George Steinmetz

Since the domestication of plants began some 11,000 years ago, humans have converted 40% of the earth’s surface into farmland. With the global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by the year 2050, combined with the rising standard of living in rapidly developing nations, it is estimated that we will have to increase the global food supply by 60%. The Feed the Planet project is an examination of how the world can meet the rapidly expanding challenge of feeding humanity without putting more natural lands under the plow.  Most of us only come into contact with raw food in the supermarket, and are unaware of the methods used to raise it. In many cases, the food industry goes to significant lengths to prevent us from seeing how our food is produced. Access to this information is central to the personal decisions we make about what we eat, which cumulatively have huge environmental impact. This project seeks to show how our food is produced, so that we can make more informed decisions.

The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene is a visual chronicle of how humans have come to be the dominant force shaping our planet, as seen through George’s thirty years of aerial photography across all seven continents. The visual narrative evolves through three chapters, exploring climate and the natural world, examining how humans have harvested the biosphere, and showcasing the footprint that humanity is leaving on the planet in its quest to build shelter, grow food, generate energy, and create beauty through art and architecture. In George’s images, we encounter the beautiful, dramatic, and changing face of the human planet.

As China has become more affluent, its population is demanding a diet with more meat and dairy products, but there is not enough arable land to feed all the pigs, ducks and chickens, or the aquaculture farms that ring its coastline. This has turned China into the world’s largest importer of food. This project takes a look at how modern China is feeding its 1.4 billion people.

Expanding populations and advances in fishing technology have led to a rapid decline in marine wildlife around the world. In the United States, over 90% of seafood is imported, primarily as tuna, salmon and shrimp. Increasing fishing pressure has caused us to move down the food chain from one overfished/crashed stock to another as we relentlessly strip the oceans of wildlife. This project includes pictures from the United States, China, Thailand, Australia, Bangladesh, India, Spain, Mauritania, Senegal, Peru, and the Falkland Islands, and documents how both large corporations and barefoot fisher folk have been emptying out the seas.

The New York Times assigned George to take aerial photographs of the effects of climate change on every continent for a special issue of their Sunday magazine. Over the course of a year, George put in over a hundred days of fieldwork in Greenland, Switzerland, Mauritania, Bangladesh, China, Australia, Brazil, and Antarctica, to create an extraordinary document of our challenged planet. The journey involved five helicopters, three crashed drones, one hurricane, and a sailboat ride across some of the wildest seas on earth. This ambitious project received additional funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Shooting from dawn to dusk in America’s largest city, George spent all of 2014 photographing New York City from a small helicopter. He created an in-depth portrait of the city as it went through a major construction boom, with a new skyline, waterfront landscape, and dazzling contemporary architecture. But he also examined the relatively timeless aspects of New York and how the city transforms itself through the seasons. These aerial photographs have a  surprising intimacy, as they capture New Yorkers going about their lives in a most extraordinary urban habitat.

Advances in technology and globalization of the food industry continue to revolutionize food production. The United States remains the world’s largest exporter of food, and at the cutting edge of new technologies to produce it. George spent a year photographing the strange grandeur of the largest food growers in the U.S. to create this portfolio for the New York Times Magazine.

For fifteen years George worked on an obsessive project to photograph all of the world’s hyper-arid regions. It started with learning to fly a motorized paraglider over the Sahara in the late 90s and eventually took him to 27 countries plus Antarctica. What he found was a dazzling array of co-evolved landscapes, like a disparate family, with each desert having unique variations of arid features like sand dunes, salt lakes, and wind erosion. He also discovered the highly developed strategies that allow man, vegetation, and wildlife to endure on the outer limits of survival. This portfolio is a small selection of this work that appeared in George’s book, Desert Air.

By the year 2050, it is estimated that the world’s population will increase to almost ten billion people, and with the rapidly increasing wealth in China and Latin America we will have to double the global food supply. National Geographic asked George to take a look at the way industrialized agriculture will meet this growing demand. He went to Brazil where forest is rapidly being converted to farmland, to the United States and Japan where a mature food industry is seeking ways to increase efficiency, and to China where industrialization is both increasing demand for food and removing farmland from food production.

Current estimates are that sea level will rise three feet by the end of this century. This project for National Geographic examines the ways that countries in Europe, Asia, and North America are coping with coastal inundation. Some areas of the wealthiest countries are being fortified with innovative civil engineering projects, while other areas are left on their own to cope with the inevitable.

South Florida has a lifestyle that is inextricably tied to the sea, and with the ocean level expected to rise by one to two meters over the next hundred years, that way of life exists on borrowed time.  George spent a month there on an assignment for National Geographic magazine photographing life on the waterline.

Although bound by a rich tradition of small food production, Europe has been revolutionizing its food systems with major advances in agricultural technology, including the latest developments in hydroponics, fish farming, milk production, and plant genetics. Photographed on assignment for Le Figaro Magazine.

