See How Dog Sledding Helped This Photographer Get Her Spark Back | Short Film Showcase

A great photograph can make someone change their mind. People don't know what they don't know. They have their preconceived ideas; they'll form an opinion of something that they've never really encountered. Sometimes, if a picture is powerful enough, it can take them there. It can change their minds. You might get one in your lifetime, but it's worth working your whole life to make that one picture.

"My name is Katie Orlinsky, and I'm a photographer. The first time I picked up a camera was when I was around 14, and it was a birthday present from my father. I loved it. It was a Pentax. I would shoot black and white; they were pictures of a man sitting next to a statue, like you know, a 14- or 15-year-old person’s art. It took me a really long time to figure out my own voice, to figure out the stories that I was best at telling.

I don't fit into a box of a photographer. I photograph so many different and diverse stories. I like to change my own mind when I find a story that blows me away. I kind of assume that it will do the same for other people. A lot of my photography has this one thing in common: I photograph people living their lives within extreme situations. I think these people are interesting, strong, and resilient."

"My name is Kristen Pace, and I'm a professional dog musher. That means that I raise and train sled dogs and run thousand-mile lead dog races. My husband Andy and I run Hey Moose Kennel. We decided in 2011 we wanted to start a sled dog team, which is just the most absurd undertaking of all time. We started with four dogs, and now we have thirty."

"Here in two weeks, you can't tell. Okay, would you maybe use your arm and lean on something? I met Katie last summer. One of my best friends had showed up to show us this litter of puppies, and out jumps Katie. So it was like, 'Hey, look at all these puppies, and also, there’s like a National Geographic photographer here.' Alright, so chin down just a bit."

"When I got my first assignment in Alaska, I had never even heard of mushing, and I had no idea what the Iditarod was, which is sort of the most famous dog sled race. They race a thousand miles across the Alaskan wilderness, somewhere between like seventy and ninety teams. It takes years to build a team and to qualify for the race. You could be going through negative sixty; you have to be completely self-sufficient and run on little to no sleep for about eight days."

"If any kind of—like right here. I've covered the races as a whole in the past, but really, it was a sports story. It's great for this story. I'd like to focus on Kristin, who's going to be running her first Iditarod. I'd really like to tell the story of one person and what it takes to run this race. My goal is always to capture intimate moments within these extreme circumstances. I think it's really important to capture images that make people feel something for the other person. That has a universal quality to it because everybody loves and everybody is devastated. I want the photographs I make to make people feel things, because when I'm taking them, I'm feeling things."

"After experiences covering conflict and losing friends, I definitely became pretty cynical and disillusioned. I was still shooting, but my heart wasn't in it. I deep down really hoped that it wasn't forever and that something would come around that got me going again. And then it did when I went out to Alaska."

"How many dogs? I'm just going to take eight today, 'cause it's so icy, and yeah, we're gonna be stopping. How's it gonna be? Twice this long for the Iditarod. Nuts to think about."

"So the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere, totally alone with the dog team, it's the ultimate test, because it’s like every experience you've ever had in your life and all of the training you've ever done in your life has led you to this moment. And here you are, and there’s no one here to reach out a hand and help you. It is totally up to you to get you and these sixteen living things that you love more than anything in the world safely to the next spot on the map. It gets you to the root of yourself. I think that's why it's so addicting."

"Yeah, this is probably the best photo of the race. Love that. The thing that surprised me the most about the mushers was how many female mushers there were. God, she looks like a badass. Yeah, you made all of us not smile. I have some smiley photos. Whatever. Whatever you're trying to make us all look really tough, you are really tough. Are you nervous about the Iditarod? I'm excited! I can’t wait to see the ocean and be anxious to know that like we got there from here. We got all the way to the ocean from here."

"I think anybody that's obsessed with something the way you have to be to be a dog musher, and it's not something that's inspiring to me. I relate to being obsessed with stuff because that's kind of how I get with my stories. A lot of the women mushers get asked, 'What is it like to be a woman musher riding the Iditarod?' and it's kind of a crazy question to get asked because it's really the last thing any of us think about. You're just a dog musher. What matters is how good of a dog driver you are and how good you are at surviving and building a fire when you get wet and cold. No one cares if you have boobs."

"It wasn't until going to Alaska where I came to this realization that I can make important work that still has a message and inspires me, and it doesn't have to be sad. It's nothing new to them, but from an outsider's perspective, it's amazing, and I think it's something that would be great for young girls all over the world to see: this sport that's co-ed, that women are kicking ass."

"There's so much going on in the world. There's a lot of darkness, but there's also a lot of light and a lot of beauty, and I don't want everything that I photograph to be about one or the other."