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George Steinmetz is an American photographer. He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Geophysics in 1979. He began his career in photography after hitchhiking through Africa for 28 months in his twenties. His current work focuses on photographing the world's deserts while piloting a motorized paraglider. This experimental aircraft enables him to capture images of the world inaccessible by traditional aircraft and most other modes of transportation.
His work has been featured in The New Yorker,Smithsonian, and he is a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine.
He is the author of three books, African Air, Empty Quarter, and Desert Air, which feature portfolios of his work in many regions of the world. African Air is a compilation of pictures from ten years of flying over Africa, mostly with a motorized paraglider. Empty Quarter contains images of the Arabian landscape, its people, and its wildlife. Desert Air is a photographic collection of the world’s “extreme deserts,†which receive less than four inches of precipitation per year. Included are photographs of the Gobi Desert, the Sahara, and Death Valley.
He has won awards for photography during his 25-year career, including two first prizes in science and technology from World Press Photo. He has also won awards and citations from Pictures of the Year, Overseas Press Club and Life Magazine's Alfred Eisenstadt Awards. In 2006 he was awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation to document the work of scientists in the Dry Valleys and volcanoes of Antarctica. The LOOK3 Festival hosted Steinmetz as a keynote speaker in 2011 for his presentation titled "Wild Air".
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