George spent some three months flying in China in 2006 and 2007, traveling from east to west, north to south. The aerial pictures were taken variously from a helicopter, a hot air balloon, hang glider, and George’s motorized paraglider. Most of the pictures are of places that have rarely if ever been seen from the air before.  

The Altiplano is the highest inhabited place in the Americas. Located in Southern Bolivia, it’s a New World version of Tibet, in the form of a 12,000 ft. high arid basin wedged between two chains of the Andes. The Altiplano is home to Indian peasants that have endured centuries of exploitation with little access to basic government services. Their meager existence is in sharp contrast to the people in the Bolivian Amazon who are thriving from new farm and petroleum developments. A strong sense of unequal wealth led to the election of President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian born and raised in the Altiplano, to lead a left-leaning populist government.

George spent ten weeks in Antarctica on an Artist and Writer grant from the National Science Foundation. His project was to document Antarctica as a frozen desert, and to look for its similarities and differences with other hyper arid deserts around the world. The NSF generously provided him with equipment and logistical support to document the Antarctic environment and the work of NSF scientists near their main base, McMurdo Station. Most people don’t realize that the bulk of Antarctica gets as little precipitation as much of the Sahara and is actually the largest desert on earth. George spent most of his time in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, the largest ice-free area on the continent, which are a natural laboratory for understanding the extreme limits of life on earth. He was also able to gain rare access to Mount Erebus, the most active volcano in Antarctica, which has a permanent lake of molten lava just below its 13,000 ft. summit. On the flanks of Erebus are steam vents that have formed ice caves and strange towers of frozen geothermal vapor. It was an unusual opportunity to document one of the most remote and beautiful environments on earth.

As the world’s rapidly expanding economies increase their consumption of processed foods, they are creating an explosive demand for palm oil. It is an inexpensive component in a wide variety of processed foods, such as margarine, potato chips, baby formula, cookies, and chocolate. Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil grower, has increased production by 700% over the last twenty years, which has resulted in large-scale clear-cutting of tropical rainforest. Although the destruction of rainforest for palm oil plantations is illegal in Indonesia, the practice continues to expand and threatens diminishing populations of forest elephants, rhinos, tigers, and orangutans. George spent three weeks on assignment for Vogue in Sumatra and Malaysia looking at palm oil production, illegal deforestation, and wildlife rehabilitation.

In March 2011 George traveled to the Afar Depression in Ethiopia and Djibouti, bringing his motorized paraglider to take aerial photographs. The region is probably the most geologically active area in the world, with one of the few permanent lava lakes and frequent earthquakes. Much of the Afar Depression is below sea level, and it contains the lowest point in Africa, Lake Assale, which is 150 meters below sea level. The lake is also the second saltiest body of water on earth, even saltier than the Dead Sea. The region is home to the semi-nomadic Afari people who eke out a living with goats, camels, and harvesting salt in one of the most extreme environments on earth.

George fell in love with Africa as a twenty-one-year-old college drop-out, when he hitch-hiked across the continent for two and a half years. It was a life-changing experience, and he decided to take up photography to document the amazing areas he was exploring. On that trip he dreamt of how amazing it would be to fly over Africa’s vast landscapes, and some twenty years later his dream came true when he talked National Geographic into financing a portfolio of aerial photos for the coming Millennium. He started with small planes, and work in remote areas evolved into using a motorized paraglider, a foot-launched contraption that is the lightest and slowest powered aircraft in the world. African Air is George’s first book, from flying over thirteen African countries.

On the Atlantic coast of Brazil is one of the most unusual dunescapes in the world, Lençois Maranhenses (the bedsheets of Maranhão). During the rainy season, the region gets some 60 inches of precipitation, which floods the dune field. During the dry season, intense sunlight and strong trade winds dry up the lakes and the dunes resume their advance into the tropical forest. This 400 square mile area is a national park, but families living in and around it are allowed to continue traditional subsistence activities of fishing, farming, and goat herding. At the end of the summer rains, when these pictures were taken, it’s one of the most beautiful and unique landscapes on earth.

The Empty Quarter is both the world’s largest sand sea and one of the hottest places on earth and has only been traversed a handful of times. George made three paragliding trips into the sands, first for GEO in Saudi Arabia, and then returned two years later to go from Riyadh to Oman and Yemen for National Geographic, and finally made a personal trip to the southernmost reaches of the U.A.E. to complete fieldwork for his second book. What he found was one of the most beautiful and unseen wilderness on earth. On a human level, the sands attract the two sides of Arabia… the oil camps that have transformed the economies of the Persian Gulf, and the Bedouins who still cling to their desert traditions, and offer a level of hospitality that is truly humbling. This body of work would simply not have been possible without their kindness.

