Find National Geographic at your local library, bookstore, or online. Choose a story that speaks to you. What do you like about it? If you could write a story in this magazine, what would it be about?

Career

Check out National Geographic Magazine.

Enroll in a photography class at your school or find one at a local community college. Learn about how to use a camera and make prints.

Education

Take a photography class.

Photojournalism is telling news stories through pictures. Document a story happening around you by taking a photo or a series of photos and write captions to help tell the story.

Create your own photo story.

Photographers

Photograph people, landscapes, merchandise, or other subjects, using digital or film cameras and equipment. May develop negatives or use computer software to produce finished images and prints. Includes scientific photographers, aerial photographers, and photojournalists.

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

First Interest High-Point

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Second Interest High-Point

Third Interest High-Point

Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Media and Communication Equipment Workers

Take pictures of individuals, families, and small groups, either in studio or on location.

Adjust apertures, shutter speeds, and camera focus according to a combination of factors, such as lighting, field depth, subject motion, film type, and film speed.

Use traditional or digital cameras, along with a variety of equipment, such as tripods, filters, and flash attachments.

Create artificial light, using flashes and reflectors.

Determine desired images and picture composition, selecting and adjusting subjects, equipment, and lighting to achieve desired effects.

Test equipment prior to use to ensure that it is in good working order.

Review sets of photographs to select the best work.

Estimate or measure light levels, distances, and numbers of exposures needed, using measuring devices and formulas.

Manipulate and enhance scanned or digital images to create desired effects, using computers and specialized software.

Perform maintenance tasks necessary to keep equipment working properly.

Perform general office duties, such as scheduling appointments, keeping books, and ordering supplies.

Determine project goals, locations, and equipment needs by studying assignments and consulting with clients or advertising staff.

Select and assemble equipment and required background properties, according to subjects, materials, and conditions.

Enhance, retouch, and resize photographs and negatives, using airbrushing and other techniques.

Set up, mount, or install photographic equipment and cameras.

Produce computer-readable, digital images from film, using flatbed scanners and photofinishing laboratories.

Direct activities of workers setting up photographic equipment.

Employ a variety of specialized photographic materials and techniques, including infrared and ultraviolet films, macro photography, photogrammetry and sensitometry.

Engage in research to develop new photographic procedures and materials.

Set up photographic exhibitions for the purpose of displaying and selling work.

Develop visual aids and charts for use in lectures or to present evidence in court.

License the use of photographs through stock photo agencies.

Mount, frame, laminate, or lacquer finished photographs.

Photograph legal evidence at crime scenes, in hospitals, or in forensic laboratories.

Transfer photographs to computers for editing, archiving, and electronic transmission.

Develop and print exposed film, using chemicals, touch-up tools, and developing and printing equipment.

Send film to photofinishing laboratories for processing.

Board reflectors

Bubble machines

Camera cleaning brushes

Camera flash attachments

Camera positioning tripods

Computer inkjet printers

Computer laser printers

Contact print frames

Darkroom thermometers

Darkroom timers

Digital pens

Digital photo printers

Digital still cameras

Dimmers

Dye sublimation printers

Electric print dryers

Film cameras

Film drying cabinets

Film scanners

Flash memory data storage devices

Flatbed scanners

Focus assists

Fog machines

Force film washers

Global positioning system GPS devices

Graduated neutral density GND filters

Graphics tablets

Haze filters

Image enlargers

Incident light meters

Label printers

Lamp reflectors

Laptop computers

Large format printers

Macro lenses

Magnifier loupes

Mobile adapters

Negative proofers

Neutral density ND filters

Optical media printers

Optical viewfinders

Personal computers

Polarizing lens filters

Rapid photo print washers

Reflected light meters

Ring flashes

Snoots

Softboxes

Sound blimps

Special effects projectors

Studio strobe flashes

Tablet computers

Telephoto lenses

White balancing lens filters

Wide angle lenses

Wireless flash triggers

Zoom lenses

Adobe Systems Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Systems Adobe After Effects

Adobe Systems Adobe AfterEffects

Adobe Systems Adobe Creative Suite

Adobe Systems Adobe InDesign

Adobe Systems Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Systems Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Apple Final Cut Pro

