Last month I proffered that due to both digital capture and digital delivery of images, the playing field for great photography is being leveled. So how can a professional photographer maintain an edge?

In a word: consistency.

I honestly believe that everyone has at least one great photograph in them, and the tools available today mean that the capture and distribution of that one great image dramatically increases the chance it will be seen by a broad audience.

But to be a professional, you need to be able to make more than just one great image—you have to make them all the time. Any publication dedicating resources to the creation of original photography needs to be assured that the photographers on assignment will come back with the goods.

Each type of publication has specific visual needs. Newspapers use workhorse photographers who can produce good images on very tight deadlines. The news weeklies’ needs are similar but want work that is elevated aesthetically and can hold together over multiple pages. Monthly publications, such as National Geographic, hire photographers who specialize in long-form narrative or complex conceptualization.

Hiram Bingham was 36 years old when he first climbed Machu Picchu in
1911 and set up camp in the ruins. Photo by E.C. Erdis.

Hiram Bingham is a household name around National Geographic. It is one of those bigger than life names, like Peary, Leakey, and Powell, that will always be associated with a place. In Bingham's case, the place is Machu Picchu. Archaoelogist Christina Elson posts here on some of the complexities that have emerged in the wake of Bingham's achievements.—Chris Sloan

Austroraptor lived just before the extinction of the non-avian (not bird) dinosaurs. Its discovery shows that yet another lineage of maniraptorans grew unexpectedly huge and competed with large T. rex-like carnivores for meat. Art courtesy of Fernando Novas.

A "raptor" is an awesome dinosaur. We learned that in Jurassic Park. What can beat that? Maybe a bizarre giant raptor.

Meet Austroraptor cabazai, just announced today by NGS grantee Fernando Novas of Argentina. Take a look at this thing. It is huge. Average raptors were turkey to dog-size. It has a long snout with small conical hooked teeth. Most carnivorous dinosaurs had blade-like teeth serrated like knives. Novas can't say yet what kind of prey its strange teeth chomped into, but this animal may not have been a flesh slicer like its closest relatives.

Austroraptor also had tiny arms, reminiscent of the puny forelimbs of other dinosaur lineages such as the tyrannosaurs. What is odd about this is that the maniraptoran lineage, which Austroraptor is now the newest member of, is closely associated with birds. Most of its members, such as Deinonychus and Velociraptor,  are known for their long arms and hands. In the lineage that led to birds, these long arms eventually grew longer than their legs and became useful as wings. So it is very interesting to find a maniraptor with tiny arms living 70 million years ago, just 5 million years before non-avian dinosaurs went extinct and avian dinosaurs, aka. birds, flew on.

Other giant raptors are known, such as Utahraptor and Achillobator, both from the northern hemisphere. And it wasn't so long ago that Novas introduced us to Megaraptor, another giant Patagonian raptor. That thing had giant scimitar-like toe claws. I remember that we could just barely fit an actual size photo of the claw in the magazine, which is 14 inches wide. Some paleontologist are now suggesting that the toe claw was actually a finger claw and that Megaraptor was not a maniraptoran but a different type of dinosaur. I'm not so sure. In this reconstruction by Jordan Mallon, (right), it just doesn't look right. But hey, dinosaurs were bizarre. There are minor disputes about Achillobator, but both it and Utahraptor seem solid as maniraptorans.

Right: Did a Megaraptor's giant toe claw turn into a giant thumb hook? Illustration courtesy Jordan Mallon.

Austroraptor is classified by Novas as a member of the Unenlagiinae, a diverse group within the maniraptoran group that includes the tiny dinosaur Shanag from Mongolia and the once bird, now dinosaur, Rahonavis from Madagascar. Now the group not only contains far flung members, but giants and midgets as well. The strangest thing about the Unenlagiian raptors, however, is that two of them, Buiteraptor and Rahonavis had winglike forelimbs (Rahonavis even had quill knobs). If they flew, which Rahonavis almost certainly did, then it is possible that flight evolved independently in two separate dinosaur lineages—one in the south and one in the north. The northern lineage is represented by Archaeopteryx and numerous Asian specimens, among others.

What can beat a bizarre giant dinosaur? Maybe a giant bizarre idea like flight evolving twice.

The day before Thanksgiving in 2005, Kathy Sartore, married to photographer Joel Sartore, learned she had breast cancer. “Cancer is a thief. It steals time,” Joel says. “But cancer can also be a blessing, an amazing experience that forces us to set things right. My work had made me a stranger to my three kids. With Kathy sick, I knew it was time to stay put for a while.” So Joel stayed close to home. He started photographing endangered species in his hometown zoo in Lincoln, Nebraska. Then he took his portable studio down the road to the Omaha Zoo. “My fascination with endangered species started when, as a child, I saw a picture of Martha, the last passenger pigeon,” Joel explains. “She died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Audubon described flocks flying at 60 miles an hour, darkening the skies for days at a time. And there she was, the last bird. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Kathy has beaten cancer, but Joel’s mission continues. So far, he’s documented more than 1,200 imperiled species. Among his photographs in this month’s story “Last One,” you’ll see a pygmy rabbit named Bryn. She died not long after the picture was made. Now the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit population is no more. Joel hopes his work will help prevent this from happening to other animals.

Since that monumental day in 2005, Joel has learned how to combine his passion for his family with his passion for photography. “Kathy’s cancer made me realize how little time any of us really has,” he says. Time, our most precious currency, is the most valuable thing we humans can spend.

