UNITED STATES

Randy Olsen is a contract photographer for National Geographic, and was a staff photographer at the Pittsburgh Press for seven years. He is currently working in the Ozarks on his sixth National Geographic assignment. His previous stories include The 25th anniversary of Earth Day and, with his wife Melissa Farlow, coverage of the condition of the National Park system. His awards include Newspaper Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year Contest, an Alicia Patterson Fellow for social documentary, the Robert F. Kennedy award for social documentary of the disadvantaged, and Pennsylvania Photographer of the Year. A graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, Olson worked at the San Jose Mercury News, Charleston Gazette, Milwaukee Journal and West Palm Beach Post. He has contributed to the Day in the Life books on China, Italy, California, Ireland and Hollywood, as well as other books devoted to photography--most recently in Vietnam and Ecuador. While teaching photojournalism at the University of Missouri, he received a National Archives Grant to preserve the Pictures of the Year archives.