James Blair

Jim Blair was a staff photographer for National Geographic for 32 years. Between 1962 and 1994, the magazine published 46 of his bylines and over 2,000 of his photographs. His work took him throughout much of the world, where he covered agriculture, coal, astronomy, and the uses of photography in science, among other subjects.

Jim prepared for a photographic future by studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Today his photographs are represented in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery (Washington DC), the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Portland Museum of Art (Maine), and the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh). Since retiring from the National Geographic Society in 1994, Jim has continued to photograph, teach, and lecture. He is represented by both Getty Images, and the National Geographic Society’s Image Collection.