Blinkbid

Cradoc fotoBiz

Email software

Facebook

Genbook

HindSight InView

Intuit QuickBooks

Light Blue Software Light Blue

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Word

ShootQ

ShootZilla

Simplifi pixifi

Simply Studio System

StudioCloud

StudioPlus Spectra

SuccessWare

Tave Studio Manager

Twitter

Web browser software

WordPress

Staff Photographer

What do you want to do with your life? You should be a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, blah, blah, blah. >> The road other people expect you to take in life is not necessarily the one that will make you happy. Last summer, three groups of friends from the US, England and Canada, went on a road trip across North America to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. >> On the road they spoke with inspirational people to found how they found their way. This is Roadtrip Nation. >> If tooth brushing was a sport, I would be a champion. [MUSIC] >> My name is David Talkin. I am a junior at the University of Colorado. My major is broadcast news. But before anyone could catch a glimpse of him, he disappears into a dark green belt or open space. Getting away with cold hard cash and leaving behind credit cards and expensive jewelry. I've always been interested in telling stories to other people. I've always been interested in current events and I realized that this is what I wanna do. With careers like this, not everybody makes it. I work for some reporters, and they're just like brilliant, and they have all the answers and I feel like a total idiot all the time. And, sometimes, I think can I do this? Is this something I can do? I don't have a plan for getting there, you know, but I'm very driven and I know what I want to do. I don't know what I'll do if I don't make it but I'm not going to settle, that's for sure. >> I take the view that should get as broad an education as possible, and plan to do two or three things, careers, completely different careers. The mistake that people make is they narrow themselves much too early. [MUSIC] >> I guess we should start off by saying, where were you when you were our age? >> When I was in my twenties, which is where you are, I was going through a major career shift, from being someone who expected to be an academic, into the whole issue of ethnic conflict. And I had the good fortune to come to Washington at just the right time. I came to Washington in the late 70's as a specialist at that point on the North caucuses in Central Asia. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Suddenly it mattered what was going on in the quote soft underbelly of the USSR. And I was at the Central Intelligence Agency as a Soviet of Affairs Analyst. That was my first government job, so everything has flowed from that. But that was where I was when I was your age. In other words, what I did when I was 30 was something that when I was 20 I couldn't have imagined. I like to think that I've worked hard and that some of my success is my own doing. But a lot of it was just I happened to be in the right place at the right time. >> The way you're describing how you got from point a to b seems like you had a lot of luck and a lot of- >> Absolutely. >> Correct timing. So how much of it is in your hands to. >> I think, look, I always worked very, very hard. In any job I've had, I've worked very hard. I've never put in less than 100 hours a week. But, no, I think a lot of what happens to you is luck. You can work to take advantage of the situation. But people who think that everything that happens to them is their own doing, are cruising for bruising. >> What about the changes that aren't independent of you, though? Back when you were in academics and you decided you weren't happy? How did you get to the point where you were ready to move on? And do you think that maybe you would be happy doing something else? >> Well I decided, I mean I, first off didn't think that I'd be doing anything for the rest of my life. I thought working for the government was something I wanted to do at least part of my career. So it didn't matter to me that I would be doing that in my 20s and 30s and then going into academia later. I did okay, as the world counts these things. But I could've probably done even better if I'd played the game in a more conventional way. If by even better you mean the way most people measure things, income, house, car, that sort of thing. I didn't, I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to change the world. And I had a chance to work with people who mattered. If I were to give one piece of advice, I'd say figure out some subject you love. I think it's terribly wrong to go the other way around. Which is to define career in terms of jobs. I think your career should be defined in terms of interests. One of the things that's wrong with this city, there are many things besides the weather. One of the things, is that people are career obsessed. As if this is all that matters as if getting ahead is the only thing that counts. Well I don't think that's true. There's so many other things that matter. >> What about somebody who has known what they want to do all along? And they know that's the only direction they want to go. >> I've known a number of people who thought that at age 21. And at age 50 almost all of them were doing something different. I've always worked in the same sort of grand area, but I've done lots of different things. If I had done what I was expected to do. And what I plan to do. I think that my life, I know it would've been different and I think it would've been less useful and less interesting. That's not an argument for just allowing yourself to be carried away. But it is to suggest that it's hard to know how you'll feel five years from now. The danger right now is narrow specialization. And the way out is to be curious and open and to define what you do in the broadest possible terms. I won't say I'm the happiest person alive, but I wouldn't trade what I went through. Would I have liked to do some things differently? Yes. Would I change the general approach? Not at all. I mean, I'm the only person you're ever gonna gonna meet who has resigned from the Department of State twice. >> [LAUGH] >> I mean that's a triumph of hope over experience, if there ever was. Because to me, it's been one great adventure. The great thing about America, well, one of the great things here. This is the best country. Lincoln's right, this is the last best hope. This country is rich enough, and diverse enough that you can go in and out of government. That you can go in and out of different careers. That there's enough cushion. There's enough extra money around, so that you can make those kinds of choices. So you're not driven. You're not compelled to do only one thing. That's what's wonderful because it gives the opportunity for the greatest possible flowering of your personality. Nowhere else in the world is that true, nowhere. And we are blessed. It is our good luck to be here. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Good luck on your trip. >> It was a pleasure to meet you. >> Be safe. Be safe in driving this huge thing. Better you than me. >> Right. >> [LAUGH] Take care. [MUSIC] Yeah it was fascinating. He gave some really counter intuitive advice. Like, his quote he wrote on our RV was don't be afraid of changing Careers. Which not a lot of people who love their careers would give you that advice. >> I'm really into so what you thought about the luck thing. >> Yeah, I disagree with the thought that you don't have any control over luck or talent, or anything like that. That's not the way I wanna be. I wanna be something that I've made myself. >> I think it's about finding the balance between recognizing how much luck brought you to where you were and how much was your work? And the trick is not to surrender your fate to either one of these issues but to realize the balance in between them. So that you can actually go out into the real world and do something. [MUSIC] >> Yeah that's it. [MUSIC] I think that everything that he said, carried a lot more weight because this guy has been, with National Geographic >> 41 years. >> 41 years. And he is considered one of the best portrait photographers, that this magazine has ever seen. This is one of his photos, right here. [MUSIC] Isn't that cool? [MUSIC] You know, he's internationally renowned. He's damn good at what he does. [MUSIC] >> I dont' think he gave us a lot of advice. But the very fact that he told us about his story, the very fact that we were able to meet him and just sit down and talk to him. It's advice by example. >> I was a poor high school student. So my grades were very poor in high school. When I came out of high school, I don't think I could have gone to any university then, with my grade point average. So I didn't, and I got a job as a telephone construction lineman for the phone company in Minneapolis, climbing poles. And I had a sister who told me that there might be a little bit more in life than that and encouraged me to go to school. So I was good in art. I could draw well as a kid, so I enrolled in a professional art school. I was married. Started having children. There was a young, very enthusiastic professor who talked to my reporting class one day about words and pictures together, Photojournalism. And that really appealed to me because it got both my, the writing side and the visual side together. I had no photography experience, so I started from scratch, I was an older student. Probably a little more serious and didn't have any bad habits. So I became obsessed with that and became a double major specialization for Journalism, minor in art. And worked very hard at that then. And, in the spring of my junior year, went East with a portfolio at the urging of my professor. >> He just goes and does things. If you look at, the fact that he had four kids, he was married, such a risk to go to college, to start out on a new job. To freelance where there's no security, you don't know, If you're gonna get a pay check, I mean that's guts right there, that's like courage and heart. I would like to be like this guy. >> By accident, came here. Director of photography interviewed me with the internship, if you look at my resume, and you look at my portfolio, which for, in those days, would have been considered a pretty good college portfolio. It didn't have cheerleaders at the football games and the frats bonfires that had a girl dying of cancer, and a home for elderly patients that had a mixed marriage couple in Minneapolis and more serious if you will attempt. So I came here and the director of photography offered me an internship for the summer. And it worked out. So they gave me an assignment that I was really set up well for psychologically. It was to try to get pictures of the Amish in Pennsylvania. But he gave me that chance and I produced. And work was published here, it kind of became a landmark, kind of a turning point considered in the history of the magazine. Where it was a much more intimate looking story than people were used to seeing in National Geographic at that time. It was a very different magazine than it is now. So that jump started my career, basically. I went from an internship, to in the fall a contract. And then, at the end of the year, they wanted me to join the staff. >> It makes me realize that it's possible, it's possible to set out with a goal, and it's possible to reach that goal. >> No, I wanted to be a magazine photographer. I had a goal, and I lucked out and hit it. And I think in your case, yeah. Very important to have a goal like that. If I could wish upon you one thing it would be that whatever you find to earn a living, you find something you love to do. But you cannot be indifferent. Especially at your age. You know if you haven't got the passion and the fire now. It's not gonna come creeping up on you at 38 or 40. I can tell you I love what I do as much now if maybe more than when I started 41 years ago. That's what keeps the fires going. >> It speaks to me, just because whenever you see somebody do something that you would really wanna do, it's like it's possible. I never would have thought that you could be a writer and work in an Aquarium or for SparkNotes or for National Geographic. I mean all of these things, it's really easy for me to be okay, I'm gonna be practical and I'm gonna be an accountant and I'm gonna buy food. [LAUGH] That sort of thing but when they are honest with themselves and they're like this is what I wanna do and it's risky but I'm gonna do it. It draws out my passion too. It just is encouraging to me. >> I want to go see the monuments. >> Yeah, me too. [MUSIC] Hey let us in, let us in, let us in. >> Wait, wait, wait [LAUGH] They're not letting us in.. >> Here, let me. >> Okay, you see if you can do it. Maybe I'm just not authoritative or commanding. Aah! >> You can go in. >> This is ridiculous. Okay, so what do you do, Seraphina? >> I look at someone's eyes. I pick out a car and look at them. Look specifically at them, and say, we need to get over, can you let us in? >> But you gotta look specifically at them, not just any car. [MUSIC] >> I hate people. [MUSIC] >> As we make our way West we're taking pieces