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'I WAS AWESTRUCK'

Saturday, September 25, 2021

In today’s newsletter, that Border Patrol image; the reindeer followers; covering a long-belated Native American ‘return’ … and fabricated images that fooled the pros.

SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT DASH

By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences

Look closely. From carrots to sunflowers, the plants we eat are a source of immense beauty–and offer lessons on how to make agriculture more sustainable.

Using a scanning electron microscope, photographer Robert Dash magnifies plant specimens up to 3,400 times, exploring the connections between the food plants we depend on and their climate threats–or solutions. The technology, using electrons instead of photons of visible light, renders the images in black and white. (Pictured above, a sunflower floret, coated by spiked pollen and magnified by a factor of 700.)

“The sunflower floret reminds me of the infamous Hubble image, “Pillars of Creation,” says Nat Geo’s Kurt Mutchler, who edited these images. "Photography (including microscopy), no matter at which scale, makes us pause, take a breath, and take in the wonder of the world around us.”

What drives Robert’s fascination with nature, writ small?

“I seek awe and enchantment to help people better understand today’s ecological breakdown,” Robert writes. “And perhaps encourage them to work to reverse it.”

Take a look below—or in Robert’s full story—at a few of the wondrous images of the plants that feed the world. Let us know if they give you a closer attachment to our world.

Eat your kale and carrots: At left, seen at 240-times magnification, the anther of a kale flower covered with pollen. At right, the delicate branches of a humble carrot leaf create a stately form when seen at 300-times magnification.

Hey bud: At 80-times magnification, the flower bud of the arbequina olive tree, which grows the luscious black olives popular at restaurants. Kurt, our editor, was riveted by this image. “I saw a face shrouded in a veil and was awestruck.”

Rice and hops: At left, pollen coats two anthers from a rice flower, seen here at 340-times magnification. More than a billion people depend on rice cultivation for their economic and cultural sustenance. At right, the surface of a hop leaf is covered in hair-like protrusions called trichomes. Hops, crucial for brewing beer, are seen here at 240-times magnification.

One berry, two berries: Pictured above, a tiny blueberry seed seems coated with scales when seen at 300-times magnification. Seasonal shifts that bring new pests, extreme weather, and fewer pollinators are affecting blueberries worldwide. As with so many crops in the Northern Hemisphere, the range in which blueberries thrive is moving to higher latitudes, and Quebec now competes with Maine as a source of wild blueberries.

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TODAY IN A MINUTE

PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTORIA RAZO

The photographer’s view: Images and video of U.S. border agents on horseback chasing Haitian immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border (above) last weekend prompted an investigation of the rough treatment. On assignment for Nat Geo, Victoria Razo captured a moment that unleashed widespread criticism. “The agents tried to block them, and then the one agent grabbed a man by his shirt and then kind of swung them around," another photographer who got the image, Paul Ratje, told NPR’s Morning Edition. The U.S. expulsion of thousands of Haitians from that Texas border town to their dangerous, unstable homeland has occurred under an obscure 1944 law not originally intended for that purpose, Nat Geo reports.

Award season: Palestinian photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf on Thursday won the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting, honoring independent journalists who produce exceptional reporting under the most challenging conditions. Covering the conflict in Gaza for more than a decade, Abu Elouf, at one point without protective gear, strapped a cooking pot to her head as a makeshift helmet, and wore a blue plastic garbage bag with “PRESS” written on it. This Online Journalism Award is named for James Foley, an American journalist who was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2014.

Fake news: A photographer has placed his industry under the microscope by his latest book, set in a North Macedonia town that is a center of fake news production. In the book, Jonas Bendiksen placed AI “people” in the photographs. He then discovered that his doctored images were not questioned by photo colleagues—in fact, he was offered an appearance at a prestigious festival. “If computer-generated fake news pictures are accepted by the curators who have to pick the highlights of all the year’s best photojournalism, it shows that the whole industry is quite vulnerable," Bendiksen tells Magnum Photos.

INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIELLA ZALCMAN, @DZALCMAN

Coming home: Some 140 years ago, nine Lakota children were shipped 1,400 miles east from their home to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School—and died in that eastern Pennsylvania institution. In July, a caravan carrying their remains traveled back to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. On the way, the caravan stopped at Whetstone Landing, a Missouri River inlet where the children had been placed onto steamboats—and the last place they would have seen their parents. Hundreds of community members and onlookers gathered to witness a ceremony there, says photographer Daniella Zalcman, a Nat Geo Explorer who has been covering the sordid history of residential schools.

IN A FEW WORDS

QUOTE

It takes an enormous amount of love for [photojournalists] to do this type of work, love even for those we fundamentally disagree with. I wish more people knew what that amounts to. How much time is spent conversing, researching, and how it all ignites an image-making process. I believe in fairness, but also thoroughness and care.

Sebastián Hidalgo

Visual journalist, Nat Geo Explorer

THE LAST GLIMPSE

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIA STENZEL

Into the Siberian Arctic: Where the reindeer go, this Nenets group of herders follow. In this image, part of her 1988 National Geographic article on the Siberian indigenous herders, Above, Maria Stenzel captured a Nenets woman in Russia hugging her grandson as the family prepared its annual 800-mile migration. Stenzel focused much of her 30-year freelance career on photographing indigenous groups, says Sara Manco, the National Geographic Society’s senior photo archivist. “I love the interaction between the woman and the child captured here, with the reindeer corralled behind her,” Sara tells us.

2017 update: New obstacles to the migration of Siberian herders

Photos: What it’s like to herd reindeer?

MORE VINTAGE PHOTOS

This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard and Monica Williams, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week.

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