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Tree People
In 1995 I 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 with his missionary friend […]
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Libya Revisited
George went back to Libya nine months after 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 over parts of the country that had been impossible four years earlier, and was able to make aerial photographs of amazingly well-preserved Greek […]
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Afar Depression
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. Most of the Afar Depression (also known as the Danakil Depression) […]
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Algeria Oasis
Algeria has the largest portion of the Sahara, the greatest number of oases, and an extraordinary variety of surreal sandblasted terrain. Due to the internal political situation it has been difficult for foreigners to travel there for the past fifteen years. Algeria’s oases were developed with three distinct methods of irrigation. Some use underground aqueducts […]
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Altiplano
The Altiplano is the highest inhabited place in the Americas. Located in Southern Bolivia, it’s a tough and austere land, 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 some of the hemisphere’s poorest groups of […]
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Antarctica
In 2005 George spent ten weeks in Antarctica on an Artist and Writer grant from the National Science Foundation. 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. George’s project was to document Antarctica as a frozen […]
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China Air
I spent some three months flying in China in 2006 and 2007, covering eight provinces from east to west, north to south. Most of the work pictures were taken from my little motorized paraglider, but over hazardous terrain I also used a helicopter, a motorized hang glider, and a hot air balloon. I flew over […]
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Dead Sea
The Dead Sea the lowest point on earth, some 400 meters below sea level, on the border between Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. The water level continues to drop due to excessive ground water withdrawals with almost no fresh water entering the Dead Sea at all. Many of the photos were taken with a motorized paraglider […]
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Egypt
George was in Egypt in the weeks leading up to the protests and ensuing revolution in 2011. He was sent there to photograph part of a story for National Geographic on Cleopatra, but he extended his stay for few weeks to do some personal work.
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Maori
These photos were taken as part of a story for GEO Magazine on the Maori Independence Movement that is trying to regain rights given to the Maori under the treaty of Waitangi. These rights to land and fishery, among others, have since been usurped during hundreds of years of British and now New Zealand rule. […]
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Mouse House
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 labs 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 […]
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New Surveillance
These photos were taken as part of a story for National Geographic Magazine on the surveillance technologies being used in Europe and the United States following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
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Empty Quarter
I became captivated by Arabia’s Empty Quarter as a young man when I read Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands. The Empty Quarter is larger than France without a single permanent point of water or human habitation. It’s both the world’s largest sand sea and one of the hottest places on earth, and has only been traversed […]
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Kiribati
Micronesian nation of 90,000 people scattered on 33 atolls spread across an area of the Pacific that is roughly one half the size of the United States. I spent four weeks here for GEO in 1996, traveling between remote archipelagos by saiboat. With the exception of one islet, the highest point in Kiribati is seven […]
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Rising Seas
Current estimates are that sea level will rise three feet by the end of this century. This project examines the ways that different countries and communities are coping with this growing problem.
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Salt Deserts of Iran
In 2003 I was given permission to take aerial photos in Iran, the first person to be given such permission since the Islamic revolution. Much like today, it was a very awkward time to be an American photographer working in Iran, as US forces were both Iraq and Afganistan, and the country was proceeding with […]
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Solomon Sea
These photos were taken on a six-week trip 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 way of life is traditional by economic necessity.
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Sonoran Ecology
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 […]
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South Sudan
This project documents the struggle of South Sudan for nationhood in the run up to the 2010 referendum on independence. George spent three months in the region, covering traditional life of the various ethnic groups, the major oilfields that are on the northern border of South Sudan, and efforts to modernize its terribly decayed infrastructure. […]
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Sudan Wildlife
This project documents the rediscovery of the huge herds of wildlife that still 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 vast savannahs of the south. Conservationists were astounded to find […]
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Libya’s Sahara
After four years and three attempts at the proper permission, George finally managed to get his aircraft into Fezzan, Southern Libya. Two thousand years ago this was a fertile region of savannas and lakes, that was home to an all-but-forgotten Garamantian civilization. But the climate of the North Africa changed dramatically some 1,500 years ago, […]
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US Energy
Low energy taxes in America have created a way of life dependent on high volume energy use. When Stern Magazine commissioned me to photograph this story, I 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 scale of mines […]
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