The Secret of Great Photography: "Getting Access" | Nat Geo Live

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

While I was living in India, the biggest door of my career opened. I pitched a story to National Geographic, and it was to go and tell the story about the last, hand-pulled rickshaw pullers who were living in Calcutta. Word was that they were going to ban the whole mode of transportation there. So, they accepted my proposal. Off I went.

Get to Calcutta. Great! I've got my first big assignment. Guess what? All the rickshaw pullers said, "No thank you. We don't want our pictures taken." And that's the truth. You know, I think a lot of people think, "Oh, if you work for National Geographic, the doors just come flying open." Nope, not always the case.

So I'm thinking, "What do I do?" I've got to get access, and that is the secret of great photography, is just getting access. So, I found the leader of the rickshaw union. His name was Subir. I told him why I wanted to tell this story. And he started introducing me to people.

And I also would take portraits of these men, and go to a one-hour photo place, get them printed, and run around Calcutta, giving them pictures. And you know, to these men, they've never had—some of them didn't even have shoes. So to have a portrait was really something for them to hang up in these small quarters, was really meaningful to them. And it took time and patience, and slowly, they started opening up and sharing their lives with me.

Zeros of polynomials (with factoring): grouping | Polynomial graphs | Algebra 2 | Khan Academy

Elevator Thought Experiment | Genius

View All

Worked example: analyzing an ocean food web | Middle school biology | Khan Academy

So this diagram right over here describes a food web, and a food web models how energy and matter move in an ecosystem. We’re going to use this food web to answer some questions to make sure we understand food webs. So the first thing I’m going to ask yo…

Hawai'i's Volcanoes of Life | America's National Parks | National Geographic

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Hawaii is the only place in the US where humpbacks breed and nurse their young. [WHALE CALLS] Born with very little fat, calves would soon freeze to death in the cold waters of Alaska. Mothers come to these clear shallow waters …

Startup Investor School Day 1 Live Stream

And the way the course is organized is there’s a lecture and then there’s a Q&A afterwards. So please hold your questions until the Q&A session at the end unless an instructor explicitly says they want questions during their talk. I will also take…

Could Your Phone Hurt You? Electromagnetic Pollution

Electricity is all around us all the time. It makes our lives easier, safer, more fun, and most of us never think about it. But is there such a thing as too much electricity? Could the thing that is the foundation of the modern world slowly be killing us?…

Chromosome pairs | Inheritance and variation | Middle school biology | Khan Academy

[Instructor] - Hi, everyone. Today, we’re gonna talk about chromosome pairs. But first, I’ve got a question for you. Between a black mulberry plant, a Guinea pig, and a human being, which organism do you think has the most chromosomes? The mulberry plan…

All The Times We Were Wrong

If I told you right now that humans are “perfect” organisms, and that in our mothers’ wombs, we first are fishes, who then develop into amphibians, and then reptiles, birds, primates, before finally becoming what we know as human, I’m sure you’d look at m…

The Secret of Great Photography: "Getting Access" | Nat Geo Live

More Articles