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Live From...
Interview With Bill Allen
Aired November 05, 2003 - 14:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In 1888 a group of explorers, teacher and geographers rode on horseback to a meeting that would create the clutter on your coffee table and transform how you view the world. They formed the society that publishes "National Geographic" magazine.
The pictures you are looking at you were shot by "National Geographic" photographers but have never been seen before. These are the photos that did not make it into the magazine until now, a special issue called "National Geographic's 100 Best Unpublished Pictures" is hitting newsstands across the country.
Joining me now, the editor in chief Bill Allen who put this issue together. Hi, Bill.
BILL ALLEN, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC": Hi, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: I can just imagine being a photographer and taking all these amazing pictures, having my favorites. But gosh, the one that is picked isn't the one that I loved. Does that happen all of the time? Is it hard to decipher through all of the photos?
ALLEN: What is interesting is if a photographer may shoot 30,000 photographs for one story and we'll have room for maybe 20. And they also bring with them the history of what it was like to take that picture and all of the emotions and the feelings and difficulties of getting that.
So sometimes those get into play also. And it's very tough to sort of separate what we're trying to do which is tell the story from be just a picture magazine.
PHILLIPS: I tell you what, a lot of the pictures tell the story. I picked a few. If you don't mind, I would love to talk about them. This first one, "The War Bonnet Woman." I love this. I'm so intrigued by the Native American culture. Tell me about this photo.
ALLEN: This is a naming ceremony and when the photographer Sam Able (ph) saw this, he really felt like he was transported back temperature time of the story he was doing on which was on Charlie Russell. And he really felt a oneness with the Native American people when this ceremony took place.
PHILLIPS: It's so neat how you just hold the baby up to the sun. And this is a part of the regular tribe tribal procedure, right?
ALLEN: Yes, that's exactly right. PHILLIPS: Another photo, this one, I guess could you say to us, we thought it was a little creepy. This bunny entertaining kids at an Easter egg hunt at Martha Stewart's estate.
ALLEN: This is one that I really loved. And as a matter of fact I had a cover made up just to see if we could get away with this. But I think I was probably talked out of it because other people shared your feeling that it was creepy.
This was for a story on Connecticut. And our photographers trying to get the study that will portray the subject. And this was just perhaps a little too specific. But Joel Sartori (ph) latter said it was the most authoritarian Easter egg hunt he could imagine.
PHILLIPS: OK, and this one, all of us, I think, had to take a triple look at this one. The antenna serviceman -- whoops. No, that's not the one. We're actually going to try and bring that up.
This was another fascinating one, the terra-cotta army that was unearthed near China. Give us the history behind this picture.
ALLEN: Lou Mazatata (ph) has worked for years and years in China, has a wonderful relationship with the archaeological community in China.
This was a picture that he really loved it because it showed vast extent of the these terra-cotta figures that were buried at the time of an emperor's death. We chose a picture that was in a little bit closer, showed a little more of the detail and still gave you a feeling of power of this army.
But this was one that Lou really liked. That's an important point because the pictures in this special issue of the magazine are the ones that the photographers themselves picked. They showed us the ones that they had a personal connection to.
PHILLIPS: That's interesting. Let's see, which one do we have next? This one is the tracker. This is so neat. As he's hunting game in South Africa. This guy is famous, right?
ALLEN: He is. He is one of the most extraordinary trackers in all of Africa. He can follow and give you almost the history of an individual animal just from seeing a little track, one faint smudge in the sand we can't see.
The reason this was left out, there was another similar hunting- type picture we had which was sort of a blurry picture with a lot of action in it with someone racing along with two dogs in a hunt.
And in this story there wasn't room for two hunting pictures. So, this one unfortunately fell by the wayside.
PHILLIPS: As I was looking through these pictures, I was also reading a little -- sort of a side note, about you. Is it true that you grew up in Tyler, Texas and you actually plastered your walls as a kid with "National Geographic" pictures? ALLEN: Actually, it was the maps. My room was actually wallpapered with "National Geographic" maps and my book shelves all had "National Geographic" magazines. But I never thought in my wildest dream I would ever be associated with the magazine.
PHILLIPS: Do you take pictures? Is that one of your hobbies?
ALLEN: Do I, indeed, take pictures and on occasion some have made their way into one or another of the publication. I came up on picture side of the operations there. I was one of the picture editors who had the enviable job or the unenviable job of having to sort these 30,000 pictures down to 20 that are finally published.
PHILLIPS: Well I tell, they are amazing. They are wonderful, 100 pictures, unpublished pictures and this collection for "National Geographic."
Bill, thank you so much for sharing some time with us today.
