A Thousand Words
I’m always curious to get another photographer’s take on my process and practices, so I asked recent subject Joel Sartore to write on our session.
A Thousand Words About Chris Buck
For more than 30 years, I’ve been a contract photographer for National Geographic. But I’ve always been the guy behind the camera, never in front of it.
That all changed when the Geographic assigned photographer Chris Buck to do my portrait. I really couldn’t figure out why since he usually photographs celebrities, which I am not.
Turns out they were doing a story on the 20th anniversary of The Photo Ark. So I went along with it, both nervous and excited to have my picture taken by a Real East Coast Pro.
I was also eager to learn how he does his work. Lighting large spaces has always proved a handful for me, and I figured a day with Chris would illuminate me, so to speak.
Through a series of emails and a single phone call, we arranged to eventually meet at Iowa Bird Rehab in Des Moines, where we’d have several birds to choose from, subjects I could pose with. They take in orphaned and injured birds, nurse them back to health, and release them. But they also had several bird species that were both non-releasable and calm around visitors. The center’s director, Jenni Boonjakualkul, called them ‘ambassador birds’, educating the public to each species’ intelligence and its important role in nature.
Eventually, on a chilly morning in March, Chris and I met in the driveway of the center. He was about my age, in his early 60’s, very thin, with an assistant sticking close beside him, ready to follow his every instruction. I pulled up in my pickup and said hello, then tried to make a little small talk, but I could tell that wasn’t going to fly. Chris was serious, with a lot on his mind, and we were burning daylight.
Being from Nebraska, this caught me off guard. But over the next few hours I came to realize he’d been planning this shoot for weeks, and was so laser-focused that everything else was secondary, including talking about the weather or the quality of his flights to Iowa.
Our first shoot of the day would feature me with a flock of white pelicans…inside Jenni’s living room. Her rehab center is based out of her backyard, so the birds were already close by, but we all wondered how bad things would end up smelling since pelicans eat mostly fish and poop constantly.
As I was helping his assistant set up the lights, I noticed that Chris sat right down at Jenni’s dining room table. He didn’t look around or talk, but was slowly rubbing his forehead, brow furrowed, staring down. For a moment I thought he was bummed, or just looking at bad news in an email. But then I noticed a small notebook in his hands. It was his idea book, full of notes and sketches about today’s shoots, and he was going through it one last time to make sure he didn’t forget anything. But with four birds to shoot in as many locations, he had already realized that we might run out of time to get everything he’d planned on.
Because I already knew his work, and that he was very good at lighting interiors, I honestly was more excited about that than having my picture taken. Under his direction, his assistant and I placed radio-triggered flash heads outside each living room window on the south side of the house. Heavy light stands, weighed down with sandbags, kept them from blowing over in the steady wind that blows daily across the Great Plains.
He shot a few frames to judge exposure, and I raced inside to see the results. On the back of his camera, I could see how Chris had magically turned a gloomy day into beautiful morning light that streamed through all the windows. It was simple and elegant, and I could see in an instant it was worth all the trouble.
The flock of pelicans was then ushered into the living room, where I sat among them pretending to read a National Geographic Magazine. The cover featured a story on birds, of course.
From there we went on to three other locations. At an old diner downtown, an American kestrel perched on a stand-up menu watching me drink a chocolate shake. Next, at a city park, a black vulture perched on my stomach as I lay on a fallen log. The last shot featured a screech owl standing on my head in various woodlands. Eventually it started to get dark again, which meant our shoots were over.
After all the gear was all packed up, we gathered over fried food in a local restaurant. Because it was a long time between thrills out here, I asked Chris about some of the celebrities he’d photographed. What was Obama like? And Chris Farley? And Billy Joel? He had a great memory with stories to match. He told them all, enthused and with a smile. If he’d ever told those stories before, you’d never know it.
Ever since that day, on the desktop of my computer, I have a photo that Chris shot many years ago, of a grinning celebrity holding a white bunny. But it’s the caption that interested me most, and I’ve since read the last two sentences out loud to others when they complain that life is hard. To me, this quote from Chris sums up his work ethic perfectly, and explains why he’s been so successful across a 40-year career.
“This is a shoot that’s interesting in that Simon Cowell was actually making fun of me while we shot. My assistant was like, ‘I used to want to shoot celebrities, but after seeing how you’re treated I don’t want to do that.’ And I said, ‘You’ve totally got the wrong takeaway. Think of the amazing shots we’ve come out with. This is not about having a nice time; this is about getting the shots. And if you don’t get the shots, it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters.’”
Amen, Chris Buck. Amen.
Top Image: Joel Sartore of National Geographic’s The Photo Ark, photographed March 25, 2026, Des Moines, IA.
Second Image: We take Joel and owl Jujube to a nearby controlled burn.
Third Images: BTS of the pelican living room scenario. BTS photo courtesy Jenni Boonjakuakul at Iowa Bird Rehab.
Bottom Image: Behind the scenes, including flag artists Jenni Boonjakuakul and Annick Sjobakken. BTS photo by Sophia Pallwein-Prettner.