Carolyn Van Houten likes photographing people. And she's really good at it. In fact, it’s how she landed the photography internship at National Geographic, which is awarded to just one person annually—the winner of College Photographer of the Year. (See the work that brought her to National Geographic in the gallery below.) Her portfolio brimmed with intimate moments—a mother cradling her shaken son, a girl serenely soaking in the river that flooded her family’s home—so she was surprised when her future editor at Geographic called with a question: Was she interested in spending her internship photographing the effects of climate change on minke and humpback whales in Antarctica, the least peopled continent in the world?

I asked Carolyn what it