National Geographic’s ‘Odyssey’ Looks at Photojournalism as Art

The Indian holy man stares straight into the camera, his open mouth revealing the wire that he has pushed through his cheeks as self-inflicted penance.

A lama caretaker in China poses in a library of ill-fated printing blocks used to publish the Tibetan Buddhist scripture.

Three balloons are frozen in various stages of explosion as the bullet that tore through them seems to hang suspended in mid-air.

The images are three of more than 700,000 that have been taken by photographers on assignment for National Geographic during the magazine’s first 100 years, and three of the 289 that made the final cut for the magazine’s touring exhibition, “Odyssey: The Art of National Geographic” (at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego through Jan. 15).

By themselves, out of the context of their accompanying stories, the photos may seem quirky, almost novel. As part of the exhibit, they help bring home the point that for 100 years National Geographic was not simply delivering the world’s natural, scientific and social exotica to its readers, but elevating photojournalism to a fine art.

The exhibit is not intended as a “National Geo’s Greatest Hits.” The photos, which range from hand-tinted black-and-white photos of turn-of-the-century Korean children to the sky of cumulus ash clouds that rose with the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, are identified by the names of the photographers and the years they were taken. But there is no indication of why they were shot, or under what circumstances.

They were selected, say the exhibit curators, strictly for their aesthetic appeal--informational photography as an art form.

Matched sets of the Geographic photos are on three-year ours--one in the United States, the other abroad. The American tour makes its only West Coast stop in San Diego, apparently because larger museums in Los Angeles and San Francisco were unavailable or not interested. At a press preview of the exhibit Tuesday, National Geographic editor Bill Garrett said that the attitude of some museum directors is that they are reluctant to think of photography as art, let alone photos shot for a magazine.

The exhibit was organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington with input from National Geographic editors. It took five people two years to go through the warehouse of photos that had accumulated during the magazine’s first century.

“It was absolutely virgin territory; we felt we were pioneering,” said Jane Livingston, the Corcoran’s chief curator and associate director, who spearheaded the archival odyssey that also produced a 360-page coffee-table book. “The difficulty with such a vast amount of information and so many images is that we felt we could only scratch the surface.

“Fully 65% of the images in the show have never been published before. It gives an idea of the unknown treasures that reside there.”

Livingston, joined by three museum associates and National Geographic special-projects editor Declan Haun, looked at about 4,000 photographs every day. They considered every 35-millimeter slide ever taken for a National Geographic shoot and paged through every issue of the magazine, even those in the early years before photos were published. (Photos in the exhibit date from the late 19th Century.) The team also asked living National Geographic photographers to send in their best work.

Ultimately, Livingston acknowledged, the choices came down to her subjective judgment.

“It’s two black women, one painting the other’s toenail,” she said in describing a personal favorite in the collection. “Why is that great? What’s interesting about that? If you tried to explain it, people would wonder why the hell you bothered. Some photographs have no rational explanation, no reason, but they’re unquestionably great.

“In some cases it’s the subject. A 2,000-year-old tanned hand (photographed in a bog) is fascinating.” A small Japanese sailboat that is on the cover of the book struck Livingston because of “the delicacy of that perfect little composition. The sails reflected in the water are the essence of Japan. It’s a small black-and-white image that had built-in power for us.”

In the case of Harold Edgerton’s black-and-white photo of balloons being popped by a gunshot, Livingston was caught by the composition.

“It’s an arresting image visually,” she said. “It’s a horizontal image. It has a formal abstract appeal to me.”

The photographers whose work made it to the show seem as awed by the images as anyone.

“You can go through it for the sheer pleasure of the image,” said Jodi Cobb, a National Geographic staff photographer who said she’s glad the show was set up as an art rather than a historical exhibit. “I think if it were a chronology, the images would be subordinate to an organizing concept. This way you are exposed to the sheer visceral response that was there when you took the photograph. It’s so overwhelming--so many images.”

Said William Allard, whose six photos in the exhibit include four that were never published: “A typical National Geographic story involves a tremendous number of images made--thousands of pictures--and in the story there are 20 of them.”

Allard said he doesn’t think being on assignment means that he’s not creating art.

“I think I can make a picture answer the needs of my editors, but also be strong enough to merit hanging on a museum wall,” he said. “I’m not the least ashamed to say that I’m working as an artist, but not all my work is art.”