George Steinmetz (born 1957) is an American photographer. His work has been featured in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', '' Smithsonian'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'', and he is a regular contributor to '' National Geographic''.

Early life

He was born in the neighborhood of

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in geophysics in 1979. He began his career in photography after hitchhiking through Africa for 28 months in his twenties.

Career

He is the author of five books, ''African Air'', ''Empty Quarter'', ''Desert Air'', ''New York Air'', and ''The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene'' which feature portfolios of his work in many regions of the world. ''African Air'' is a compilation of pictures from ten years of flying over Africa, mostly with a motorized paraglider. ''Empty Quarter'' contains images of the Arabian landscape, its people, and its wildlife. ''Desert Air'' is a photographic collection of the world's "extreme deserts", which receive less than four inches of precipitation per year. Included are photographs of the Gobi Desert, the Sahara, and

Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the ...

. "New York Air" is an aerial portrait of New York City with all its boroughs in all four seasons. ''The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene'' chronicles how humans have come to be the dominant force shaping the environment and the solutions people have come up with to protect the planet and combat pollution. Images taken on all seven continents over Steinmetz's thirty years of aerial photography explore climate and the natural world, how humans have harvested the biosphere and the footprint humanity is leaving on the planet. ''The Human Planet'' was honored with the Gold award for Best Travel Book in the 2020 - 2021 SATW Foundation Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. Since his first assignment for ''National Geographic'' in 1987, Steinmetz has completed more than 20 major essays for the magazine, including three covers. He has received many awards during his multi-decade career in photography, including two first prizes in science and technology from

World Press Photo World Press Photo Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955, the organization is known for holding an annual press photography contest. Since 2011, World Press Photo has organized a ...

. A recent project on large scale food production wo
The One Club Gold Cube Award
He has also won awards and citations from Pictures of the Year, including th
74th Annual POYi Environmental Vision Award

Overseas Press Club The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...

and ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'' magazine's

Alfred Eisenstaedt Alfred Eisenstaedt (December 6, 1898 – August 23, 1995) was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in Germany prior to World War II but achieved prominence as a staff photographer for ''Life'' magazine af ...

Awards. In 2006 he was awarded a grant by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

to profit from the work of scientists in the dry valleys and volcanoes of Antarctica. The LOOK3 Festival hosted Steinmetz as a keynote speaker in 2011 for his presentation titled "Wild Air". Much of his work focuses on photographing the world while piloting a motorized paraglider. This experimental aircraft enables him to capture images of the world inaccessible by traditional aircraft and most other modes of transportation. He began using the paraglider in 1997 when a pilot he had hired for a job in Niger quit. He has also begun using a drone for photography. In 2003 he was the first person to take pictures from a private aircraft in Iran following the revolution. There is a selection of his work exclusively represented by Anastasia Photo in NYC. His work has also been exhibited in Dubai, the Brookfield Winter Garden in New York., The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, The Konica-Minolta Plaza in Tokyo as well as public venues Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, Toronto, Stuttgart, Expo 2015 in Milano, the Triennale di Milano, and twice in the Festival Photo La Gacilly in France. There are several videos online that feature Steinmetz and his work. He was featured at TED Global 2017 in Tanzania, where he presented his work on Africa. He was interviewed by th
Explorers Club
and presented his work at th
LOOK3 Festival
in Charlottesville, the New England Aquarium, and Harvard University. He has videos to preview his books
African Air
',
Empty Quarter
', and
Desert Air
'. Steinmetz was a National Geographic explorer and wildlife photographer on ''

Welcome to Earth ''Welcome to Earth'' is the third studio album by Norwegian futurepop band Apoptygma Berzerk. It was released on February 22, 2000 on Metropolis Records but was earlier released on Tatra Records. The general themes of the album are those of e ...

'', the Disney+ original series from National Geographic that follows

Will Smith Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968), also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor and rapper. He began his acting career starring as a fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom '' The Fresh ...

on an extraordinary adventure around the world to explore Earth's greatest wonders and reveal its most hidden secrets. Steinmetz appeared in Episode 2: "Descent into Darkness" and Episode 3: "Mind of the Swarm".

Personal

He lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Steinmetz is married to Lisa Bannon, a writer at the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. They have three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steinmetz, George Living people 1957 births People from Beverly Hills, California Stanford University alumni American photographers American male writers Aerial photographers