ALLEN: Thank you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: You bet.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 5, 2003 - 14:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In 1888 a group of explorers, teacher and geographers rode on horseback to a meeting that would create the clutter on your coffee table and transform how you view the world. They formed the society that publishes "National Geographic" magazine.
The pictures you are looking at you were shot by "National Geographic" photographers but have never been seen before. These are the photos that did not make it into the magazine until now, a special issue called "National Geographic's 100 Best Unpublished Pictures" is hitting newsstands across the country.
Joining me now, the editor in chief Bill Allen who put this issue together. Hi, Bill.
BILL ALLEN, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC": Hi, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: I can just imagine being a photographer and taking all these amazing pictures, having my favorites. But gosh, the one that is picked isn't the one that I loved. Does that happen all of the time? Is it hard to decipher through all of the photos?
ALLEN: What is interesting is if a photographer may shoot 30,000 photographs for one story and we'll have room for maybe 20. And they also bring with them the history of what it was like to take that picture and all of the emotions and the feelings and difficulties of getting that.
So sometimes those get into play also. And it's very tough to sort of separate what we're trying to do which is tell the story from be just a picture magazine.
PHILLIPS: I tell you what, a lot of the pictures tell the story. I picked a few. If you don't mind, I would love to talk about them. This first one, "The War Bonnet Woman." I love this. I'm so intrigued by the Native American culture. Tell me about this photo.
ALLEN: This is a naming ceremony and when the photographer Sam Able (ph) saw this, he really felt like he was transported back temperature time of the story he was doing on which was on Charlie Russell. And he really felt a oneness with the Native American people when this ceremony took place.
PHILLIPS: It's so neat how you just hold the baby up to the sun. And this is a part of the regular tribe tribal procedure, right?
ALLEN: Yes, that's exactly right. PHILLIPS: Another photo, this one, I guess could you say to us, we thought it was a little creepy. This bunny entertaining kids at an Easter egg hunt at Martha Stewart's estate.
ALLEN: This is one that I really loved. And as a matter of fact I had a cover made up just to see if we could get away with this. But I think I was probably talked out of it because other people shared your feeling that it was creepy.
This was for a story on Connecticut. And our photographers trying to get the study that will portray the subject. And this was just perhaps a little too specific. But Joel Sartori (ph) latter said it was the most authoritarian Easter egg hunt he could imagine.
PHILLIPS: OK, and this one, all of us, I think, had to take a triple look at this one. The antenna serviceman -- whoops. No, that's not the one. We're actually going to try and bring that up.
This was another fascinating one, the terra-cotta army that was unearthed near China. Give us the history behind this picture.
ALLEN: Lou Mazatata (ph) has worked for years and years in China, has a wonderful relationship with the archaeological community in China.
This was a picture that he really loved it because it showed vast extent of the these terra-cotta figures that were buried at the time of an emperor's death. We chose a picture that was in a little bit closer, showed a little more of the detail and still gave you a feeling of power of this army.
But this was one that Lou really liked. That's an important point because the pictures in this special issue of the magazine are the ones that the photographers themselves picked. They showed us the ones that they had a personal connection to.
PHILLIPS: That's interesting. Let's see, which one do we have next? This one is the tracker. This is so neat. As he's hunting game in South Africa. This guy is famous, right?
ALLEN: He is. He is one of the most extraordinary trackers in all of Africa. He can follow and give you almost the history of an individual animal just from seeing a little track, one faint smudge in the sand we can't see.
The reason this was left out, there was another similar hunting- type picture we had which was sort of a blurry picture with a lot of action in it with someone racing along with two dogs in a hunt.
And in this story there wasn't room for two hunting pictures. So, this one unfortunately fell by the wayside.
PHILLIPS: As I was looking through these pictures, I was also reading a little -- sort of a side note, about you. Is it true that you grew up in Tyler, Texas and you actually plastered your walls as a kid with "National Geographic" pictures? ALLEN: Actually, it was the maps. My room was actually wallpapered with "National Geographic" maps and my book shelves all had "National Geographic" magazines. But I never thought in my wildest dream I would ever be associated with the magazine.
PHILLIPS: Do you take pictures? Is that one of your hobbies?
ALLEN: Do I, indeed, take pictures and on occasion some have made their way into one or another of the publication. I came up on picture side of the operations there. I was one of the picture editors who had the enviable job or the unenviable job of having to sort these 30,000 pictures down to 20 that are finally published.
PHILLIPS: Well I tell, they are amazing. They are wonderful, 100 pictures, unpublished pictures and this collection for "National Geographic."
Bill, thank you so much for sharing some time with us today.
ALLEN: Thank you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: You bet.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
