Celebrating the people who help us tell these stories
In today’s newsletter, these people help us tell our stories. Plus, a seal who wouldn’t leave a photographer; NFTs and your images … and capturing travel through the years.
This article is an adaptation of our weekly Photography newsletter that was originally sent out on January 15, 2022. Want this in your inbox? Sign up here.
By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But behind what you see are countless unseen efforts– not only of the photographer, but of an entire team of collaborators.
Over the last several months, Senior Photo Editor Jen Tse has talked with many National Geographic photographers, pulling back the curtain on the intensely collaborative efforts that go into making these pictures. Many of the images you have seen from our photographers might not have been possible without the efforts of these partners.
Keep reading to meet these producers, researchers, journalists, fellow photographers–and importantly, friends.
Life-saving: Heri Yanto (pictured above) was working in East Timor in 1999 with photographer and Nat Geo Explorer John Stanmeyer when an anti-independence supporter with a knife approached. Stanmeyer said Yanto pushed him aside and was wounded in the stomach. He recovered, but died in 2010 from complications of diabetes. Stanmeyer has remained close to his family. Pictured at top, Zamira Loebis organized meetings with all sorts of people with Stanmeyer for a 2007 story on piracy. Loebis, too, managed to get the photographer out of tough situations.
Wings: In covering Alaska’s Arctic Flyway, a talented pilot got photographer and Explorer Kiliii Yüyan where he needed to go. Jake Soplanda, shown above cruising over Teshekpuk Lake, could fly low and slow over icy wetlands or “land on a bumpy knoll not much bigger than the plane,” Yüyan says.
Player-coach: Namuun Tsegmid joined an all-female team working with photographer and Explorer Hannah Reyes Morales on an exploration of lullabiesworldwide. The reporter-researcher in Mongolia, shown above at center on a sub-zero winter evening, scouted photo locations, brought together families for the story, and made them feel comfortable. She even taught Reyes Morales a few reporting techniques, tracking down nomads with no phone numbers or permanent addresses.
Want to read more about the people who help make our images possible? See the full article here.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
A seal pal: Off Scotland, this young gray seal couldn’t get enough of the fins of diver, photographer, and Nat Geo Explorer Bertie Gregory. For two hours, she’d alternate between her kelp forest home and a cuddle on the fins. “She loved the camera,” says Annie Guttridge, who took this image, which has been liked by more than 360,000 people on our Instagram page. The photographers also saw minke whales, dolphins, at least 10 other seals, and a sunfish.
TODAY IN A MINUTE
Jumping into NFTs: The Associated Press is launching an NFT marketplace for collectors to purchase its photojournalists’ images, CNET reports. The initial collection, which includes Pulitzer Prize-winning photography, will be released this month at “broad and inclusive price points.” The marketplace will be built on the Polygon blockchain.
Want to get in on the market space? Professional travel photographer Marco Bottigelli offers tips for selling photographs as NFTs. For starters, to raise the value of your work, make sure it’s scarce, he advises.
Tracking cougars: How do you know where to build a bridge or tunnel around a highway so that animals can connect to their habitat without getting killed by a vehicle? See where the animals normally go. Reuters photographer Stephanie Keith, in these fascinating photographs, documented a team of Washington State wildlife officials and a coalition of Native American tribe members as they tracked the movements of a wild cougar named Lilu.
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
Travel through the years: Nat Geo, which turned 134 on Thursday, has been documenting the world long before commercial air flight. In the 1930s, Pan Am established regular air service to some places in the United States for the first time. In this 1938 image, one of a collection of vintage travel photos, passengers arrived in Brownsville, Texas, greeted by women in period dress.
IN A FEW WORDS
Brilliant women archaeologists, scientists, and dive professionals are helping to fuel the search for slave shipwrecks globally. Super proud!
Tara Roberts, Nat Geo Explorer; host of Into the Depths, a new podcast and Nat Geo documentary on Black scuba divers who are searching worldwide for buried shipwrecks from the transatlantic slave trade
LAST GLIMPSE
Staying warm: Photographer, biologist, and Nat Geo Explorer Tim Laman specializes in capturing the natural world. In Jigokudani, Japan, he found these snow monkeys enjoying a dip in a hot spring. The monkeys, also known as Japanese macaques, have special coats to keep them warm in subzero temperatures. This image is from a collection of Nat Geo visual storytelling over the years.
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Monica Williams, and Jen Tse. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com.
