National Geographic Exhibits

[Mike Buckley]

The National Geographic world headquarters located in Washington, D.C. is currently displaying four fabulous exhibits in celebration of its 125th year. I usually limit my museum outings to no more than two hours, preferably one hour, because that's about all I can take. However, my wife and I spent about two hours there in the morning, took a break to eat lunch, and returned for another hour or so afterward and I loved every minute of it.

The exhibits are:

Women Photographers
Large prints of photos made by women including sound bites from interviews of the women and detailed discussions by editors explaining why they chose to publish a particular photo. (An editor typically has to select 40 to 50 photos from 30,000 to 90,000 submitted by a photographer while on assignment.) Each featured woman has a room dedicated to their photos.

National Geographic Covers
A room of all magazine covers displayed digitally in the order that they were published. Interestingly, once Nat Geo began using photos on the covers, the only cover that does not have a photo is the 100th anniversary issue.

Lions, Tigers and Bears
A highly informative and gorgeous exhibit of photos of the three animals including a photo of a species of tiger that is one of only of a handful that exist of that species photographed in the wild. Explanations include the animals' habits and the use of camera traps and other technologies.

One Cubic Foot
A photographer placed a frame made of stainless steel tubes that defines an area that measures one cubic foot in many places throughout the world including above ground and below water. He then photographed as much as possible every living thing that passed through that frame on a given day. As an example, it was determined that about 1.6 billion organisms passed through the frame placed in San Francisco Bay, so it clearly was not possible to photograph all of them.

[Downrigger]

Thanks for that, Mike. Maybe I should sell a print and then fly out on "business expense" financing.

As I became interested in photography (recently) I asked a friend who teaches and publishes in photography where to go to learn and he suggested I subscribe to National Geographic. As I visit their website and look at their old and recent volumes I appreciate that Nat Geo have made themselves a repository and resource for great imaging across a wide range of styles and subject matter. It's a massive amount of material to learn from and I appreciate Nat Geo's contribution.

Weirdly - the stuff they put on the TV seems often pretty dreadful. Not sure what's up with that.

[Donald]

Sounds fascinating, Mike. One of those times when you're glad that you live close to a major centre that can pull in these sorts of exhibitions.

[HenkB]

Thanks, Mike. Perhaps I can manage the trip.

For those who are interested Nat. Geo. Found is on Tumblr here. It is a relatively new service. I seem to remember that the photos are from their archive and previously unpublished (in the main?, without exception?). I find them uniformly fascinating if only to illustrate the progression of photographic practice in the past 100 years or so. They are often interesting social documents, as well. One of my more heavily thumbed bookmarks.

[dksm]

worth checking out nation geographic image collection .not a large book but fascinating and very reasonable at £9-99