This wasn’t a routine National Geographic assignment. It could be deadly, very deadly. Many news organizations wouldn’t send their personnel to cover it. But we did. We sent Pete Muller. And it was his unflinching yet intimate and fearless photographic approach that made this coverage so special.

“I thought with the correct precautions it was an approachable assignment, but that’s not to say that I wasn’t nervous,” said Muller.

Working in the midst of an invisible, deadly virus like Ebola forced Muller to think twice about what he was doing. “I spent several sleepless nights,” he said. “I think we all have neurotic tendencies around health issues, and you end up thinking through everything that you did, everyone