from each interview and we're all just kinda gathering them up, and each piece is part of a puzzle, and by the end of this trip we hope to have the puzzle completed. >> I'm excited for the interviews that are to come, cuz I already feel better about my path, from these past interviews. [MUSIC] Hey guys, something just happened. >> What? >> I think the gas is down, but we're decellerating. >> Crap. [SOUND] >> Did it suddenly do that? Yeah. >> Like you felt it? >> Like the pedal went down beneath my foot. [NOISE] >> We're actually pulled over on the side of the highway, in front of a truck stop. You think we broke a cable? He's saying that we're probably gonna be stuck for the night to fix this. >> [LAUGH] >> What are we gonna do, we're never gonna make it to Laguna Beach. >> We're not gonna make it to, it's like it's gonna fall apart, before we make it to Laguna Beach. >> Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. >> I'm gonna call AAA and ask them if they can recommend some places. Can I just say I cannot wait until we get to Chicago? >> I want to go home. >> Where are we? >> I don't know. We're in the Homey Valley Plaza. >> Super. >> Hi, I'm driving an RV and I believe I've broken a, like a throttle line. I was wondering if you guys could tow or if you could recommend somebody who could, really? No idea? [MUSIC] Talk about a crash course in people skills. If you've got bad people skills, you ought to get inside an RV when traveling across the country and break down in every city. It's all about getting yourselves out of situations and realizing that life is gonna throw [SOUND] at you, and you gotta get out of it. [SOUND] [MUSIC] Don't look at traveling the same way again. It's a learning experience. [MUSIC] >> It's a beautiful theater. I know. I like this. I'd really like to see a show here. >> I'm Cathy. >> Hi, Cathy, I'm Marilyn. >> Nice to meet you. >> Thanks so much for doing this. It's just such a great cool thing. >> We're really, yeah, it's really good. >> Yeah. [MUSIC] >> My path was absolutely, entirely circumlocuitous. There was, I hadn't been in a theater production my entire life. I didn't grow up in theater. I went through about a year actually of real soul searching. I don't know if you all have I mean and really crazy stuff, like the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, have you run into that yet? I mean it's in the Reference section of the library. It was like, a tome like this. So, I sat there and took notes on the DOT. I mean this is not recommended for anybody, but this is what I did, one of the things I discovered, which was a field I had no knowledge about whatsoever was volunteer administration in museums. I just sort of fell in love with this field, so I worked for 11 years in a museum directing a volunteer program, and I started volunteering again at a very tiny store front theater called Shakespeare Repertory. We were in a one bedroom apartment on the north side of Chicago. Our executive director was in the bedroom and the rest of us were in the living room. And our box office was in the kitchen-dining room area. And within about three months I realized that something had to change, that the day of the week that I was waiting for was my volunteer job, and that the other days of the week were becoming less important to me. And so, with that, I came here. >> Were there times when you made sacrifices or you worked really hard and you were wondering if that was going to pay off? >> The first five years of this job were really, really emotionally difficult for me. When I came here we were, if anything, just a crazy, dysfunctional small family. And so I remember going home on the train my first years. I shouldn't admit this on camera but crying a lot because it was so difficult. I do remember, I guess this is the way I can relate to what you are asking, why am I doing this? Why am I hurting so much? And I kept coming back to, it is more important to me to fulfill this larger goal, which I wanted to make this storefront a permanent cultural rooted institution. I wanted Chicago to have a Shakespeare theatre. And so I always came back to that and saying you know what so, you're crying so you had a horrible day but you're still doing something that if you left you might never forgive yourself. >> Do you feel that for each person you kinda of, you find that one thing and you just drive for it or can it be multiple things or do you know? Because I think that's the problem that I'm really struggling with is that, is it just one thing that I should be looking for? >> I don't think so, I think that a human being has so many possibilities. What I do consider success is someone who has something inside themselves. And they find a job that matches that and allows it to be nurtured and allows it to be expressed. I feel success when someone comes in here and says you love your job, don't you? I'd say yeah, I do. I have been blessed. >> I just want to thank you for sitting down and talking with us. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you so much. I loved it, I can tell. I mean, you all care so much about and you're wrestling with these things and they're such hard questions. [MUSIC] >> There it is. >> There you are. >> Yay. [MUSIC] >> How fun. Can I come in? >> Yes, please come in. [MUSIC] >> So you guys keep in touch. >> We will. [CROSSTALK] >> Seriously, I'm going to be so bummed if you don't. [MUSIC] >> [LAUGH] Thanks. >> [LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> I came into this trip with a lack of confidence. And as of this point, I think I feel like I can go back to Denver today and have that confidence that I need. But, I think that would be cutting short. There's so much more that I can learn from the people that we're gonna talk to. You know, the places that we're gonna go. You know, I think that it's impossible to say what's gonna happen in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, I'm ready for it though. [MUSIC] >> It's not a matter of me getting into something it's the focusing on one thing. >> I just have to like run at something until something is talking to your heart loudly enough that you don't even have to wonder. >> I fell into it by pure luck, and even right now if I hadn't of done this I have no clue what I would have done. >> The worst thing that I hate to see is someone be discouraged from doing what they want just because it's not popular. >> The thing is I never knew a job like what I have now existed or could exist. [MUSIC] >> For more information on Road Trip Nation, and to learn how you can hit the road, go to pbs.org. [MUSIC] 

