National Geographic: The Photographs presents an amazing collection of award-winning National Geographic magazine photographs, the facts behind them, and the inside stories of the men and women who took them. The images capture rare moments in nature and the lives of animals, along with defining events in the lives of people everywhere. Many earlier pictures place the new ones in perspective, illustrating how the Geographic has created a unique photographic approach and maintained its tradition over decades, while evolving in response the changing realities that the photography documents. Five chapters cover the Society's major themes: wildlife on land and underwater, cultures in the United States and around the world, and science - from astronomy to archaeology to the human senses. On page after page, stunning images reveal the skill and imagination of Geographic's photographers. Accompanying the images are the photographer's accounts of adventures in the field - sometimes humorous, sometimes terrifying, always vividly compelling. Author Leah Bendavid-Val writes about the photographers' achievements from technical, journalistic, and artistic points of view. An introductory chapter chronicles the evolution of photographic principles at the Geographic and the visionaries who believed in the revolutionary idea that photography had the power to tell important truths about the world.