Dean Conger was born August 26, 1927, in Casper, Wyoming. After nine years with the Denver Post, he joined the National Geographic Society as a staff photographer in 1959. His assignments took him all over Europe and Asia as well as across the United States.
Conger made more than 30 trips to what was then the Soviet Union, photographing for National Geographic magazine and for the National Geographic book Journey Across Russia. That effort won him a citation of excellence from the Overseas Press Club and the World Understanding Award from the University of Missouri in partnership with the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and Nikon.
Named Newspaper Photographer of the Year three times during the 1950s and Magazine Photographer of the Year in the 1962 Pictures of the Year competition, Conger also received the NPPA Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award in 1987 for a lifetime of outstanding work in photojournalism. Wyoming's Casper College and the University of Wyoming honored him as a distinguished alumnus.
He served as assistant director of National Geographic's Photography Division, later directing its Audiovisual Services Division. He retired from National Geographic in 1989 and now lives in Durango, Colorado, with his wife, Lee.
