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Let's just start by looking at some great photographs.

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This is an icon of National Geographic,

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an Afghan refugee taken by Steve McCurry.

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But the Harvard Lampoon is about to come out

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with a parody of National Geographic,

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and I shudder to think what they're going to do to this photograph.

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Oh, the wrath of Photoshop.

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This is a jet landing at San Francisco, by Bruce Dale.

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He mounted a camera on the tail.

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A poetic image for a story on Tolstoy, by Sam Abell.

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Pygmies in the DRC, by Randy Olson.

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I love this photograph because it reminds me

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of Degas' bronze sculptures of the little dancer.

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A polar bear swimming in the Arctic, by Paul Nicklen.

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Polar bears need ice to be able to move back and forth --

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they're not very good swimmers --

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and we know what's happening to the ice.

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These are camels moving across the Rift Valley in Africa,

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photographed by Chris Johns.

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Shot straight down, so these are the shadows of the camels.

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This is a rancher in Texas, by William Albert Allard,

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a great portraitist.

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And Jane Goodall, making her own special connection,

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photographed by Nick Nichols.

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This is a soap disco in Spain, photographed by David Alan Harvey.

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And David said that there was lot of weird stuff

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happening on the dance floor.

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But, hey, at least it's hygienic.

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(Laughter)

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These are sea lions in Australia doing their own dance,

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by David Doubilet.

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And this is a comet, captured by Dr. Euan Mason.

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And finally, the bow of the Titanic, without movie stars,

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photographed by Emory Kristof.

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Photography carries a power that holds up

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under the relentless swirl of today's saturated, media world,

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because photographs emulate the way

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that our mind freezes a significant moment.

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Here's an example.

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Four years ago, I was at the beach with my son,

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and he was learning how to swim

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in this relatively soft surf of the Delaware beaches.

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But I turned away for a moment, and he got caught into a riptide

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and started to be pulled out towards the jetty.

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I can stand here right now and see,

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as I go tearing into the water after him,

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the moments slowing down and freezing into this arrangement.

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I can see the rocks are over here.

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There's a wave about to crash onto him.

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I can see his hands reaching out,

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and I can see his face in terror,

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looking at me, saying, "Help me, Dad."

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I got him. The wave broke over us.

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We got back on shore; he was fine.

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We were a little bit rattled.

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But this flashbulb memory, as it's called,

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is when all the elements came together to define

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not just the event, but my emotional connection to it.

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And this is what a photograph taps into

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when it makes its own powerful connection to a viewer.

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Now I have to tell you,

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I was talking to Kyle last week about this,

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that I was going to tell this story.

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And he said, "Oh, yeah, I remember that too!

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I remember my image of you

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was that you were up on the shore yelling at me."

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(Laughter)

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I thought I was a hero.

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(Laughter)

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So,

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this represents -- this is a cross-sample of

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some remarkable images taken by some of the world's greatest photojournalists,

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working at the very top of their craft --

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except one.

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This photograph was taken by Dr. Euan Mason

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in New Zealand last year,

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and it was submitted and published in National Geographic.

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Last year, we added a section to our website called "Your Shot,"

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where anyone can submit photographs for possible publication.

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And it has become a wild success,

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tapping into the enthusiast photography community.

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The quality of these amateur photographs

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can, at times, be amazing.

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And seeing this reinforces, for me,

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that every one of us has at least one or two

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great photographs in them.

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But to be a great photojournalist,

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you have to have more than just one or two

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great photographs in you.

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You've got to be able to make them all the time.

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But even more importantly,

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you need to know how to create a visual narrative.

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You need to know how to tell a story.

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So I'm going to share with you some coverages

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that I feel demonstrate the storytelling power of photography.

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Photographer Nick Nichols went to document

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a very small and relatively unknown wildlife sanctuary

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in Chad, called Zakouma.

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The original intent was to travel there

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and bring back a classic story of diverse species,

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of an exotic locale.

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And that is what Nick did, up to a point.

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This is a serval cat.

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He's actually taking his own picture,

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shot with what's called a camera trap.

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There's an infrared beam that's going across,

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and he has stepped into the beam and taken his photograph.

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These are baboons at a watering hole.

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Nick -- the camera, again, an automatic camera

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took thousands of pictures of this.

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And Nick ended up with a lot of pictures

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of the rear ends of baboons.

