Photographer: Randy Olson

Photographer Randy Olson has traveled around the globe on assignment, heading to places as diverse as the Siberian Arctic, Africa, Iraq, Pakistan, India, China, Thailand, Iceland, Newfoundland, Guyana, American Samoa, Turkey, Republic of Georgia, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, and the South Pacific.

Olson was named the Magazine Photographer of the Year for 2003 in the Pictures of the Year International competition. He was also awarded Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1992, one of only two photographers to win the title in both media in the largest photojournalism contest operating continuously since World War II.

Olson was also awarded an Alicia Patterson Fellowship to support a seven-year project documenting a family with AIDS. His story on problems with Section 8 housing earned him a Robert F. Kennedy Award, and he was awarded the NPAA/Nikon Sabbatical Grant in 1996.

Olson has covered many diverse subjects for National Geographic, including U.S. national parks, Earth Day, county fairs, Russia's Putorana Plateau, the Indus civilization, the Black Sea, Australia's monsoons, the global fish crisis, and many others.

A graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, Olson lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Melissa Farlow, also a contributing National Geographic photographer.