The Challenges and Dangers of Being a National Geographic Photographer

Photography Tips

Tomás Munita is a photographer for National Geographic. As part of his job, he gets to experience many different cultures in many different scenarios. One of those is Chile. For this assignment he went on a wild bull hunt with a group of gauchos in Patagonia:

As you can see in the video, working for National Geographic is rewarding, but also tough. You get to visit many different places and experience many different cultures, but on the other hand, you need to be thick-skinned to get through all the challenges. Munita had to shoot from horseback, in danger of falling or being rammed or run over by wild bulls.

This shows how tough travel and wildlife photography can be. Imagine everything that these photographers have to endure just to get the right shot. Keep in mind that during many assignments, they fail to capture that shot. There can be days and days of hiking in ludicrous conditions with not a single chance to get a good shot.

Munita had to struggle with changing light, rain, mud, shooting from horseback, avoiding and running away from wild bulls and cows, sleeping in improvised conditions, and so on. All that for a few pictures. But those few pictures will tell a story that no other pictures will tell. Is it worth the effort? If you ask me—every single bit of it.