Mondays become great-photography day

For fans of great photography, Mondays have become the must-see-TV day. That’s when the National Geographic Channel:
— Had the epic African series “Queens,” which then went to Hulu and Disney+.
— Will have its usual strong coverage on Earth Day, April 22.
— And now has a series, simply called “Photographer.”
In six episodes on three Mondays, the series (also on Disney+) will feature people who share a few traits. They have “dedication and discipline and an audacity to refuse to be held back,” Chai Vasarhelyi, who produces the series with her husband (and fellow photographer) Jimmy Chin, told the Television Critics Association.
Their subjects vary sharply. They range from war (Muhammed Muheisen, 9:13 p.m. April 1) to celebrities (Campbell Addy, 9:17 p.m., March 25), from tornadoes (Krystle Wright, 8 p.m. April 1) to egg embryos (Anand Varma, 9:21 p.m., March 18).
Often, a photographer isn’t well-known. Still, technology has changed some of that.
The married duo of Cristina Mittermeier (whose photo is shown here) and Paul Nicklen (8 p.m., March 18) has done 22 photo spreads for the National Geographic magazine. But Nicklen said he was hesitant about social media, until he happened to put a note on the Nat Geo website.
“I said, ‘If you want to learn more about narwhals and the issues they face in climate change, go to my feed,’” Nicklen said. “Well, I got 45,000 new followers in two hours And one day, the polar bear we posted on the Nat Geo feed got two billion views ….
“And then another video I put up got 180 million views. All of a sudden, here’s another way to communicate with the world.”
That boosts their general impact, Mittermeier said. “We’re having a conversation with millions of people around the world …. People want a living planet.”
Attention can be crucial, said Addy, the celebrity photographer. “Being queer, Ghanaian and a British photographer, growing up I didn’t see a lot of myself in the media.”
Now he and others have their fame – on social media and on “Photographer.”