The National Geographic Photography seminar

I have just visited the National Geographic Magazine’s yearly photography seminar in Washington DC.

A truly global Top celebration of photojournalism and powerful imagery.
All around in the hall were sitting several of the legendary Directors of photography and Chief editors from the magazine over decades, an impressive array of its most famous photographers ­ new and old ­ a lot of NGS staff and a number of leading figures from the international photography scene ­ like Cristina Mittermeier, Jenny Nichols and Mark Christmas from the ILCP, Jean-François Leroi from the Perpignan Festival, and an impressive number of ILCP fellows, including WWE photographer Christian Ziegler.

A number of strong slide talks and presentation were shown, the one touching me most was by Lynsey Addario, who showed a powerful series of striking photojournalistic shots from the women of Afghanistan. Very moving, upsetting and thought-provoking.

And so was Mark Leong’s very well photographed story about the apalling illegal wildlife trade in Asia. Very potent stuff!

Finally a selection of British photographer Don McCullin’s best work from five decades, mostly from war scenes and conflicts - in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Biafra, Kongo, Vietnam etc. Almost all of them now iconic classics.

Many of the people that I met attending the seminar also had lots of spontaneous praise for the Wild Wonders of Europe project and described it as a ‘role model’ of how to do conservation photography in the future.

Staffan Widstrand

Please note that blogs reflect our photographers' opinions and not necessarily those of the directors of Wild Wonders of Europe.