The deepest cave drop

The deepest cave drop in the continental United States is found underneath Pigeon Mountain in Georgia. The “Fantastic Pit” in Ellison’s Cave drops 586 vertical feet.

First Photos of Another Planet's Surface

Photograph courtesy NSSDC/GSFC/NASA

From June to October 1975, Russian space probe Venera 9 became the first craft to orbit, land on, and photograph Venus. Venera 9 consisted of two main parts that separated in orbit, an orbiter and a lander. The 5,070-pound (2,300-kilogram) orbiter relayed communication and photographed the planet in ultraviolet light. The lander entered the Venusian atmosphere using a series of parachutes and employed a special panoramic photometer to produce 180-degree panoramic photos of the surface of the planet.

Moon Footprint

Get Wallpaper

Photograph courtesy NASA

A symbol of mankind’s giant leap, this photo of man’s small step—astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s—shows one of the first human prints left on the surface of the moon. Aldrin took this photo of his own footprint during NASA’s 1969 Apollo 11 mission.

First Photo of the Sun

Photograph courtesy National Science Foundation, High Altitude Observatory

Taking advantage of a relatively new technology, the daguerreotype, French physicists Louis Fizeau and Leon Foucault made the first successful photographs of the sun on April 2, 1845. The original image, taken with an exposure of 1/60th of a second, was about 4.7 inches (12 centimeters) in diameter and captured several sunspots, visible in this reproduction.

First Color Photo From Venus

Photograph courtesy NASA/Venera 13 Lander

In spite of surface temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius) and atmospheric pressure 92 times that of sea level on Earth, Russian spacecraft Venera 13 captured the first color photos of the desertlike surface of Venus on March 1, 1982. This 170-degree panorama, which includes the zigzag lip of the lander at bottom, was created using blue, green, and red filters.

First Panoramic Photo of Mars

Photograph courtesy NASA/Camera 2 on Viking 1

Shortly after Viking 1 landed on Mars on July 20, 1976, its Camera 2 captured the first photograph ever taken of the planet’s surface. This 300-degree image shows Chryse Planitia, the flat, low-lying plain of Mars’s northern hemisphere, littered with mechanical parts from the lander and rocks that range from four to eight inches (10 to 20 centimeters) across.

First Photo of Earth From Mars

Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL/Main Space Science Systems

The first Martian's-eye-view of Earth and its moon was captured on May 8, 2003, by a camera aboard NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor craft. Shot from Mars at a distance of 86 million miles (139 million kilometers) from Earth, the image reveals an illuminated slice of Earth’s Western Hemisphere—as well as a celestial perspective of the world in which we live.

First Color Photo of Earthrise

Get Wallpaper

Photograph by NASA/Apollo 8 astronaut William A. Anders

When Apollo 8 was deployed in 1968, its sole photographic mission was to capture high-resolution images of the moon’s surface, but when the orbiting spacecraft emerged from a photo session on the far side of the moon, the crew snapped this, the most famous shot of the mission. Dubbed "Earthrise," this view of the Earth rising from the horizon of the moon helped humans realize the fragility of their home.

First Photo of Earth From the moon

Photograph courtesy NASA/Lunar Orbiter 1

This photo reveals the first view of Earth from the moon, taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 23, 1966. Shot from a distance of about 236,000 miles (380,000 kilometers), this image shows half of Earth, from Istanbul to Cape Town and areas east, shrouded in night.

First Full-View Photo of Earth

Get Wallpaper

Photograph courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center

This famous "Blue Marble" shot represents the first photograph in which Earth is in full view. The picture was taken on December 7, 1972, as the Apollo 17 crew left Earth’s orbit for the moon. With the sun at their backs, the crew had a perfectly lit view of the blue planet.

Wishing for More, Working to Get It

Photograph by Jim Richardson

Contributing editor Jim Richardson is a photojournalist recognized for his explorations of small-town life. His photos appear frequently in National Geographicmagazine.

Recently an old picture brought new rewards. For several reasons.

While putting together a new show for our gallery, I riffled through the files looking for examples of my aerial photography over the years. The show’s simple (but catchy) title: Bird's Eye. Because we own our gallery, I was free to pick whatever images I liked to put on the wall. (That's one of the delicious freedoms of being a gallery owner. Going broke in a creative way is another one.)

