Steve Winter

SteveWinter_Portrait---Version-2

Steve Winter, a photojournalist who specializes in big cats and other wildlife, has produced stories for National Geographic magazine since 1991. He’s photographed extensively in Latin America, India, Myanmar, and southern Africa, concentrating on photographing both animals—and the people that live with them, as well as the environment where they live. He is renowned for capturing previously-unseen images of endangered, elusive or dangerous species, including jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal, the cloud forest’s resplendent quetzal, Asian elephants, Bengal tigers and snow leopards in the Himalayas, among others. In 2008, he was named BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, was twice the recipient of the Picture of the Year International Global Vision Award, and won the World Press Photo contest’s nature story category, among other honors. Steve has appeared on 60 Minutes, CNN, and NPR. He lectures and runs workshops globally on photography and conservation issues, and serves as media director for Panthera, a big cat conservation organization.

 

Brian Skerry

Brian_Skerry

Brian Skerry is a photojournalist specializing in marine wildlife and underwater environments. Since 1998 he has been a contract photographer for National Geographic Magazine covering a wide range of subjects and stories.

An award-winning photographer, Brian is praised worldwide for his aesthetic sense as well as his journalistic drive for relevance. His uniquely-creative images tell stories that not only celebrate the mystery and beauty of the sea, but also help bring attention to the large number of issues that endanger our oceans and its inhabitants.

His nearly year-round assignment schedule frequently finds himself in environments of extreme contrast from tropical coral reefs to diving beneath polar ice. While on assignment he has lived on the bottom of the sea, spent months aboard fishing boats and traveled in everything from snowmobiles to canoes to the Goodyear Blimp to get the picture. He has spent more than 10,000 hours underwater over the last thirty years.

For NGM, Brian has covered a wide range of stories, from the harp seal’s struggle to survive in frozen waters to the alarming decrease in the world’s fisheries, both cover stories.

Other features have focused on subjects such as the planet’s last remaining pristine coral reefs, the plight of the right whale, sharks of the Bahamas, marine reserves, sea turtles and squid. He is currently at work on his 20th story for NGM.

Sea Pens & Blue Cod

Brian has also worked on assignment for or had images featured in magazines such as Sports Illustrated, US News and World Report, BBC Wildlife, GEO, Smithsonian, Esquire, Audubon, Men’s Journal. His latest monograph Ocean Soul, released in November, has received worldwide acclaim.

Brian frequently lectures on photography and conservation issues having presented at venues such as TED Talks, The National Press Club in Washington, DC and the Royal Geographical Society in London. He is also a regular guest on programs such as NBC’s TODAY Show, CBS’s Sunday Morning, ABC’s Good Morning America. He is also the Explore-In Residence at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

In 2010 National Geographic magazine named one of Brian’s images among their 50 Greatest Photographs Of All Time. In 2011, he had single photographer exhibits Visa Pour l’Image in Perpignan, France, The G2 Gallery in Los Angeles and at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC.

Tim Laman

BOP-090826-350_web

Tim Laman is a field biologist and wildlife photojournalist.

Tim first went to the rain forests of Borneo in 1987 and the Asia-Pacific region has been a major focus for both his scientific research and photography ever since. His pioneering research in the rain forest canopy in Borneo led to a PhD from Harvard and his first National Geographic article in 1997. Since then, he has pursued his passion for exploring wild places and documenting little-known and endangered wildlife by becoming a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, where he will soon have published twenty feature stories. Tim has also published more than a dozen scientific articles related to rainforest ecology and birdlife, and is a research associate in the Ornithology Department at Harvard University.

Tim has developed somewhat of a reputation for being able to come back with shots from the wild of nearly impossible subjects like gliding animals in Borneo, displaying Birds of Paradise, and some of the most critically endangered birds in the world such as the Nuku Hiva Pigeon and the Visayan Wrinkled Hornbill of the Philippines. He relishes such challenges, and firmly believes that promoting awareness through photography can make a difference for conservation.

Tim’s work has garnered numerous awards, including the highest honor of the North American Nature Photography Association in 2009 – their annual “Outstanding Nature Photographer” Award. Ten of his images have won recognition in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards, and he has won several prizes in the Nature’s Best International Photography awards including first place in the underwater category.

BOP-100917-242_Web

Tim’s collaboration with Edwin Scholes on the Birds of Paradise is his most ambitious project to date. He has recently completed the first comprehensive photographic coverage of this extraordinary family of birds in the wild. They are the most spectacularly ornamented birds in the world, but inhabit rugged and remote regions of New Guinea, where they are an extreme challenge to locate and photograph in their dense rain forest homes. He and Ed spent over eighteen months doing fieldwork in the New Guinea region over the past eight years on this project, with support from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Conservation International, and the National Geographic Expeditions Council. The project has now come to fruition as a major photographic book (BIRDS OF PARADISE: REVEALING THE WORLD’S MOST EXTRAORDINARY BIRDS), published by National Geographic Books. In addition, this work is featured in a National Geographic Channel documentary, new National Geographic magazine article in December 2012, and a major travelling educational museum exhibition, all in the hope of spreading awareness about the Birds of Paradise and the rain forest of New Guinea.