Through the Lens

About the book

Through the Len is a conucopia of National geographic's best photographs created since 1890 when the Society first started commissioning photographers to go out into the world and bring images back to its readership. Many of the 250 photographs have been previously published in the magazine but a great number of them are images that did not make the final edit but have great merit on their own. Readers can take a virtual tour around he world to see rice sellers in the Mekong Delta, teenagers in Brazil, duck hunters in Nebraska, and stingrays in the Cayman Islands, to name a few examples. You also move seamlessly back and forth in time, from the days when travellers climbed mountain trails by mule to colour-filled lofty airplane rides above the Galapagos Islands with a greater appreciation for technological advancements and the chance to suspend time either way.

Reviews

"These memorable pictures elevate ordinary moments and bring unimaginable adventures down to earth."—The Christian Science Monitor "[A] monumental collection of 250 photos...[this] book should make a considerable impression."—Publishers Weekly

Quotes

"These memorable pictures elevate ordinary moments and bring unimaginable adventures down to earth."--The Christian Science Monitor "[A] monumental collection of 250 photos...[this] book should make a considerable impression."--Publishers Weekly

National Geographic Biography

National Geographic (formerly the National Geographic Magazine, sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by the National Geographic Society. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely read magazines of all time. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine months after the establishment of the society, but is now a popular magazine. In 1905, it began including pictures, a style for which it became well-known. Its first color photos appeared in the 1910s. During the Cold War, the magazine committed itself to present a balanced view of the physical and human geography of countries beyond the Iron Curtain. Later, the magazine became outspoken on environmental issues. Since 2019, controlling interest has been held by The Walt Disney Company. Topics of features generally concern science, geography, history, and world culture. The magazine is well known for its distinctive appearance: a thick square-bound glossy format with a yellow rectangular border. Map supplements from National Geographic Maps are included with subscriptions. It is available in a traditional printed edition and an interactive online edition. As of 1995, the magazine was circulated worldwide in nearly 40 local-language editions and had a global circulation of at least 6.5 million per month (down from about 12 million in the late 1980s), including 3.5 million within the U.S. As of April 2022, its Instagram page has 216 million followers, the most of any account not belonging to an individual celebrity. As of 2015, the magazine had won 25 National Magazine Awards.

History

The first issue of the National Geographic Magazine was published on September 22, 1888, nine months after the Society was founded. It was initially a scholarly journal sent to 165 charter members; currently, it reaches the hands of 40 million people each month. Starting with its January 1905 publication of several full-page pictures of Tibet in 1900–01, the magazine changed from being a text-oriented publication to featuring extensive pictorial content, and became well known for this style. The June 1985 cover portrait of the presumed to be 12-year-old Afghan girl Sharbat Gula, shot by photographer Steve McCurry, became one of the magazine's most recognizable images.National Geographic Kids, the children's version of the magazine, was launched in 1975 under the name National Geographic World. In the late 1990s, the magazine began publishing The Complete National Geographic, an electronic compendium of every past issue of the magazine. It was then sued over copyright of the magazine as a collective work in Greenberg v. National Geographic and other cases, and temporarily withdrew the compilation. The magazine eventually prevailed in the dispute, and in July 2009 resumed publishing all past issues through December 2008. More recent issues were later added to the collection; the archive and electronic edition of the magazine are availab ... Read full biography