The National Geographic Magazine (1888 )

Portada de la revista: The National Geographic Magazine, volumen XLVI, Nº 2, Washington 1924.

La National Geographic Society fue fundada en Washington en octubre de 1888, presentando ese mismo año la primera edición de la revista. Esta admirable publicación es universalmente conocida por la excelencia, singularidad y hermosura de sus fotografías. En este sentido, desde sus inicios, la dirección de la misma apostó por la fotografía como elemento esencial de comunicación, confiriéndole un gran protagonismo, y lo hizo no escatimando recursos sino contratando a los más prestigiosos fotógrafos profesionales del mundo y utilizando las más avanzadas tecnologías de tratamiento de la imagen de cada momento. Esto explica que National Geographic fuese la primera revista de calado internacional que imprimió sus reportajes fotográficos en color.

Muy recientemente, en 2006, como refrendo a su extraordinario recorrido, la National Geographic Society recibió el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Comunicación y Humanidades. El jurado argumentó el galardón con estas palabras: por su contribución a la preservación del patrimonio histórico, antropológico y cultural del planeta. La Sociedad, que edita entre otras la revista National Geographic, es una de las organizaciones científicas y educativas sin fines de lucro más grande del mundo.

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The magazine marks its 125th anniversary with a special issue devoted to photography.

Called The Photography Issue, the issue focuses on the medium the magazine has helped to shape, looking at how photography has the power to impact our lives by bearing witness, helping to prove fact, giving us insight into each other, revealing unknown places, celebrating wonder and inspiring us to protect our natural world.

This 1906 picture was shot by George Shiras, the first nighttime wildlife photographer. Here he's demonstrating his revolving camera tray, mounted jacklight, and handheld flashgun in Whitefish Lake, Michigan.

Hiram Bingham sought an elevated mountain to take this view of Machu Picchu in 1913 Peru. The lost mountaintop city of the Inca was the site of Bingham's excavations from 1912 to 1915.

A cowgirl drops a nickel in a parking meter to hitch her pony in El Paso, Texas. At the time the photo was taken in 1939, El Paso still had a lot of cattle-ranch residents.

Perhaps the most iconic National Geographic photo, Steve McCurry snapped this picture of an Afghan girl in a Pakistan refugee camp in 1984. It almost went unnoticed, until one editor rescued it from a pile and stuck it on the June 1985 cover.

Here, a captive chimpanzee named Jou Jou reaches out to Dr. Jane Goodall in a zoo in the Republic of Congo, circa 1990.

Roaming camels forage for shrubs and water in southern Kuwait as the black clouds of burning oil fields hang above them. It was shot by Steve McCurry in 1991 during the Gulf War.

An angry crowd protests the high food prices in Giza, Egypt at a kiosk selling government-subsidized bread. Taken in 2008, you can see the Great Pyramid of Giza rising up in the background.

Two young girls from an Israeli West Bank village cool off in the salty waters of the Dead Sea. Taken in 2009, the inland sea has dropped over 70 feet since 1978.