Oasis is the largest nature photo competition in Italy and each year it awards international photographers in ten different categories focused on aspects of the natural world.

Petersburger awarded first place

Click here to see Petersburger’s kingfisher images available for licensing.

An adult male common kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, dives into the water. Image #1268709: Joe Petersburger/National Geographic Stock

Adult male common kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, perches above a stream. Image #1268710: Joe Petersburger/National Geographic Stock

Adult female common kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, diving to catch fish. Image #1283430: oe Petersburger/National Geographic Stock

The Today Show’s Jenna Wolfe was here at National Geographic headquarters yesterday with National Geographic Assignment photographer Annie Griffiths. Annie took Jenna out to shoot with a Nikon camera on the National Mall, then it was back to headquarters to see the National Geographic image archive and get a sneak peak of Annie’s new book, Life in Color, coming out this fall. The Today Show segment is scheduled to air on June 3rd.

Jenna sent out photos from the day via Twitter:

Click here to see Annie’s stock photography.

National Geographic Stock photographers had a great year in the PDN Photography Annual this year, published this month. We had wins in the Stock Photography category highlighting images from four stories originally shot on assignment for National Geographic Magazine, now available for third party licensing. Congratulations to all of our esteemed winners!

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE OUR WINNING ENTRIES
Jimmy Chin: Climbing Yosemite


Carsten Peter: Hang Son Doong Cave, Vietnam

Joel Sartore: Africa’s Albertine Rift

May 29th, 2012 represents the 59th Anniversary of the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest.
Browse some of National Geographic Stock’s photos, both old and new, of the world’s highest mountain.
In 1953, John Hunt and his expedition team ventured to Nepal in order to endure the elements, overcome altitude-sickness, and concur the summit of Mt. Everest. This would be the ninth British expedition to attempt the climb. Hunt divided his team into two climbing units; the first pair was made up of Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans who came within 300 feet of the summit on May 26th, 1953, but turned around after encountering problems with their oxygen supply. The second unit, which comprised of New Zealander Edmund Hillary and a Nepali sherpa climber from Darjeeling, India named Tenzing Norgay, made the team’s final ascent and reached the summit at 11:30 a.m. local time on May 29th, 1953 by the South Col Route. Although both members of the second unit acknowledged the accomplished expedition as a team effort, Tenzing, a few years later, revealed that Hillary had put his foot on the summit first.

Once they had reached the top of the summit they paused, took photographs, and buried a few sweets and a small cross underneath the snow. This was their final act before descending back down the mountain. Later, as a result of their accomplishment, Hunt and Hillary would be knighted in the Order of the British Empire, Tenzing would be granted the George Medal by the United Kingdom, and Hillary would become a founding member of the Order of New Zealand. It is important to remember though, that the sweets and cross that the team buried at the peak of Everest, they buried on top of the world.

For more National Geographic Stock photos of Mt. Everest, click here.

By Hunter Calvert

It has almost been 32 years since the May 18th, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano located in Washington state that killed 57 people, had an eruption column that rose 80,000 feet into the atmosphere, and deposited ash in 11 U.S. states.
Prior to the eruption, earthquakes and steam-venting episodes were occurring frequently for two months. Because of this, scientists from the United States Geological Survey convinced local authorities to shut down and evacuate the region surrounding Mount St. Helens despite pressures from many ends to reopen it. These scientists ended up saving thousands of lives.

Visit National Geographic Stock for images of the area and the aftermath.

At 8:32:17am PDT on Sunday, May 18th, 1980, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake weakened the structure of the north face of Mount St. Helens, causing a landslide that traveled at 110 to 155 miles per hour and extended over an area of approximately 24 square miles. This landslide exposed the magma in the volcano’s neck to much lower pressure and as a result, explosions burst through the trailing part of the landslide. These fast-moving currents of rocks and extremely high temperature gases called called pyroclastic flows, can reach up to 1,830 °F. The resulting power of St. Helens pyroclastic flow knocked down about 230 square miles of forest and the extreme heat ended up killing trees miles beyond the blow-down zone. A huge ash column grew to a height of 12 miles sending about 540 million tons of ash over an area of 22,000 square miles.

In total, the eruption at Mount St. Helens produced 24 megatons of thermal energy with 7 megatons stemming directly from the blast alone. This amount of thermal energy is equivalent to roughly 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Click here for more images of Mount St. Helens – then and now.

Stephen Alvarez, an award-winning National Geographic photographer, recently shot a short film for the University of the South that takes 24 hours of footage shot on campus grounds and compresses it to just over 3 minutes. Interestingly, there is no actual video in the film and instead is comprised of over 5,000 still images. These images were shot over the course of a month and blended together to create one perfect day.