Almost immediately I thought of this image of wheat fields in the Palouse region of Washington State. It had never seen the light of day. Yet I remembered well the day I took it—a fresh summer one, puffy clouds casting fast-moving shadows across harvested fields.

And those amazing field patterns. Wheat farming in the Palouse is a dry-land affair, mostly un-irrigated and done in dusty fields that get little rainfall. So its farmers decided long ago to grow a crop every other year, allowing meager moisture to accumulate over two years to grow one good crop. Hence, the fields are planted in the strips that undulate over rolling hills in such geometric splendor.

It was perfect for my visual story for National Geographic magazine. Many of my stories—this one on sustainable agriculture—have been improved by views from the air. High above, the world is chock full of visual answers to questions of geography and form that are difficult to perceive from the ground.

So 20 years after I shot the image, I got out the slide (remember those?) from the thousands of sheets of slides in the file cabinets (remember those too?) and stuck it in the scanner on my desk. Scanning is time consuming, which is why the vast majority of my pictures will never be scanned into digital form and thus will never see the light of day, either. Just the facts of life in our digital age.

While working up that image, I recalled more details of the day spent above the Palouse in a Cessna 172.

A photographer's paradise. And a gullible photographer's doom, as well.

It’s all too easy to get lulled into complacency by the easy visual pickings. Up there, flying with a master pilot and the hawks and eagles, it's easy to believe that a camera pointed in any random direction will produce a masterwork. It won't. Back on the ground and looking at the images, failure will loom just as large. What looked fascinating and monumental in person will all too often look like random, small-scale chatter in the pictures.

Time for a reality check. Pictures still need composition and centers of interest, even when taken from an airplane. I knew that very well on the morning I took this photograph because I have failed at it so many times in the four decades of my shooting career. Which is why I knew I had to do two vital things: organize the patterns in the frame and find something to be the focal point of the image. When I found the farmhouse and barn gleaming white at the end of a field I was pretty sure I had it. After that, it was an issue of figuring out the angle and how the field patterns could be made to line up. So I asked the pilot to circle a few times while I pondered the various possibilities. On one of the passes I saw how the one strip came looming out and ended among the freshly cropped wheat, replete with the patterns of the combine tracks. That was my angle.

Getting the plane in position to shoot it was another matter. Giving directions to a pilot (who, no matter how able, can't see though your viewfinder or into your head) is not always easy. And you want to be low and close to avoid lots of atmospheric haze. It took us over a dozen passes to get it right that morning, flying in toward the fields, almost getting it, then going around again to have another pass while making small corrections in flight path and position.

But I wanted more and was willing to work to get it.

I also wanted the clouds—the whole glorious atmosphere of that day—in the picture. That meant two things: shooting a very wide-angle lens vertically, which would make positioning the aircraft even more critical, and hoping for the clouds to cast shadows in the best places. Many times we would come around into position just as a shadow went over the farmhouse! Fortunately, my pilot had the patience of Job. I don't know if he had ever flown another photographer with my manic obsession before, but he joined in the incredible jubilation when we finally got it. While I was whooping for joy, a small grin of satisfaction crept over his face.

Then the picture slid into oblivion. Good as it was, it didn't make it into the story in National Geographic magazine, and before the era of the web, it just went where most photos went: into a cozy slide sheet among many thousands of slide sheets in the drawers.

For 20 years. Until last week, when I started putting together the show for our gallery with the hope that there might be something worthwhile to pull out from the archives.

On screen the image looked good. Printed to 30" x 45", it looked very good, and it became the signature piece in the exhibit. Watching gallery visitors view the show, I can see that they always stop and enjoy that image. By extension they take away something of the wonder of that day in the Palouse. They'll never feel everything that I felt up there in the air, never know the howling rush of wind as I opened the aircraft window for another run of shooting, never feel the sun coming through the windshield or wonder at the racing shadows. But something of all that comes through. And it is one of the blessings of photography that it can.

Freezing Water

Photograph by Jim Richardson

Contributing editor Jim Richardson is a photojournalist recognized for his explorations of small-town life. His photos appear frequently in National Geographicmagazine.

Perhaps unlocking one creative door opens another.

Somehow that’s how I felt dashing back to the Zodiacs to leave Thistle Fjord in Iceland, flush with confidence from my photographic encounter with the bird wing. If I could break through that creative barrier, what other challenges would succumb to me?