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(Laughter)

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A lion having a late night snack --

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notice he's got a broken tooth.

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And a crocodile walks up a riverbank toward its den.

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I love this little bit of water

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that comes off the back of his tail.

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But the centerpiece species of Zakouma are the elephants.

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It's one of the largest intact herds in this part of Africa.

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Here's a photograph shot in moonlight,

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something that digital photography has made a big difference for.

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It was with the elephants that this story pivoted.

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Nick, along with researcher Dr. Michael Fay,

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collared the matriarch of the herd.

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They named her Annie,

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and they began tracking her movements.

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The herd was safe within the confines of the park,

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because of this dedicated group of park rangers.

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But once the annual rains began,

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the herd would begin migrating to feeding grounds outside the park.

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And that's when they ran into trouble.

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For outside the safety of the park were poachers,

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who would hunt them down only for the value of their ivory tusks.

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The matriarch that they were radio tracking,

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after weeks of moving back and forth, in and out of the park,

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came to a halt outside the park.

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Annie had been killed, along with 20 members of her herd.

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And they only came for the ivory.

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This is actually one of the rangers.

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They were able to chase off one of the poachers and recover this ivory,

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because they couldn't leave it there,

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because it's still valuable.

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But what Nick did was he brought back

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a story that went beyond the old-school method

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of just straight, "Isn't this an amazing world?"

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And instead, created a story that touched our audiences deeply.

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Instead of just knowledge of this park,

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he created an understanding and an empathy

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for the elephants, the rangers and the many issues

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surrounding human-wildlife conflicts.

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Now let's go over to India.

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Sometimes you can tell a broad story in a focused way.

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We were looking at the same issue that Richard Wurman

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touches upon in his new world population project.

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For the first time in history,

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more people live in urban, rather than rural, environments.

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And most of that growth is not in the cities,

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but in the slums that surround them.

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Jonas Bendiksen, a very energetic photographer,

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came to me and said,

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"We need to document this, and here's my proposal.

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Let's go all over the world and photograph every single slum around the world."

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And I said, "Well, you know, that might be a bit ambitious for our budget."

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So instead, what we did was

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we decided to, instead of going out and doing what would result

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in what we'd consider sort of a survey story --

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where you just go in and see just a little bit of everything --

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we put Jonas into Dharavi,

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which is part of Mumbai, India,

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and let him stay there, and really get into

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the heart and soul of this really major part of the city.

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What Jonas did was not just go and do a surface look

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at the awful conditions that exist in such places.

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He saw that this was a living and breathing and vital part

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of how the entire urban area functioned.

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By staying tightly focused in one place,

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Jonas tapped into the soul and the enduring human spirit

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that underlies this community.

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And he did it in a beautiful way.

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Sometimes, though, the only way to tell a story is with a sweeping picture.

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We teamed up underwater photographer Brian Skerry

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and photojournalist Randy Olson

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to document the depletion of the world's fisheries.

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We weren't the only ones to tackle this subject,

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but the photographs that Brian and Randy created

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are among the best to capture both the human

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and natural devastation of overfishing.

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Here, in a photo by Brian,

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a seemingly crucified shark is caught up

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in a gill net off of Baja.

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I've seen sort of OK pictures of bycatch,

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the animals accidentally scooped up

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while fishing for a specific species.

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But here, Brian captured a unique view

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by positioning himself underneath the boat

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when they threw the waste overboard.

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And Brian then went on to even greater risk

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to get this never-before-made photograph

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of a trawl net scraping the ocean bottom.

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Back on land, Randy Olson photographed

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a makeshift fish market in Africa,

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where the remains of filleted fish were sold to the locals,

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the main parts having already been sent to Europe.

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And here in China, Randy shot a jellyfish market.

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As prime food sources are depleted,

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the harvest goes deeper into the oceans

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and brings in more such sources of protein.

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This is called fishing down the food chain.

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But there are also glimmers of hope,

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and I think anytime we're doing a big, big story on this,

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we don't really want to go

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and just look at all the problems.

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We also want to look for solutions.

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Brian photographed a marine sanctuary in New Zealand,

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where commercial fishing had been banned --

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the result being that the overfished species have been restored,

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and with them a possible solution for sustainable fisheries.

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Photography can also compel us to confront

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issues that are potentially distressing and controversial.

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James Nachtwey, who was honored at last year's TED,

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took a look at the sweep of the medical system

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that is utilized to handle the American wounded coming out of Iraq.

