Brush With Greatness: Photographer, Lynn Johnson

Occasionally in the field I run into working photographers and I always enjoy the opportunity to “talk shop” and share stories.

It was a hot and humid day in Siem Reap, shooting at Angkor Wat temple so I stopped and sat down in one of the inner chambers, where it was a bit cooler.  Sitting on a window sill across from me, I noticed National Geographic photographer Lynn Johnson, with her Leica M9 sporting with its battered old lens hanging from her neck. Before long we struck up a conversation and for the next few minutes we  had the chance to chat about her travels and recent projects.

I think you’ll enjoy stopping by Lynn’s website almost as much as I enjoyed meeting her. Here’s the link to her website

Below is  a bit of background on Lynn taken from National Geographic.

Lynn Johnson was a shy girl who spent a lot of high school poring over books in the library. One day, she happened upon a book of photographs by Dorothea Lange and other documentary photographers who had worked for the Farm Security Administration. It changed her life.

“I immediately fell in love with the power of those pictures,” Johnson recalls. “In my short and rather sheltered life, I had never seen migrant workers or sharecroppers, and certainly had not experienced loss or pain like that, but I could feel it in those photographs. I had an emotional reaction to them I’d never felt. It made me want to pick up a camera.”

She began by making photographs for her high school yearbook, an experience that allowed her to discover her innate talent and something more:

“When you’re shy, a camera becomes an entry into life,” she says. “It was a kind of shield I could hide my shyness behind, and it allowed me to become an active observer rather than a passive one.”

Since then, this shy girl has climbed the radio antenna atop Chicago’s John Hancock Tower, clambered around scaffoldings with steel workers, and lived among fishermen on Long Island and guerrillas in Vietnam. She has done in-depth portraits of celebrities including Stevie Wonder, Michael Douglas, Mr. Rogers, and the entire U.S. Supreme Court. But Lynn Johnson’s passion remains—just as it was kindled that day in her high school library—documenting the lives of regular people.