The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, some 1,400 ft. below sea level, and the water level continues to drop due to excessive groundwater withdrawals. Many of the photos were taken with a motorized paraglider to get rare aerial views of the strange geography. George also photographed the archaeological sites of Masada in Israel and Herod’s Temple in Jordan where John the Baptist lost his head, plus the Greek Orthodox monastery at Mar Saba. The salt works and evaporation ponds of the Dead Sea provide some 15% of the world’s potash, which is a primary component of industrial fertilizer. The Dead Sea is also a big tourist draw for those with skin ailments and a desire to float like no place else in the world.

Algeria has the biggest piece of the Sahara, the greatest number of oases, and an extraordinary variety of surreal arid landscapes. Algeria’s oases were developed with ancient methods of irrigation. Some use ancient underground aqueducts from distant wells, while others were excavated to reach shallow water drawn up by camel, donkey, and mechanical pump for family gardens. And the different oasis towns have their own distinct and beautiful architectural styles as well. In the deep south is the Central Sahara, where strong Harmattan winds sandblast bedrock into surreal sculptures that emerge from a sea of sand.

This is a gallery of personal work from Egypt in the weeks leading up to the protests and ensuing revolution in 2011, plus an unusual opportunity to fly a paraglider over the Pyramids of Giza.

After four years and three attempts, George finally managed to get his aircraft into Fezzan, Southern Libya. Thousands of years ago Southern Libya was a fertile region of savannas and lakes that was home to an all-but-forgotten civilization. But the climate of North Africa changed dramatically some 1,500 years ago, and now Fezzan is one of the most barren and inhospitable places in the world. Every spring it is raked by strong winds that blow Libyan sand and dust across Africa and the Atlantic Ocean to South America. What’s left behind is an austere landscape of dunes, sandstone pinnacles, and fields of black lava.

In 2003, George was given permission to take aerial photos in Iran with his motorized paraglider, the first foreigner to be given such permission to take aerial photos since the Islamic Revolution. He went there on assignment for the French and German editions of GEO Magazine to document the little-known salt deserts in the southern part of the country. Iran has some of the most spectacular desert geology, with folding mountain ranges separating large valleys of salt flats. On the valley slopes are ancient cities that get their drinking and agricultural water from qanats, the underground aqueducts that are thousands of years old. George stayed in Iran for five weeks and was able to take very rare photos of some of the strangest geological patterns on Earth, like the wind-eroded yardangs and massive dunes of the Dasht-e Lut and the swirling patterns of salt domes in the Dasht-e Kavir.

George went back to Libya nine months after the death of Gaddafi to document a country trying to reinvent itself after forty-two years of dictatorship. He got an unusual permit to fly his motorized paraglider and make aerial photographs of well-preserved Greek and Roman ruins, destroyed oilfields, and the extraordinary oasis town of Ghadames. George found a country that was optimistic in its quest for democracy and freedom, but unsure of exactly what those concepts mean. While destruction and burned-out tanks were everywhere, so were native gentleness and generosity. The Libyans had won what they fought for, they found themselves emerging into an uncertain future.

The Sonoran Desert is one of the most biologically diverse desert ecosystems in the world. Straddling the border of Mexico and the United States, it extends from Southern Arizona to the tip of Baja California. Unique among the world’s great deserts, some 80% of its land-mass is within 100 km of the ocean. The area has some of the weirdest and most wonderful plants in North America. This biodiversity stems from two wet seasons that produce intensive flowerings that support swarms of migratory birds, bats, and insects traveling hundreds of miles across the region. Botanical highlights include cacti like the cardón, the world’s tallest cactus (the big Mexican brother of the Saguaro), the stately organ pipe, and the most contortedly beautiful Cirio. Islands in the Sea of Cortez are loaded with endemic species, and nesting sites for migratory birds. At the top of the Gulf is the environmental corpse of the Colorado Delta, where the entire flow of the river has been diverted for irrigation, leaving a trickle of brackish water to meet the 30ft tides that rake the sand flats. George flew his motorized paraglider to get some rare aerial views of spectacular desert landscapes. For wildlife, he used remote-controlled cameras to get intimate photos of desert mountain lions, bighorn sheep, and great blue herons.

This project documents the rediscovery of the huge herds of wildlife that roam the vast unpopulated areas of South Sudan. In the early 80s, before the civil war broke out, there were herds of over a million gazelles and other species moving across the savannahs of the south. Conservationists were astounded to find these herds had survived 22 years of civil war largely intact. George joined a team from the Wildlife Conservation Society working to better understand the movements of South Sudanese wildlife by putting satellite-transmitting collars on the migrating species. Data from these collars will be used to develop a new system of National Parks and reserves. George also documented poaching, which continues unabated whenever wildlife comes into contact with the heavily armed local population.

