Since 2003, Nathan Williamson has been a freelance assistant specializing in remote camera photography on wildlife assignments. In this capacity he has worked for photographers on seven National Geographic Magazine feature articles. The most recent publication from this work was "An Elephant Love Story" (National Geographic Magazine, September 2008), with Michael “Nick” Nichols. The essay won first place in the Pictures of the Year International Competition Feature Story - Magazine Editing catagory. His video documenting the trip is featured on National Geographic Magazine Online. His most recent publication of his own photography is "Extreme Elephant Tracking: The Secret Lives of Kenya's Elephants" in the March 2009 issue of National Geographic's Adventure Magazine. Nathan Williamson and George Steinmetz brought camera traps into the digital age at National Geographic with the publication of ground-breaking moonlight photographs of mountain lions in Arizona's Sonoran Desert (National Geographic Magazine, September 2006).
Nathan Williamson was born in Webster Springs, a rural West Virginia coal-mining town, in 1977. In 2000, he graduated magna cum laude from Macalester College in Minnesota. In 2001, Nathan received a Fulbright Fellowship from the US State Department to document efforts to curb deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon. After 11 months of field work in Bolivia, he returned to the United States. In 2003, he began working for National Geographic Magazine Editor at Large for Photography, Michael “Nick” Nichols. For seven months in 2003 he traveled with Mr. Nichols and Dr. Michael Fay to document a major new park system in the West African country of Gabon established after the historic Megatransect expeditions (National Geographic Magazine, August 2004).
Nathan worked with Michael Nichols in Chad for five months doing remote camera photography on the "Ivory Wars: Last Stand In Zakouma" story (National Geographic Magazine, March, 2007). A remote camera picture from that assignment won first place in the 2007 World Press Photo Competition nature category. He just finished assisting Mr. Nichols on another National Geographic story in northern California for seven months. He lives in a cabin outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.
