National Geographic Magazine - UK December 2023

AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC we are fortunate to work with incredible photographers who canvass the globe to uncover stories that give us a new understanding of our world. Every day our team of skilled photo editors and designers combs through their images (sometimes thousands for a single story!) to choose the ones that do what great photographs do: convey information, yes, but also compel the eye and fill the heart. Our annual tribute to this work, “Pictures of the Year,” highlights a selection of our editors’ favorite images from photographers in the field. It is not meant to tell a story of the year’s most important moments, but to show what the world, in all its variety and richness, looked like to our contributors. Perhaps unsurprisingly, you’ll still find in these…

Neil Shea Based in Brooklyn, New York, Shea is an award-winning writer who works in print, film, television, and audio. He covers cultural and environmental shifts in places from Iraqi Kurdistan to East Africa. His book Frostlines: Dispatches From the New Arctic will be published by Ecco in 2025. Page 112 Emma Lira A travel writer and specialist in Spain, Lira has authored historical fiction novels, a Lonely Planet Granada guide, and a National Geographic story on Tenerife’s mummies. She’s a resident of Madrid and the Canary Islands and leads small group tours for women throughout the Islamic world. Page 88 José Manuel Navia Navia’s images highlighting aspects of Iberian, Hispanic, and Andalusian cultures appear regularly in El Pais and have been featured in the Spain edition of National Geographic…

Katie Orlinsky During almost a decade of living in and visiting Alaska, Orlinsky has been examining the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Her images of its thawing permafrost appeared in the September 2019 issue of National Geographic, and for this issue she hiked solo for days in a remote stretch of Alaska to document migrating caribou. When a wolf approached briefly, Orlinsky was thrilled for the company, she says. The June 2023 cover story featured her photographs of the world’s first designated wilderness area, in New Mexico. She became an Explorer in 2022. Page 112 Anand Varma In the woods near his childhood home in Atlanta, Varma discovered his passion for being immersed in the natural world. Then he picked up his father’s camera and found a way…

LOOKING AT THE EARTH FROM EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE…

GROWING UP ON the shores of Lake Huron in the Canadian province of Ontario, Robert Berdan was never far from water. When he was in sixth grade, he received a toy microscope for Christmas. Some of the first things he saw through its lens were tiny creatures inside droplets he’d gathered from a local pond. He was fascinated with the microorganisms. After eighth grade, Berdan upgraded to a more sophisticated model and realized it was a portal to another world. “The new microscope changed my life,” he says. “I could see so much more.” He began studying photography and buying cameras to fit on his microscope. He captured images of ferns, mushrooms, and trees, and learned how to develop film. He also developed his microscopy skills, so much so that…

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY AS A KID, I DREAMED of becoming a marine biologist and living my life by the sea. Since I grew up in a landlocked suburb of Atlanta, I lived out this fantasy by setting up aquariums at home. At 14, I started working at my neighborhood aquarium shop. By 16, I had seven fish tanks at home. Then, at 20, I was introduced to photographer David Liittschwager, who hired me to help him with a National Geographic magazine assignment on marine life. We spent 10 days aboard the Oscar Elton Sette, a 224-foot NOAA research vessel sailing off the Kona coast of Hawaii. David’s assignment was to document the astounding biodiversity found at the surface of the ocean. My role was to…