Nat Geo Photographers: How They Got Their Start | National Geographic

[Music] You know, we all start from somewhere. For me, I thought if I could just give a voice and a name to wildlife by using my camera, then that's it. It was very important for me to immortalize stories, so I started capturing moments happening around me. I think what drew me into photography was the capturing of soul. You can capture a moment of someone's joy or sadness in like 1/125th of a second.

I just knew I couldn't pursue a career that would have me in four walls, and I took a gamble on photography, and I love [Music] it. I chose to be a photographer because early on in my life, I discovered the power that photography has to get other people excited about science and nature. I discovered that science is a difficult language for people to really feel emotional about, but photography is a great way to inspire [Music] people.

So, I picked up a [Music] camera. I was going to take your picture. A photograph has the ability to captivate humanity, to change how the story ends, and that's what I want to do with my images. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, and at that time, it was pretty clear that there was a bias towards boys versus girls. You know, my dad would give my brother Jacko books, and I would get Barbie books.

I started my career in photography almost by accident. I knew that I wanted to study marine biology. I discovered that science is a difficult language for people to really feel emotional about, but photography is a great way to inspire people, so I picked up a [Music] camera. I've spoken to women photographers who think that being a woman is a disadvantage. For me, it was like a superpower. You know, you are just non-threatening; you know people don’t care that you have a camera, you're a woman.

And I realized, you know, if I focus on this aspect of humans and nature, maybe there's something that not many people are [Music] doing. These are not just pictures; there are testimonies that live forever. There is no better way to make a difference than photography. I fell in love with photography at a very early age. It was, uh, the moment that I met my grandmother's Polaroid. I discovered the power of photography, and all I wanted was just to take pictures.

As a Jordanian national born in Jerusalem, surrounded by conflicts most of my early age, I realized that there is a life going on even in the middle of war. As a kid, I had my own life. I used to play; I used to have fun, and I wanted to use the power of photography to share with the world that even in the middle of conflict, life goes on.

And this is when I started capturing moments happening around me. The reason I became a photographer is to show the real image of people, not to be remembered as refugees, but to be known by their names, by their hopes, by their dreams. In a world where we can see so much but so little gets captured of certain people is shocking. The little corner of the world that I highlight and shine, I'm going to make sure that it's the underrepresented people until they're the majority.

And I can go home and sleep—left shoulder up, right shoulder down—there we go, that's kind of cool! I like that. So, my starting fashion photography came through interning. I've always wanted to do a myriad of things—from styling to set to makeup—and while I was a stylist assistant, he noticed I was staring at the photographer's set, and he was like, "Yeah, you're a photographer, go and do that!"

3, 2, and then I kind of fell in love with the romance of how you can capture a moment of someone's joy or sadness or your own depiction of an idea in like 1/125th of a second. Everything leads back to myself because I think of the minorities I fall into, whether it's my race or my gender, my, um, sexuality. Even I often feel immediately I'm not seen, like I have to always assimilate to an idea instead of being an idea.

So when I'm creating ideas, I want them to be so authentic to my experience. I want to find these fleeting moments where I witnessed something that I could never conjure up with my own imagination, and my body just takes over and how I react. I just can't control it, and I love [Music] it.

How I started my career in photography? Well, I just, I wanted to be outside. Originally, I wanted to be a sports photographer, like I dreamed about running the sidelines at a Rugby World Cup or going to the Olympics. But within the first 3 to 4 years of my career, I became so jaded. It's a really natural fit for me to just gravitate towards adventure, and what I loved about adventure is that I had no sidelines.

If anything, if I'm held back, it's because it's the parameters of Mother Nature and what I can actually physically do or can't. What a joy to experience life in such extreme [Music] environments! I loved science, but I didn't like taking the beauty of nature and converting it into a data set. And so, I began my career as a wildlife photographer at the age of 26.

Really, my love of animals and nature and creativity began when my family moved all the way up to the high Arctic in Baffin Island. All of my time was spent outside in the ice and the snow, learning from my innate friends. I really knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life doing something with wildlife and nature, but science was not it.

So, by being an artist, a creative, I could give a voice and a name to wildlife. Eventually, I got my first assignment for National Geographic in the year 2001. You're only as good as your last story, so really I thrived in that environment where you were just pushing yourself to come back with the best coverage that you were capable of. [Music]

The most important thing in creating a compelling image is surprise. As a photographer, how do I challenge people's assumptions? Yes, my career in photography kind of started by accident. I was intending to be a scientist, and I got a summer job working for a photographer, and that experience showed me the potential that a photography career could have.

Who, whoa, whoa, this is cool! You know, the lesson that I keep learning over and over again is that it's okay to not know what your future looks like. Becoming a photographer was the first scary step—so cool! Where I stepped out of a known path of how to become a scientist into this unknown path of how to become a photographer.

And even within that path, it's like every story is like, "This is interesting to me. This is going to be interesting to the world, but I don't know how to do this." But just stick with it and do your best [Music] work.

I think to be successful in this career is to find a way to contribute something that only you can contribute. What is it about your perspective, your interests, your skills that you can bring that no one else can bring? Photography is not a job; it's built in. It's a candle in; you're born to be a photographer. Be passionate about it. To succeed, you need to know what you love, what you're good at.

This is a great scene, and the most important thing is what the world needs. And when you find that, you get up in the morning to fulfill the purpose of your life. [Music]