National Geographic BlogWild

Some of the freshest faces at National Geographic are here at headquarters this weekend for a Young Explorers Grant workshop.

Last night, NG Live hosted an event titled “Exploration: The Next Generation” with four up-and-coming Society grantees: Katherine Amato, a biologist studying howler monkeys in Mexico’s tropical forest; Pat Walters, a journalist who’s documented the havoc wreaked by invasive flying Asian carp on U.S. rivers; Trip Jennings, a conservationist who caves and paddles through unexplored regions in Papua New Guinea; and Ross McDermott, a photographer and filmmaker who—with colleague and fellow photographer Andrew Owen—is documenting America’s small-town festivals, from the National Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa to the Middle of Nowhere celebration in Ainsworth, Nebraska.

By now, you’ve likely seen Monica Szczupider’s photograph of grieving chimpanzees at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center. The image—which Monica submitted to Your Shot, and which appeared in the November issue of National Geographic magazine—is resonating with people everywhere. Over the last few days, it’s turned up in newspapers, on television, and on blogs worldwide.

From afar, the primeval mountainsides of the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica appear both majestic and mysterious. Venture within with National Geographic Young Explorers Greg Goldsmith and Drew Fulton and you will discover that this mist-enshrouded tropical evergreen forest is teeming with life. This astounding biodiversity owes much of its existence to the extra water bestowed by clouds, which condenses onto leaves and drips to the forest floor. This extra moisture supports the world's most diverse collection of orchid species and a thriving array of amphibians, reptiles, and birds.

Photojournalist and National Geographic Young Explorer Joe Riis hopes to inspire people to protect the Path of the Pronghorn by documenting their epic migration—from the pronghorn's perspective. “[I] wanted to view the landscape through the eyes of the pronghorn and see the obstacles that the pronghorn see,” explains Joe. Outfitted with a collection of infrared-triggered camera traps and a life-size cutout of a pronghorn that he uses as a cover, Joe is the first person to take close-up photographs of the pronghorn during migration. Walking alongside the animals on foot, he chronicles the hazards faced on their journey—as well as the spectacular beauty of the Wyoming landscape—in intimate detail.

Director Kirsten Elstner and others describe National Geographic Photo Camp, a global program sponsored by the Geographic's Education Foundation through which Nat Geo photographers train students to document their communities and local environments with photography.

Even if you somehow managed to miss my recent blog post on "Crasher Squirrel," by now you've likely seen the famous image of the photogenic fur ball, or one of the thousands of Photoshopped, squirrel-enhanced images sprouting like acorns across the Web. Now Boyd Matson, host of National Geographic Weekend, has gotten a one-on-one interview with squirrel-crashed photographer Melissa Brandts.

When Melissa Brandts positioned her camera for a timed self-portrait with her husband on the banks of Canada's stunning Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, she didn't expect a squirrel to steal the scene. "This curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot," she writes. "We were laughing about this little guy for days!"

Late-night twilight greetings from Iceland! I'm here with Nat Geo Student Expeditions and a group of (I asked what adjective to use to describe them, and they chose) extraordinary teens. We've come to photograph this island, to study the wild geology that put it here just south of the Arctic Circle. We're documenting the effects of climate change—the melting away of glaciers that have covered Iceland for millennia and that gave it its very name.

Kodak's announcement Monday that it will discontinue production of Kodachrome this year made big news everywhere, including here in the halls of the Geographic. Photographers who built careers around the film—legendary for its vibrant, saturated colors—are reflecting on three-quarters of a century of the world captured in Kodachrome.

More highlights from the 2009 Explorers Symposium, including photojournalist Kirsten Elstner, National Geographic Young Explorer Ben Horton, and Nat Geo Fellow Reza.

Saturday's field assignment for the Weekend Photography Workshop, sequel to an afternoon in Dupont Circle, had us shooting on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. As luck would have it (night owl here) one of the best times to take photographs in daylight is just before and after dawn. That meant rising before five a.m.—yawn!—and heading into town to find the solitary figure above silhouetted in early morning light by the Reflecting Pool.

I might not score a photo of the week in Nat Geo Traveler's World in Focus Contest, but (as I mentioned I'd be doing in my last post) I spent Friday and the weekend in a National Geographic Photography Workshop with students from across the U.S., Canada, and as far away as Brazil.

The experience? Phenomenal. And my photographs will doubtless be better for it. Feel free to lie to me if you disagree!

I'm gearing up for a National Geographic Expeditions Weekend Photography Workshop that begins tonight, and asked my good friend and fellow staffer Tim Greenleaf (who manages the Nat Geo Expeditions website) if I could borrow some equipment. He obliged—thanks Tim! When I stopped by his office this morning to pick it up, he asked if I'd seen this photo he shot in view of Mount Kilimanjaro during a visit to Kenya's Amboseli National Park.

"Photography rule number one," he admonished. "Don't forget to look behind you!"

Frank Taylor, author of the Google Earth Blog and an avid sailor, stopped by headquarters today. Over the past four years, he's published thousands of posts about the latest features in, and innovative uses for, Google's 3D virtual globe. Given Frank's ringside seat on geo-technology and the planet, I was eager to meet him!

I hate war. That's why I'm drawn to it. I'm waging a war against war. - Reza

Self-described nomad, photographer, and National Geographic fellow Reza Deghati was in D.C. to give a National Geographic Live! talk at headquarters. In his new book, War and Peace: A Photographer's Journey, Reza details his decades-long odyssey since exile from Iran. (See NG News editor David Braun's conversation with Reza about the book here.)