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It is like a tube where a wounded soldier enters on one end

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and exits back home, on the other.

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Jim started in the battlefield.

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Here, a medical technician tends to a wounded soldier

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on the helicopter ride back to the field hospital.

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Here is in the field hospital.

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The soldier on the right has the name of his daughter

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tattooed across his chest, as a reminder of home.

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From here, the more severely wounded are transported

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back to Germany, where they meet up with their families

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for the first time.

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And then back to the States to recuperate at veterans' hospitals,

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such as here in Walter Reed.

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And finally, often fitted with high-tech prosthesis,

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they exit the medical system and attempt

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to regain their pre-war lives.

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Jim took what could have been a straight-up medical science story

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and gave it a human dimension that touched our readers deeply.

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Now, these stories are great examples

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of how photography can be used

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to address some of our most important topics.

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But there are also times when photographers

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simply encounter things that are, when it comes down to it,

0:11:53.000,0:11:55.000
just plain fun.

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Photographer Paul Nicklin traveled to Antarctica

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to shoot a story on leopard seals.

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They have been rarely photographed, partly because they are considered

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one of the most dangerous predators in the ocean.

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In fact, a year earlier, a researcher had been

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grabbed by one and pulled down to depth and killed.

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So you can imagine Paul was maybe a little bit hesitant

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about getting into the water.

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Now, what leopard seals do mostly is, they eat penguins.

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You know of "The March of the Penguins."

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This is sort of the munch of the penguins.

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(Laughter)

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Here a penguin goes up to the edge and looks out

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to see if the coast is clear.

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And then everybody kind of runs out and goes out.

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But then Paul got in the water.

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And he said he was never really afraid of this.

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Well, this one female came up to him.

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She's probably -- it's a shame you can't see it in the photograph,

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but she's 12 feet long.

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So, she is pretty significant in size.

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And Paul said he was never really afraid,

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because she was more curious about him than threatened.

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This mouthing behavior, on the right,

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was really her way of saying to him, "Hey, look how big I am!"

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Or you know, "My, what big teeth you have."

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(Laughter)

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Then Paul thinks that she simply took pity on him.

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To her, here was this big, goofy creature in the water

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that for some reason didn't seem to be interested

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in chasing penguins.

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So what she did was she started to bring penguins to him,

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alive, and put them in front of him.

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She dropped them off, and then they would swim away.

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She'd kind of look at him, like "What are you doing?"

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Go back and get them, and then bring them back

0:13:28.000,0:13:30.000
and drop them in front of him.

0:13:30.000,0:13:33.000
And she did this over the course of a couple of days,

0:13:33.000,0:13:35.000
until the point where she got so frustrated with him

0:13:35.000,0:13:38.000
that she started putting them directly on top of his head.

0:13:38.000,0:13:40.000
(Laughter)

0:13:40.000,0:13:43.000
Which just resulted in a fantastic photograph.

0:13:43.000,0:13:46.000
(Laughter)

0:13:46.000,0:13:49.000
Eventually, though, Paul thinks that she just figured

0:13:49.000,0:13:51.000
that he was never going to survive.

0:13:51.000,0:13:54.000
This is her just puffing out, you know,

0:13:54.000,0:13:56.000
snorting out in disgust.

0:13:56.000,0:13:58.000
(Laughter)

0:13:58.000,0:14:01.000
And lost interest with him, and went back to what she does best.

0:14:01.000,0:14:03.000
Paul set out to photograph a relatively

0:14:03.000,0:14:05.000
mysterious and unknown creature,

0:14:05.000,0:14:07.000
and came back with not just a collection of photographs,

0:14:07.000,0:14:10.000
but an amazing experience and a great story.

0:14:11.000,0:14:13.000
It is these kinds of stories,

0:14:13.000,0:14:16.000
ones that go beyond the immediate or just the superficial

0:14:16.000,0:14:18.000
that demonstrate the power of photojournalism.

0:14:19.000,0:14:24.000
I believe that photography can make a real connection to people,

0:14:24.000,0:14:27.000
and can be employed as a positive agent

0:14:27.000,0:14:29.000
for understanding the challenges and opportunities

0:14:29.000,0:14:31.000
facing our world today.

0:14:31.000,0:14:32.000
Thank you.

0:14:32.000,0:14:36.000
(Applause)