<p>Continuing in Washington DC, the US team visits Paul Goble, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Next they interview William Albert Allard, photographer for National Geographic. Then it's off to Chicago to interview Marilyn Halperin, Director of Education and Communications of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.</p>

Washington, D.C. - Chicago

I was a poor high school student, so my grades were very poor in high school. When I came out of high school, I couldn't have gone to. I don't think I could've gotten into a university then with my grade-point average. So I didn't, and I got a job as a telephone construction lineman for the phone company in Minneapolis, climbing poles. And then I had a sister who told me that there might be a little more in life than that, and encouraged me to go to school. So I was good in art. I could draw well as a kid. So I enrolled in a professional art school. And I was married, started having children. There was a young, very enthusiastic professor who talked to my reporting class one day about words and pictures together, photo journalism. And that really appealed to me, because it got both the writing side and the visual side together. I had no photography experience, I started from scratch. I was an older student, probably a little more serious. I didn't have any bad habits. So I became obsessed with that, became a double major with specialization for journalism, minor in art. And I worked very hard at that then, and in the spring of my junior year went East with a portfolio at the urging of my professor. >> He just goes and does things. If you look at the fact that he had four kids, he was married, it was such a risk to go to college, to start out on a new job. To freelance, where's there no security. You don't know if you're gonna get a paycheck. I mean, that's guts right there, that's like courage and heart. I would like to be like this guy. >> By accident came here. Director of Photograph interviewed me at the internship. Didn't look at my resume and he looked at my portfolio. Which in those days would have been considered pretty good college portfolio. It didn't have cheerleaders, didn't have the football games and the frat bonfires. It had a girl dying of cancer in a home for elderly patients. It had a mixed marriage couple in Minneapolis. And more serious, if you will, attempts. So I came here and the director of photography offered me an internship for the summer. And it worked out that, they gave me an assignment that I was really set up well for psychologically. It was to try to get pictures of the Amish in Pennsylvania. But he gave me that chance and I produced. And work was published here, it kinda became a landmark, kind of a turning point considered in the history of the magazine. Where it was a much more intimate looking story than people were used to seeing in National Geographic at the time. It was a very different magazine than it is now. So that jump-started my career, basically. I went from an internship to, in the fall a contract. And then at the end of the year, they wanted me to join the staff. >> It makes me realize that it's possible. It's possible to set out with a goal, and it's possible to reach that goal. >> No, I wanted to be a magazine photographer. I had a goal, and I lucked out and hit it. And I think when you're in your case, yeah. Very important to have a goal like that. If I could wish upon you one thing, it would be that whatever you find to earn a living, you find something you love to do. But you cannot be indifferent, especially at your age. If you haven't got the passion and the fire now, it's not gonna come creeping up on you at 38 or 40. I can tell you I love what I do as much now, if maybe more than when I started 41 years ago. That's what keeps the fires going. 

