travellers' Shangri La. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

A Naga man carries fish in his teeth after it was stunned by dynamite, which fishermen threw in a creek between Donhe and Lahe township, in the Naga Self-Administered Zone in northwest Myanmar December 27, 2014. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

An East German civilian (L) shows an East German customs officer the contents of his Trabant (auto) at checkpoint Potsdamer Platz in East Berlin in this November 24, 1989 file picture, as East Germany enforcing stringent customs controls to avoid smuggling. (Photo by Reuters)

Makoto Chino eats a purple haze carrot as he works harvesting the morning's vegetables and fruit from his family's farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California August 12, 2014. The gravitational pull of Chino Farm is legendary. Since they don't ship, everyone – whether a top chef or a traveling foodie or a local resident – comes to the farm stand, simply called “Vegetable Shop”, on a dusty corner of this affluent San Diego County town, hemmed in by sprawling housing estates. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

An immigrant from Mali rests at the Greek-Macedonian border before an attempt to flee to Macedonia May 13, 2015 village of Idomeni in Kilkis prefecture May 13, 2015. Hundreds of mostly Afghan, Syrian, and African immigrants cross daily from Greece into Macedonia on their way to northern European countries; most of them are turned back by Macedonian border guards. (Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

Valery Bystritskii, 10, gets a fellow student into a lock at Bunny's Gym in July 2015 in Winchester, Tennessee. (Photo by Mike Saliba/Barcroft USA)

Vincent Yu is a multiple award winner who won Honorable Mention in the 2013 Photographer of the Year category for Pictures of the Year International. Photo: A statue of Hotei Buddha sits in the debris in the tsunami-destroyed town of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan Friday, April 1, 2011. (Photo by Vincent Yu/AP Photo)

David Guttenfelder was born in Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology. He has worked for the AP since 1994 based in Kenya, the Ivory Coast, India and Japan. He is currently AP’s chief Asia photographer and his feature work has been used prominently in editorial publications throughout the world including Time and National Geographic. Photo: U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, fire mortars at known enemy firing positions from a base in the Pech River Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar province, Saturday, October 24, 2009. (Photo by David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)