This project documents South Sudan just before it became Africa’s newest nation in 2010. George spent three months in the region, covering traditional life of the various ethnic groups as well as the major oil fields on the northern border of Sudan. He was also able to document the effects of the inter-tribal warfare that is being carried out by militias armed by the Khartoum government. George arrived in the small village of Duk Padiet the day after some 167 people were killed, and photographed South Sudanese soldiers burying their comrades in hastily-dug shallow graves.

In 1995 George had the rare opportunity to document clans of tree-dwelling people in Indonesian New Guinea that had no prior contact with anyone outside their language group. I went there with Gerrit Van Enk, a Dutch missionary-anthropologist who at the time was the only outsider who spoke their language. Together they crossed what Gerrit termed the “pacification line”. Although these tree people live in a remote part of the lowland forest, they had been seeing overflying aircraft for several years, and aggressively resisted contact with outsiders as they feared it would bring an end to their world. George’s team went there to make as accurate a recording as possible of their way of life before they were inundated by the modern world, as had almost every other culture on the island of New Guinea. The Korowai and Kombai live in tree houses surrounded by clearings they have carved out of the forest. Beyond the pacification line, they live without clothing, metal, or any form of cooking vessel. Although slowly dying out, at that time there was still cannibalism in the area. Gerrit saw it as part of their criminal justice system. The Korowai believed that most deaths were caused by sorcery, and they would try to find out who the sorcerer was to kill and eat them. It was a very difficult and dangerous environment in which the team could only make first contact by getting an invitation to cross the pacification line through relatives who had married into a neighboring clan. These were not easy invitations to get. The team spent six weeks on the ground there, and the photos were published in both National Geographic and GEO Magazines. George and Gerrit’s experience was steeped in the awareness that they may have been documenting their effect on the Korowai rather than how it was before they arrived, and the pacification line was like a rainbow that was always just outside our grasp. But their goal was to make as accurate a documentation of a vanishing way of life as possible, for them and their future generations as much as for the outside world.

Kiribati is perhaps the country most vulnerable to rising sea levels. Located in Micronesia, its 90,000 people are scattered across 33 atolls that rarely extend more than six feet above the high tide line. Current predictions are that sea level will rise over three feet by the end of this century and salinate the country’s freshwater table, making the entire nation uninhabitable. I spent four weeks there for GEO magazine, traveling between remote archipelagos by sailboat. On the outer islands there is almost no modern infrastructure, with most people fishing by outrigger canoe and living in thatch homes.

Low energy taxes in America have created a way of life dependent on high volume energy use. When Stern Magazine commissioned George to photograph this story, he chose to do a largely aerial reportage. From the sky you can see the patterns of suburban housing that depend on cheap fuel, the massive mines and power plants, and the scale of various energy consuming activities. George visited ten states to create an aerial mosaic of the world’s largest energy consumer.

These photos were taken as part of a story for GEO Magazine on the Maori Independence Movement that is attempting to regain rights given to the Maori in 1840 under the treaty of Waitangi which established British authority over the islands. Some of the Maori rights to land and fisheries were usurped under British colonial rule and the disagreements have continued under New Zealand’s constitutional authority.

These photos were taken on a six-week expedition by private sailboat through the seldom-visited islands north of New Guinea, in an area of the South Pacific known as the Solomon Sea. Most of the islets here have no airport or regularly scheduled boat services, and their inhabitants have a subsistence way of life that is largely untouched by the modern world. The region is also one of the most volcanically active in the world.

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a term used to describe the damage some unborn children suffer when their mothers drink during pregnancy. Alcohol in the mother's bloodstream can be toxic to the developing fetus depending on the stage of pregnancy and how much she drinks. Damage can range from subtle to severe, causing clumsiness, behavioral problems, stunted growth, disfigurement, intellectual disability. Thousands of babies are born with alcohol-related defects each year, ranking FAS as one of the leading known causes of intellectual disability.

These photos were taken as part of a story for National Geographic Magazine on the new surveillance and biometric technologies developed in Europe and the United States following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Jackson Laboratory breeds genetically specific mice and ships over two million mice per year to medical research laboratories around the world. This enables scientists in different parts of the world to test and duplicate experiments on genetically identical specimens. The mice are bred for naturally occurring mutations that mimic human maladies. Mice are the best genetic model for medical studies because they are so well known genetically, even better than humans.

These photos were taken in 1993 as part of a story for National Geographic Magazine about the Indonesian Province of Irian Jaya, which occupies the western half of the island of New Guinea. The province has since been divided and renamed Papua, Highland Papua, South Papua, Southwest Papua, and West Papua. The native population is predominantly Melanesian on an island with over 700 distinct languages. The geography varies from tropical swampland to glaciated peaks, including Pancake Jaya, or Carstensz Pyramid, the highest point in the Australasian continent, at 16,024 ft. The majority of the land is a primary tropical forest.