Interview

No, I wanted to be a magazine photographer. I had a goal, and I lucked out and hit it. And I think in your case, yeah, very important to have a goal like that. If I could wish upon you one thing, it would be that whatever you find to earn a living, you find something you love to do. But you cannot be indifferent. Especially at your age. If you haven't got the passion and the fire now it's not going to come creeping up on you at 38 or 40. I can tell you I love what I do as much now, maybe more than when I started, 41 years ago. That's what keeps the fires going. 

Goals

Passion

Have A Goal

I was a poor high school student, so my grades were very poor in high school. When I came out of school, I couldn't have gone to, I don't think I could have gotten in any university, not with my grade point average. So I didn't, and I got a job as a telephone construction lineman for the phone company in Minneapolis, climbing poles. And then I had a sister who told me that there might be a little more in life than that and encouraged me to go to school. So, I was good in art. I could draw well as a kid, so I enrolled in a professional art school. Then I was married and started having children. There was a young, very enthusiastic professor who talked to my reporting class one day about words and pictures together, photojournalism. And that really appealed to me, because it got both the writing side and the visual side together. I had no photography experience, so I started from scratch. I was an older student, probably a little more serious, and didn't have any bad habits. So I became obsessed with that and became a double major, with specialization for journalism, minor in art. And worked very hard at that then. And in the spring of my junior year, went east with a portfolio at the urging of my professor. 

Words and Pictures

By accident came here. Director of photography interviewed me at the internship, to look at my resume. And he looked at my portfolio, which in those days would have been considered a pretty good college portfolio. It didn't have cheerleaders, it didn't have the football games and the frat bonfires. It had a girl dying of cancer, and a home for elderly patients, it had a mixed marriage. A couple in Minneapolis and more serious, if you will, attempts. So I came here, and the director of photography offered me an internship for the summer. And it worked out that they gave me an assignment that I was really set up well for psychologically, it was to try to get pictures of the Amish in Pennsylvania. But he gave me that chance, and I produced, and work was published here. It kinda became a landmark, kind of a turning point considered in the history of the magazine, where it was a much more intimate looking story than people were used to seeing in National Geographic. At the time it was a very different magazine than it was now. So that Jump started my career basically. I went from an internship to in the fall, a contract, and then at the end of the year they wanted me to join the staff. 

Chance

Summer Internship

I got a job as a telephone construction lineman for the phone company in Minneapolis. Climbing poles. And then I had a sister who told me there might be more to life than that and encouraged me to go to school. So I was good in art-- I could draw well as a kid-- so I enrolled in a professional art school. There was a young, very enthusiastic professor who talked to my reporting class one day about words and pictures together-- photojournalism. And that really appealed to me because it got both my, the writing side and the visual side together. I had no photography experience, so I started from scratch. I was an older student, probably a little more serious and didn't have any bad habits. So I became obsessed with that and became a double major with a specialization in photojournalism, minor in art. And, uh, worked very hard at that then. If I could wish upon you one thing, it would be that whatever you find to earn a living, you find something that you love to do. 

William Albert Allard

Staff Photographer

Videos

William Albert Allard

Milestones

Education

Career

Career Roadmap

My work combines:

My work combines:

Art

Journalism

Being Creative

Interviewed By

Free to Detour