I find Kathy Moran at the unofficial entrance to National Geographic headquarters. Not the lobby on M Street, but an area next to the elevators on the fourth floor, which is home to Nat Geo's editorial staff. There’s a large wall there covered with a patchwork of oversized images taken by some of our most iconic photographers.

There are “frames,” to use the photographer’s parlance, by stalwarts such as Luis Marden, Thomas Abercrombie, Jodi Cobb, Nick Nichols, and Maggie Steber, as well as some by younger generations of photographers, including Lynsey Addario, David Guttenfelder, Erika Larsen, and Marcus Bleasdale, among many others.

It’s the closest thing we have to a “wall of fame” and is basically the first thing a new photographer