Michael “Nick” Nichols, a native of Alabama, is an award-winning photographer whose work has taken him to the most remote corners of the world.
|
He became a staff photographer for the National Geographic Society in 1996 and was named editor at large in January 2008. From 1982 to 1995 he was a member of Magnum Photos, the prestigious cooperative founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa.
Nichols has photographed more than 20 stories for National Geographic magazine, including “Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma” (March 2007), which has raised awareness and funding to protect the elephants of Chad. In 2008, Nichols will have an exhibition at the 20th anniversary of Visa pour l’Image and his photographs will be featured in a National Geographic article on the elephants of Samburu.
Nichols spent two years documenting conservationist Mike Fay’s Megatransect expedition, in which Fay crossed 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) on foot from Congo’s deepest rain forest to the Atlantic coast of Gabon, studying Africa’s last great wilderness. Nichols’s work from this undertaking can be seen in the 2001 National Geographic magazine articles “Megatransect: Across 1,200 Miles of Untamed Africa on Foot,” “Green Abyss: Megatransect, Part II,” and “End of the Line: Megatransect, Part III.”
In 2005, National Geographic Books published The Last Place on Earth, a book featuring Nichols’s photographs and Fay’s journals from the Megatransect expedition. His work has appeared in five other books, including Keepers of the Kingdom, a photographic essay reflecting on changes in U.S. zoos; The Year of the Tiger, which focuses on the world’s remaining tigers; and Brutal Kinship, a look at the timorous bond between man and chimpanzee with text by Jane Goodall.
Dubbed the "Indiana Jones of Photography" in a profile by Paris Match, Nichols has been featured in Rolling Stone, Life, American Photographer, JPG, and many other magazines. He has been awarded first prize four times for nature and environment stories in the World Press Photo competition. His other numerous awards come from Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Pictures of the Year International. In 1982 the Overseas Press Club of America granted him a prize for reporting “above and beyond the call of duty,” an honor usually reserved for combat photographers.
Born in 1952, Nichols’s training in photography began when he was drafted into the U.S. Army’s photography unit in the early 1970s. He later studied his craft at the University of North Alabama, where he met his mentor, former Life magazine photographer Charles Moore.
Nichols is also very involved in fostering community among photographers. In 2007, he founded and co-directed the inaugural Look 3: Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Virginia. This three-day celebration of peace, love, and photography was a sold-out success and included interviews and slide shows from established photographers as well as an interactive gallery exhibit encouraging all festival attendees to share their work.
Nichols lives in Sugar Hollow, Virginia, with his wife, artist Reba Peck.
