Women of Vision: Eleven Photojournalists from National Geographic

By Suzanne Cohen

The Orlando Museum of Art is presenting “Women of Vision: National Geographic Photographers on Assignment,” a show featuring nearly 100 photographs, including moving depictions of far-flung cultures, compelling illustrations of conceptual topics such as memory and teenage brain chemistry, and arresting images of social issues like child marriage and 21st-century slavery. Curated by National Geographic senior photo editor Elizabeth Krist, “Women of Vision” gathers the works of Amy Toensing, Jodi Cobb, Lynsey Addario, Kitra Cahana, Diane Cook, Carolyn Drake, Lynn Johnson, Beverly Joubert, Erika Larsen, Stephanie Sinclair and Maggie Steber. This show delves into the lives and bodies of work of these photojournalists, who capture compelling stories from all over the world to explore what it means to be human today.

The 11 award-winning female photojournalists who are featured in National Geographic's exhibition “Women of Vision: National Geographic Photographers on Assignment.” From left: Erika Larsen, Kitra Cahana, Jodi Cobb, Amy Toensing, Carolyn Drake, Beverly Joubert, Stephanie Sinclair, Diane Cook, Lynn Johnson, Maggie Steber and Lynsey Addario. Photo: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic.

“For the last decade, some of our most powerful stories have been produced by a new generation of photojournalists who are women,” said Kathryn Keane, vice president of National Geographic Exhibitions. “These women are as different as the places and the subjects they have covered, but they all share the same passion and commitment to storytelling that has come to define National Geographic.” The show underscores National Geographic’s history of documenting the world through photography and its ongoing commitment to supporting photographers as important and innovative storytellers who can make a difference with their work, she said.

Photographer Jodi Cobb has worked in over 65 countries and produced 30 NGM stories, including “21st -Century Slaves,” which was among the most popular stories in the magazine’s history. Cobb was the only photographer to penetrate the geisha world, which resulted in her Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art. She was also the first photographer to document the hidden lives of the women of Saudi Arabia and among the first to travel across China when it reopened to the West. She has received numerous accolades, including repeated honors from the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International and World Press Photo, as well as receiving the 2012 Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. She was also the first woman to be named White House Photographer of the Year.

Stephanie Sinclair, Too Young to Wed, 2011. Nujood Ali stunned the world in 2008 by obtaining a divorce at age ten in Yemen, striking a blow against forced marriage.

Born in Miami but raised in Canada and Sweden, Kitra Cahana explores important social, anthropological and spiritual themes. She earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy from McGill University and her master’s degree in visual and media anthropology from the Freie Universitat in Berlin. She has won a first prize from World Press Photo, a TED Fellowship and an ICP Infinity Award. Her work includes images taken on assignment for NGM’s important feature on the teenage brain and culture in the United States.

For her part, Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow Lynsey Addario has been focused on human right issues, particularly the plight of women and families in conflict zones. She is widely admired for her conflict coverage in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur and the Congo.

Kitra Cahana, Teenage Brain, 2011. Getting her tongue pierced was “exciting and scary” says a teen who succumbed to pressure from her best friend.

Diane Cook is a leading landscape photographer whose work is in numerous collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, and the L.A. County Museum in Los Angeles. Cook often works collaboratively with her husband, Len Jenshel. Their NGM stories have covered New York’s elevated park the High Line, Mount St. Helens, Green Roofs, the Na’Pali Coast of Hawaii, the U.S.-Mexico border and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Carolyn Drake has spent years documenting the cultures of Central Asia and life in western China’s Uygur region. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, the Lange-Taylor Prize, a World Press Photo award and was a finalist for the Santa Fe Prize.

Carolyn Drake, The Other Tibet - China's Uygurs, 2009. In Hotan, a Uygur town with a rising Han Chinese population, Uygurs socialize at their own nightclubs.

Knight Fellow Lynn Johnson has covered a wide range of assignments for NGM, producing images for 21 stories on subjects including vanishing languages and challenges facing human populations in Africa and Asia. Johnson has also participated in photo camps in Chad, Botswana and at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She has received several awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for coverage of the disabled.

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Maggie Steber, Four Sisters Napping in their Bed, Miami. Nestled in their bed in Miami, Florida, four young sisters nap on a Sunday afternoon after attending church.

Beverly Joubert has documented the plight of African wildlife for over 30 years together with her husband, Dereck Joubert. Beverly’s images have appeared in National Geographic Magazine and more than 100 magazines worldwide, and they have co-authored several books and scientific papers. The Jouberts have also produced over 25 television documentaries and a feature film, The Last Lions (2011), which has been viewed by more than 350 million people worldwide. These films have received many awards from around the globe, including seven Emmys, a Peabody, Panda Book Awards and conservation accolades such as the World Ecology Award, an induction into the American Academy of Achievement and the Presidential Order for Meritorious Service for their conservation work in Botswana. In 2011, CBS’ “60 Minutes” did a profile on their lives, documenting their film and conservation work in Africa.

Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, Double rainbow over the cliffs of Kalalau on Na Pali, Hawaii.

Erika Larsen studies cultures with strong ties to nature. She published a 2009 story in NGM on the Sami reindeer herders of Scandinavia, an assignment that grew out of her own documentary work for which she lived and worked within the culture for more than four years. Larsen received a BFA and MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowship. Larsen’s photography has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and the Sami Ájtte Museum in Sweden.

Stephanie Sinclair’s decade-long project on child marriage has earned global recognition, including three World Press Photo awards and prestigious exhibitions on Capitol Hill, at the United Nations and at the Whitney Biennial in New York. Her word has captured scenes from Yemen and from polygamist families in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Erika Larsen, Sami mourns loss of two Reindeer that starved after locking horns in a fight, Sweden.

A celebrated figure in the photographic community, Maggie Steber has worked in over 62 countries and her images have earned several prestigious honors, including the Leica Medal of Excellence and World Press Photo awards. NGM has published her essays about Miami, the African slave trade, the Cherokee Nation, sleep, soldiers’ letters, as well as a story about the science of memory that featured a touching sidebar on Steber’s mother, Madje, and her struggle with dementia.

Amy Toensing began her prolific career covering the White House and Congress for The New York Times. She has created portraits of unforgettable people around the world while shooting NGM stories in Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, the New Jersey shore and Tonga. For three years she documented Aboriginal Australia for a story that was published in the June 2013 issue of NGM. Toensing is also committed to teaching photography to kids in underserved communities. She has worked with Somali and Sudanese refugees in Maine and Burmese refugees in Baltimore and recently traveled to Islamabad to teach young Pakistanis.

Lynsey Addario, Women on the Front Lines, Kabul. Women (mostly widows) train for police force jobs at a firing range near Kabul.

Through this selection of images, these 11 photojournalists demonstrate a passion for their profession and a commitment to depict the essence of humanity.

“Women of Vision: National Geographic Photographers on Assignment” will be on view through April 24 at Orlando Museum of Art. 2416 North Mills Ave. Orlando, Fla. 32803 /  www.omart.org.

Suzanne Cohen is an arts writer based in Orlando.