News Release

Celebrated photographer to discuss her work Feb. 25

February 18, 2010

One of America’s most celebrated photographers, Annie Griffiths Belt, has gained a reputation over her 30-year career for being able to bridge the divide between her camera and people of distant cultures and beliefs.

The photographer for dozens of National Geographic projects, Belt brings her richly illustrated presentation entitled “Connect with Anybody Anywhere” to the Morrison Gallery of Penn State Harrisburg’s library at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25.

Belt’s presentation, during which she shares stories of the people and places she has visited “and the rewarding journeys between here and there,” is free and open to the public. For information, phone 948-6273.

A Minnesota native and graduate of the University of Minnesota with a degree in photojournalism, Belt began assignment work for the National Geographic Society in 1978 and since then has worked on dozens of magazine and book projects for the organization, including National Geographic stories on Lawrence of Arabia, Baja California, Israel’s Galilee, Petra, Vancouver, England’s Lake District, and Jerusalem.  Her work was featured in the book, Women Photographers at National Geographic.

Belt’s work has also appeared in Life, GEO, Smithsonian, Fortune, Time, Paris Match, Stern and many other publications. Book projects include the A Day in the Life series, Baseball in America, The Power to Heal, Women in the Mater World, and One Digital Day.

She has received awards from the National Press Photographers Association, the Associated Press, the National Organization for Women, and the White House News Photographers Association. A grant from National Geographic Society’s Expeditions Council enabled her and author Barbara Kingsolver to produce Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, a book celebrating America’s last wild places.

Her photographs have been exhibited in New York, Washington, D.C., Moscow, and Tokyo and she has just completed a photo memoir of her life called A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel, which reveals the secrets of her movable family, describing how she managed to convey two children and a career to far-flung destinations across the globe. Belt makes her home in Great Falls, Va., with her husband, National Geographic senior editor Don Belt, and their two children, Lily and Charlie.