Then I remembered the cascading waterfall near our landing site. Nothing huge, just crystal clear waters sweeping past the ancient farm and dancing down over the rocks to the sea. With a couple of minutes to spare, perhaps I could pull off one more image.

First, a bit of photographic background. Waterfall pictures are moving perilously close to being clichés. I say "close" because I doubt we humans will ever lose our fascination with the delights of cascading water plunging dramatically from on high. But ... the techniques used to capture waterfall pictures have become standard fare. The most common current rage is to use a long, very slow shutter speed to turn the water into silky, silvery curtains of liquid smoothness. And lovely pictures they are. It's just that the style has been done over and over by countless photographers. Me, too—guilty as charged.

The method is simple, even if accomplishing it takes a bit of gear. You simply use a slow shutter speed, usually a half a second or longer, maybe up to as long as 30 seconds. The water in motion blurs to become as smooth as glass. The trick is getting that long shutter speed in broad daylight. You can crank the f-stop all the way down, use the lowest ISO your camera can manage, and still not get there. This is where you need to have a good, strong neutral density (ND) filter, which will cut out enough light to make the long exposure time possible. (Oh, and it should go without saying, you’ll need your tripod or a very conveniently placed rock to set your camera on.)

Well, I didn’t have either an ND filter or my tripod along, which—as it turned out—was a very good thing. That meant I couldn’t fall back on my old tricks and would have to try something new.

But there was more than mere necessity at work here. This waterfall, this setting on the coast of Iceland, was all about bracing clarity, energy, and the freshness of the moment. It was not about serenity and peacefulness, which the usual silky-water picture would have implied. Besides not having the gear to take that picture, I wanted something else.

So I went to the opposite extreme, which is often the most refreshing way out of a creative trap. I decided to try totally freezing the water with a very high shutter speed. In this case that was 1/2500 of a second, which turned the sparkling water into crystallized glass, full of dazzling shapes and totally unexpected textures. My eye could see nothing of this. It was the act of photography that revealed the possibilities.

So I kept exploring the nuances, moving closer to the side of the waterfall, able to get within mere inches of the water (without drowning my Nikon D3), seeing how getting lower put the glasslike water up against the azure sky. Held still in space, the water suggested something I knew was impossible: transparent lava.

In the end the image seemed more appropriate to this starkly beautiful land, so raw and new, so of the moment. In the middle of all this my faithful fedora blew off into the stream and up into the pool above me. Then it came swirling back by, where I could grab it, now sopping wet, but a good omen of luck within my reach.

Panning—Motion 101

Photograph by Jim Richardson

Contributing editor Jim Richardson is a photojournalist recognized for his explorations of small-town life. His photos appear frequently in National Geographicmagazine.

Panning is a photographic mind game. But a very cool mind game.

Technically, you should not be able to show motion in a still photograph. After all, the image on the paper is not moving; it’s not going anywhere. But your mind takes the blurred image and tries to make sense out of it. "Aha!" it says. "That’s not a blurry picture; that’s a horse and wagon moving very fast. I get it."

Part of our delight in “reading” pictures is the I get it part.

Panning is nothing new. It’s been around almost as long as photography itself. Originally it was forced on photographers who had no hope of capturing fast moving action without moving the camera in synch with their subjects. They simply lacked film that was fast enough to give them a fast shutter speed.

Racehorses and early motorcar races were enticing subjects at the turn of the century. Photographers discovered, to their delight, that they could get reasonably sharp images and that they really liked the streaked backgrounds resulting from swinging the camera along with their subject.

The joy of that discovery never seems to fade. Discovering this little trick was one of the most thrilling stages of my early photography. I must have been 13 or 14 years old, playing with my dad’s old folding Ansco (he’d moved further up the photographic equipment ladder by then). The camera had one shutter speed: 1/50th of a second—hardly enough to stop a lazy butterfly. I had a beagle named Dixie who was like a streak of lightning when it came to chasing rabbits. No way to stop that motion with a 1/50th-of-a-second shutter speed.

Panning was the answer. I must have picked up the technique from one of the photography magazines of the day. I remember thinking: You move the camera during the picture? How’s that going to work?

Slowly, the concept dawned on me. If I panned along with my racing Dixie—that is, if I moved the camera in perfect synchronized motion with her as she flew by—she would actually remain in almost exactly the same place in the picture! The rest of the image would be blurred, but since she was glued to one spot on the film she would be fairly sharp.