The film has helped the University connect with prospective students, faculty, and staff through a creative, and viral medium in order to show them what the campus has to offer in terms of sheer beauty.

To view some stock photographs of more of Stephen’s work, click here.

Make sure to cast your vote for the National Geographic “On Assignment” video by Camp 4 Collective for this year’s Vimeo Awards. The video follows Jimmy Chin, a National Geographic photographer, filmmaker, and explorer of boundless capability and class, as he photographed for a National Geographic story about Yosemite’s new generation of climbers. These “superclimbers” are well known for pushing boundaries, defying odds, and experiencing a freedom most will never come to know. The video is being nominated in the Action Sports category, which recognizes videos that use film making to creatively showcase action sports.

The video can been seen below. And remember, make sure to vote for “On Assignment”!

Around this time of year almost everyone can think of either a family member, friend, or acquaintance who is about to be handed a diploma. These are the times of new beginnings, long-feared goodbyes, and of never ending lectures from the old and wise. Whether it is a doctoral or kindergarten graduation or anything in between, there is one element to putting on the ole cap n’ gown that graduates of all ages tend to dislike the most: the taking of too many photos. So if you’re done with poor lighting, photos not being in focus, and heads being chopped out of the frame, stop having grandma or your 13 year-old “artistic” nephew take the pictures.

Instead, come browse high-quality graduation photos from some award-winning National Geographic photographers by clicking here.

Trust us, it’s a lot easier this way.

These photos have just been released from embargo and are now available for licensing from National Geographic. All of the photos are from National Geographic Magazine’s January 2012 issue and have never been offered for licensing purposes before.
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A THING OR TWO ABOUT TWINS – Photographs by Jodi Cobb
“They have the same piercing eyes. The same color hair. One may be shy, while the other loves meeting new people. Discovering why identical twins differ—despite having the same DNA—could reveal a great deal about all of us.”
These are the words and theme that Peter Miller conveyed in his January 2012 piece on how studies involving twins have and will continue to offer insight into the structures and intricacies of the human body, epigenetics, and DNA in the future. Already, twin-based studies have provided us with the knowledge that alcoholism, heart disease, and Schizophrenia are not in fact linked to lifestyle choices or bad parenting, but are rather plainly genetic.

In order to browse more of Jodi Cobb’s photo series on twins, click here.

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THE HEALING FIELDS – Photographs by Lynn Johnson
“Land mines once crippled a war-ravaged Cambodia. Today the nation is a model for how to recover from this scourge.” – Mark Jenkins
In this story, both Mark Jenkins and Lynn Johnson capture the will and diligence of Cambodia as its recovery programs and citizens united to bring about a future of strength and promise to their own nation. After the war in Cambodia, which lasted from 1970 until 1998, the nation was left with fields, forests, hills, and mountains that were littered with landmines. Despite having a horrific history, Cambodia is now the model for how to combat and recover from landmine warfare. They introduced programs for demining, land mine risk education, and survivor assistance within the country. There’s a new sense of hope spreading across Cambodia. The country is becoming a place where you can dream of a better life—and where sometimes, those dreams come true.

If you would like to browse more photos of Cambodia, the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon, recovered munitions, or the marvels of prosthesis, click here.

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RIDING OUT ANOTHER SEASON – Photographs by William Albert Allard
“Harsh isolation didn’t deter homesteaders from making a life along northern Montana’s Hi-Line. Their tight-knit descendants show no less resolve.” – David Quammen
David Quammen and William Albert Allard seek out to explore and clarify what it means to be a farmer, rancher, or harvester in the battle against weather, nature, and making ends meet. The region in which this battle takes place is called Montana. The feature story follows many different characters as they document and explain not only the paths that led them to where they are now, but also where they see their future going. And for the life of a farmer, the past and the future are two awfully hard topics to ponder on for too long. Allard accurately documents the weathered, but optimistic souls inhabiting Montana while putting emphasis on the state’s lonesomeness, hardships, yet rewarding environment.

If you’d like to browse more of Allard’s photos of The Treasure State and its big skies, click here.

By Hunter Calvert

On April 24th, 1990, a dream that had began with Lyman Spitzer in 1946 became a reality as people all over the globe watched the Hubble Space Telescope launch into outer space. Named after the famous American astronomer Edwin Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope is a 7.9 ft aperture telescope in low Earth orbit with four main instruments observing in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared.

The low orbit allows the telescope to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light, which allows us to observe some of the most fascinating and detailed images of other planets, systems, and galaxies. Twenty-two years and four servicing missions later, the telescope still remains in operation, providing some of the most important images and insights into the infinity beyond our world’s atmosphere.

To see more photos captured by or of the Hubble Space Telescope, click here.

By Hunter Calvert