Lynn Johnson photographs the human condition. A regular contributor to National Geographic, she is known for finding beauty and meaning in elusive, difficult subjects—threatened languages, zoonotic disease, rape in the military ranks, the centrality of water in village life, mysteries of the brain. Hate Kills, her master’s thesis as a Knight Fellow at Ohio University, probed the impact of hate crimes. At National Geographic Photo Camps, she helps at-risk youth find their creative voices. And at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, she developed and teaches a program that challenges master’s students to push past their comfort levels in pursuit of their stories’ truth. She herself is committed to that search frame by frame. Johnson has worked for LIFE and Sports Illustrated and published 36 feature stories in National Geographic Magazine. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Award and Pulitzer finalist on two occasions.
Presented by National Geographic
Finding work, love, and independence can be especially difficult for those on the spectrum.
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Katie’s New Face takes viewers inside the groundbreaking face transplant that gave a young woman a second chance at life.
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In 2000, Lynn Johnson began documenting the places where extreme acts of violence took place in the United States for her Master’s degree thesis at the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University.
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This story, which appeared in National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” issue, was an opportunity to meet people from the United States, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Samoa, who had the courage to make themselves visible. Please consider their lives. Perhaps someday, courage will not be necessary to simply be one’s self.
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Photographing this story for National Geographic was an education, not just about this plant—revered and reviled—and its devoted users in the recreational world of weed but more importantly, about the courage of parents determined, in spite of laws, distance and resources, to give their children the best life possible.
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This exhibit is a curated selection of work from photographers who participated in C.O.R.E., an experiment in photographic community that started in the summer of 2013.
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“I got blown up.” That’s what they say. “I was right there in the blast seat.” Blast force—the signature injury of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan—creates a pressure so powerful it can be seen before it is heard or felt.
Learn MoreListen in as internationally recognized, award-winning National Geographic contributing photographer, Lynn Johnson and acclaimed photo editor Elizabeth Krist sit down for a discussion of the projects they have worked on together.
Learn MoreJoin Maggie and Lynn’s experience documenting the emotional two and a half year journey of Katie Stubblefield, the youngest face transplant patient in the U.S.
Learn MoreImmerse yourself in a visual story like no other with Lynn Johnson. In 2000 Lynn began documenting the places where extreme acts of violence took place in the United States for Master’s degree thesis at the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University.
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