It worked! Dixie was sharp—well, my kind of sharp at that time—and the background was wonderfully blurred. When I raced out of the darkroom to show the picture to my parents, they offered a tone of incredulous awe. That tone of their voices was music to my ears. Later that summer, the same picture elicited similar accolades from the judge at the county fair. She gave me a blue ribbon (before moving on to judge the canned tomatoes).

I was hooked.

Almost every student photographer I’ve ever taught has the same aha! moment when they finally get the idea. But while the concept is simple, the execution has many ways of going wrong.

So here are a few tips to up your percentage of keepers. Panning is a percentage game. One in ten good shots is major league success. One in 100 is not out of the ordinary. But that one will be worth your trouble.

• Understand the basic concept. Panning works when you move the camera in perfect motion with the subject. It’s not enough to just swing the camera from side to side. You have to move it in perfect synch with your subject.
• Choose the right subject. Generally (and up to a point) it is easier to pan with a fast-moving subject than a slow one. Sprinters running sideways to you are great examples. They are moving fast enough that you can pan smoothly with their motion, and they are running in a straight line. People walking are almost impossible; they are too slow to get much blur and it’s difficult to pan smoothly. Football players are tough because they move erratically.
• Use Manual Exposure or maybe Shutter Priority metering. Whichever you choose, the object is the same. You don’t want the shutter speed to change while you are shooting.
• Pick a good shutter speed. This is important; however, there is no “correct” shutter speed for panning. The longer the shutter speed, the more blurred the background will be. A long shutter speed will make your subject pop out from the background, and that is good. But the longer the shutter speed, the more difficult it is to get the subject reasonably sharp. It’s a balancing act. As a starting point, let’s go back to the example of the sprinters running across the picture. Try anything between 1/8 and 1/60 of a second. Beyond 1/8 of a second it's really tough to get sharp, but it can be very interesting. Above 1/60 of a second, the camera will probably stop too much action and ruin the effect. Except for low-flying jets at air shows. Then you might need 1/500 second, and that brings us to our next problem.
• Find the right background. The right background is almost as important as the right subject. The background must have some detail in order to produce the pleasing streaks you are looking for. That is why the jet is a bad subject for panning when it is up against a plain blue sky. Pan all you want but the sky will still be a featureless blue. Nothing will look as if it “moved.” On the other hand, backgrounds with too much contrast will often make bad backgrounds for panning. Just one person in a white T-shirt can create an unsightly white blob in your photograph. Choose carefully.
• Use the viewfinder correctly. Your viewfinder is your friend when it comes to panning. The best trick is to find a focusing mark in your viewfinder and put it on your moving subject. Now, try to keep that point perfectly aligned with your subject. Crosshairs would be perfect, but we don’t have them in camera viewfinders, so we have to make do with what we’ve got.
• Practice panning smoothly. Fluid, smooth motion is the name of the game. No jerking, no rushing, no hesitation. Stand with your body facing where you ideally want to shoot the picture, then rotate your shoulders to pick up your subject in the viewfinder. Start shooting before your subjects reach the ideal point; keep shooting after they pass that point. Follow through just like a good golfer. And practice. Good panning shooters literally go out and just practice their movements.

Viking Attacks and Group Photos

Photograph by Jim Richardson

Contributing editor Jim Richardson is a photojournalist recognized for his explorations of small-town life. His photos appear frequently in National Geographicmagazine.

While cruising the wild Hebridean seas, we were attacked by Vikings. Beset, we were, by wild men—and women—returned to their ancient haunts, and bedecked in their ancient garb.

Otherwise, it was a nice evening.

Touring the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis had been glorious (as it always is) and the Zodiacs were waiting to take us back to the National Geographic Explorer. Looking like orange-clad doughboys in our life vests, we were facing stiff winds when the Vikings appeared in a side cove. And, glory be, they were a friendly lot, dispensing very welcome hot toddies and looking ever so fearsome in their (plastic) horned helmets. It was a moment that called out for a group photo.

Which brings me (at long last) to my core question: Which is worse, being attacked by Vikings or having to take a group photo?