Photo: Cole Sartore

Perhaps you hit the eggnog a little too hard at the party last night. Or maybe champagne did you in, and now you're cursing that "friend" who kept filling your glass.

No matter how it happened, though, you now have a hangover and will do just about anything to get rid of it. Doctors advise drinking copious amounts of water and taking vitamins and aspirin. Some people swear by grease--burgers and fried eggs are popular antidotes in America. Others, like the Japanese, follow a more virtuous regimen of fruits and green tea. In this month's magazine and on our website, we take a look at some international suggestions for how to cope with the effects of one too many.

Nefertiti is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful of ancient queens. Was part of her beauty due to an epicanthic fold in her eyelids? Photo by Victor Boswell.

In the March/April issue of Archaeology magazine art historian Earl Ertman suggests that Nefertiti had an epicanthic fold in her eyelids. He says this produces "an East Asian appearance." Ertman goes on to suggest that this trait, if a true reflection of Nefertiti's appearance, may be due to a genetically-based syndrome, that is abnormality. He also points to depictions of Nefertiti's daughters and even King Tut (the wooden head depiction) that show this trait as well, suggesting the trait could be inherited by offspring.

This is an interesting observation, but I immediately thought of the Khoisan, a fascinating group of sub-Saharan Africans who have an epicanthic fold. They also show the largest genetic diversity in mtDNA of all human populations. I'm no geneticist, but why look for genetic abnormalities in Nefertiti when the genes for an epicanthic fold are right there among the African ancestors of all humans?

And since we're talking again about Egyptians and African ancestry, here is a bit more information my colleagues and I pulled together on ancient Egyptians.

GEOGRAPHY

Egypt’s population was influenced by human migration long before the first dynasty of pharaohs emerged around 3150 B.C. The geography of northeast Africa makes it an easily traversable region. To the north and east are the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The Nile Valley creates a continuous north-south corridor that is surrounded by oases, stepping stones in the desert making it possible for humans to travel in every direction.

Both archaic and modern forms of humans probably passed though Egypt on their way “out of Africa.” We also know that the Sahara desert was drying between 6700 B.C. and 3600 B.C., and drought drove refugees from across northern Africa into Egypt, Nubia (what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan), and Sudan. These immigrants mixed with people already living in the fertile Nile Valley.

As towns and villages sprang up along the Nile, people and goods moved up and down river contributing to population diversity. By the time the Egyptian state formed, people living along the Nile were in regular contact with their neighbors and, while we can detect some diversity in the general physical characteristics of northern and southern populations, these people shared a way of life that became the foundation for Egyptian civilization. The early Egyptian state is simply a politically complex expression of this indigenous African culture.

After 3150 B.C., Egypt entered into a number of peaceful and hostile relationships with foreign powers in Africa and the Near East. We know that Libyans, Nubians, the Hyksos (from the Levant), and Persians all came to Egypt as traders, diplomats, and conquerors—likely further contributing to population diversity.

Sounds like a melting pot to me.

I case you missed last weeks announcement of Nikon’s new flagship DSLR, the full frame D3X, here a few of the important stats.

• FX-format CMOS image sensor with 24.5 effective megapixels.

• Low noise from ISO 100 to ISO 1600.

• Near-instantaneous shutter release time lag of approx. 0.04 second.

• 5-frames-per-second continuous shooting in full frame format and 7 fps in DX crop mode.

• Live View mode for shooting hand held and with a tripod.

• High-resolution 3-inch VGA-size LCD monitor with tempered glass.

• Intelligent power management that allows you shoot up to 4,400 frames on a single battery charge.

• Estimated selling price of $7999.95—available in December 2008.

For a full rundown on the camera, take a look at Rob Galbraith’s review.

— Ken Geiger

What does Paris Hilton want? Besides lasting fame and beauty and wealth?

Apparently, a cheetah.

According to the New York Daily News:
“A hotel spy tells us: "Every time Paris saw something she liked [on a recent trip to South Africa], like a woman's dress, she would ask how much it was. That included a cheetah she saw at an animal park. She asked how much it was and said, 'If I bought a cheetah, would it run away from me or could I keep it?'"

Actually, that’s the wrong question. A better question might be: Would it hurt me? Try asking the cheetah owner who was attacked by her cheetahs a few weeks ago. She owns a conservation center in Florida and was showing off the cats to an audience. Distracted by a child playing with a ball, they bit and clawed their owner.

The woman survived. Cheetahs are, as it turns out, not as dangerous as other big cats. “They’ll hurt you but they won’t kill you,” says Louis Dorfman, the animal behaviorist at the International Exotic Feline Sanctuary. But that doesn’t mean they’d make a good pet. In fact, he says a pet cheetah would be a “terrible idea.” Here’s why:

1.    They are wild animals, people!
“It’s always wild, it’s never a pet,” says Dorfman. “Wild animals have no inhibitions so they always will hurt somebody. It’s only their size that determines the severity of the injury. If they get angry, they’re going to strike out the only way they know how."

2.    They need lots (and lots and lots) of care.
A wild animal is “very sensitive,” says Dorfman. “No one should get one impulsively. You have to devote a great deal of your life to it.”

3.    They need lots of space for their mental health.
Cheetahs are the fastest cats: 70 mph in short bursts. If they’re cooped up, they get nervous and stressed out.

4. They get nervous and stressed out even if they do have enough space to run.
Since larger cats prey upon cheetahs and their young, cheetahs are “much more nervous” than other big felines, says Dorfman, and “need much more peace and quiet.” He adds: “They need someone with them that really knows how to react to their moods.”

In that respect, they sound a lot like celebrities.

-Marc Silver