Since I was a boy I've wanted to be an explorer. But I grew up on a small farm in the U.S. state of Iowa. Until I was 18, I’d never traveled by train or airplane. I didn’t own a passport. I’d never even seen the ocean.
The chance to travel to the most remote and inaccessible corners of the world, to meet and try to understand the people and unique environments in each, and to see with my own eyes and make up my mind for myself has been my dream fulfilled.
Over the last five years, National Geographic has sent me off to many faraway places I’d always hoped to explore. I’ve slept in a hammock on top of a waterfall in Laos, hiked through poppy fields in the Afghan mountains, ate dinner on a Sahara desert dune with Egyptian falconers, helicoptered over wolf packs inside Yellowstone National Park, and rode a passenger train across the North Korean countryside.
These amazing opportunities come with responsibility. As an explorer you have to get to the ends of the earth and be a witness. The explorer / photographer has to use her camera to transport others to the same world. The photographer must make us all see the glory and feel the wonder. “This is what I saw. This is what I learned. This is how it made me feel.”
So, when selecting the ten most powerful photographs for National Geographic's Your Shot #letsexplore hashtag challenge, I was looking for those pictures that transported me to those faraway places to make me see it and feel as though I was there with you.
A few photographers explored people’s lives and cultures unlike their own and photographed them with dignity: Arjun Menon’s photograph of a monk on a rooftop, scanning the frozen mountains searching for snow leopards, Claudia Calà’s picture of schoolchildren playing with balloons in a classroom in rural Myanmar and Wesley Lickus’ image of young Maasai worriers returning home to dinner cooking over an open fire.
Some gave us an intimate view into the lives of animals in the wild: Heidi Somes’ picture of a baboon closing its eyes and tilting its head back into a blowing breeze, Tahir Abbas Awan’s photo of a Rainbow Bee Eater carrying prey in its beak in mid-flight, Mohammed Yousef’s lone elephant made to seem tiny under a giant sky exploding with color, and Colin Tyler Bogucki’s image of a Bengal tiger walking calmly into a forest, lit golden.
Other photographers were able to convey that indescribable feeling of wandering out into the world. Martine Lanchec-Girard’s shot through the windshield while passing through a cloud of insects in Madagascar. Kate T. Parker made us dive with her into the green waters off the Florida panhandle.
And a few photographers reminded us that we don’t have to go to the top of a mountain or trek across the North Pole to explore the world, and instead found they were able to discover the wonder and glory in their own towns, parks, and yards. Look at Valeria Klassen’s photograph of delicate ferns unfurling.
–David Guttenfelder, National Geographic photographer and #LetsExplore curator
At National Geographic, we celebrate exploration every day. But during Explorers Week, we’re sharing our enthusiasm in a special way. From June 8-12, 2015 we’ll join with our National Geographic scientists, conservationists, and storytellers at NatGeo HQ.
To celebrate exploration, NatGeo photographer David Guttenfelder will be curating photos from the #LetsExplore hashtag challenge on Your Shot. Submit by June 15 for your photo to be considered and David will pick his favorites for a future blog post here. And MyShot, National Geographic's kids photo community is also running a #LetsExplore challenge on their site so you and your kids can particpate together.
Have questions about what type of photo you should submit to the #LetsExplore Your Shot challenge? Or questions about photography in general? TUNE IN for a Live exclusive Facebook Chat With David on June 8, 1PM EDT on the National Geographic Facebook Page.
We had quite the week at our Headquarters! National Geographic magazine hosted their annual Photo Seminar and Your Shot participated with some fun events throughout the week. We had two nights of photo booths where some of the worlds greatest photographers had the lens turned on them!
On Saturday, we hosted our largest ever #yourshotmeetup to take advantage of all the great photographers that were in town. National Geographic photographers Lynn Johnson, Jim Richardson, Joanna Pinneo, Erika Larsen, David Guttenfelder and John Stanmeyer joined us for six different photo walks around downtown Washington, D.C. Following the walks, we all met back at headquarters for coffee and a Q&A panel with the photographers.
Last week was the essence of something David Guttenfelder told us to do to improve our photography during the Q&A, “Find a community. Find people who are as crazy as you are.”
Thank you for being a part of our fun and passionate community! We’ll see you at the next meet up!
See past meetups from San Francisco, Brooklyn, Chicago, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., and our Studio Lighting Workshop.
National Geographic photographer David Guttenfelder founded the Instagram feed Everyday USA as a place for a diverse group of visual record keepers to collect and share their documentation of contemporary life in the U.S.A. He and the contributing photographers share their stories with editor Becky Harlan on Proof.