Being the photographer saddled with group photo duties is made all the worse because many of the hapless subjects feel like they are being subjected to torture and will not go willingly to their fate. The rest seize the moment to play the clown and can be heard chortling and snorting at their clever disruptions. At best it is like herding sheep, and at worst like herding cats. Generally, chaos rules the day.

It doesn’t have to be that way. And sometimes it can actually be fun, as it was on this evening with the Vikings. I quickly surmised that resistance was futile and so adopted the old physician's dictum: first, do no harm. After all, there was no reigning in this ragtag band. Better to let the chaos run rampant and just capture the fun. If one or two revelers got lost in the fray, so be it. No fancy lighting either. Just a flash on the camera, a couple of quick adjustments to get the sunset glow, and fire away. This is what motor drives are made for.

You won’t always be so lucky. So here are a few tips to ease your misery.

• Take command. Fear not (or at least, show no fear). Everyone expects that someone else in charge of this mess. Step up to the plate. Rise above the fray (literally) if you can. A step ladder is a quite good bully pulpit, and a commanding voice will generally bring the rabble to attention. Become the focal point of activity and half the battle is won.
• Organize the bodies. Think ahead about the physical layout you want for the picture. Then figure out an efficient way to line everyone up or move them around. Old time group photographers used to put a chalk line on the ground. When the group arrived they would tell everyone to stand on the chalk line. Simple. You can try putting a row of chairs where you want them (thinking about composition), then grab the first folks to arrive and tell them to please sit down. As more arrive ask them to fill in behind (and NOT to go beyond either end of the row of chairs.) Then grab a few of younger, spry ones and ask them to sit on the ground up front.
• Recruit co-conspirators. Find a couple of folks to help you on the ground. For instance, the crowd will just naturally want to spill out too far on either side. So grab two people and put them at each end of the line where you want your group. Just say “Stand here and don’t let anybody go outside of you, OK?”
• “Build” a composition. If the group isn’t too large (fewer than a dozen, perhaps) you can often build a more relaxed grouping. Start by select one or two people as the centerpiece (Grandma and Grandpa?) and put them in a central position. Then start adding people, one by one, in around them. Take people gently by the arm, if you have to, and move them where you want them. Don’t expect everyone to just sort of fill in naturally.
• Try subdividing. Some groups naturally lend themselves to subdividing, gathering smaller arrangements of two, three, or four people together within the larger scene. This can add visual variety and make things look much less stuffy. (And not everyone has to stand directly facing the camera. Have a few folks stand sideways, then turn their heads to the camera.)
• Try a different angle. Getting above a group is a marvelous way to see everyone’s face. Just make sure they really get their chins up and look you straight in the face.
• Move quickly. You won’t keep the group’s attention forever so have everything in readiness. Camera focused, exposure checked, lighting checked.
• Talk to them constantly! As long as you are talking they will pay attention to you. If you stop talking then little conversations will break out, and then full-fledged laughter and debates. By then you’re lost. Keep up a little chatter and you’ll stay in charge.
• Make it fun. A little zaniness on your part will go a long way toward easing the atmosphere.
• Play the maestro. When it comes time to snap the picture, change the tempo and take command. Make eye contact. (I like to have the camera on a tripod so I don’t have to be looking through the viewfinder.) Raise your arm like you are ready for the downbeat and say something like “OK, everybody, we’re ready.” (And be ready.)
• Tell them what you want them to do. Remember at this critical moment that all those folks have any idea of what’s happening unless you tell them. I like to be really, really plain. I say, “OK, look at me, look at me, don’t blink, eyes open, look at me, don’t blink” while I snap away. The best way to get everybody’s eyes open is to take several pictures. If you need to make adjustments then tell them so. I say, “Don’t go anywhere, but you can relax for a moment.” Ideally, once I get them in position l like the picture to be over and done in 30 seconds.
• Try something different. Before you let them go take one more. Maybe you can ask everyone to give you a BIG wave or throw their arms in the air (assuming you aren’t photographing the Supreme Court justices).
• Disband the crowd (and grab one more). Keep your finger on the shutter when you say “Thank you everyone.” Very often the pleasant confusion of the breakup is interesting in itself. Sport teams are particularly likely to come to life in the moment when everyone is being released.

Piece of cake!

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur (Photo of the Day JUNE 7, 2013)

Download Wallpaper (1600 x 1200 pixels)

Musicians, New Orleans (Photo of the day Jun 08,2013)