George Steinmetz may reside in the uninspiring state of New Jersey, but he overcomes his underwhelming surroundings with entertaining and adventurous photography. In Desert Air: Photographs by George Steinmetz, his new exhibit in the National Geographic Museum, Steinmetz captures the world, from bathers in the Dead Sea to flamingos in Iran, from his own special vantage point—strapped to a 30 mile-per-hour motorized paraglider.
Although he goes to such unconventional heights to take his pictures, Steinmetz assures the audience in one of the exhibit’s audio clips that he is a photographer before an aviator: “Not a pilot that takes pictures, but rather a photographer that flies.”
His specialty is deserts. Concerning his style, he states in another sound bite that, “Usually when you’re taking pictures of something, you want to get as close as possible, but that’s not always the best solution for deserts.” He has photographed bird’s-eye views of Antarctic ice towers, Namibian zebra herds, Mauritanian camels, Saudi Arabian oilfields, and Algerian rooftops. In his relatively unobtrusive flying machine—he claims it has the noise level of a moped—Steinmetz is able to capture raw scenes that make his audience rethink the idea that deserts are “wastelands” and realize their dynamic, living presence.
For Steinmetz, the barchan sand dunes are the “largest life form in the desert.” These funky, fortune cookie-shaped dunes that exist in Baja California and Peru not only span great distances, but also spawn baby barchans. And Steinmetz’s genius eye captures the whole process. Descriptions of the barchan dunes, alongside Fogaras Irrigation Systems, are narrated by Steinmetz’s NPR-worthy voice in video clips located inside the exhibit. The audio replays throughout the gallery on headphones, allowing the visitors to enjoy the photographs in an awe-filled silence.
Perhaps one of the exhibit’s most attractive qualities is the visible passion Steinmetz has for his work. When he was 21 years old, Steinmetz dropped out of college and spent more than two years hitchhiking the Sahara desert and exploring other parts of Africa, after which he returned and earned a degree in geophysics at Stanford.
His photos represent both his love of adventure and his love of extreme geology. The decision to take photos while paragliding is central to his unique style, which he explains in his biographical video clip as “not the easiest way to take pictures, but the best.”
This free exhibit runs from now until Jan. 27, 2013 and is open from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. daily. It’s not a huge exhibit, probably a half-hour commitment in all, but the top-down vistas are breathtaking, even if you are experiencing them from solid ground.
