The May 2008 issue of the magazine is a special, one-topic issue covering China. An interesting—although not necessarily planned—fact is that most of the photographs were shot on film. This could turn out to be the last issue of NGM in which the majority of the photographs were not shot digitally.

Of the five main contributors: Fritz Hoffman, Lynn Johnson and Greg Girard shoot film; while Randy Olson and George Steinmetz use digital.

I had a chance to sit down with Fritz recently to talk about his thoughts on film vs. digital.

Fritz was quick to point out that it is not so much about the method of capture, but for him, more about the camera. Fritz shoots primarily with a 35mm film Leica rangefinder. “If you have ever held one...it’s a love affair” he explained. “A camera is something you become one with...I see in a way that matches the camera and its lens.”

Fritz was an early adopter of digital technology, working with a Nikon SLR six years ago (which indeed were the most primitive days of digital). But he found the cameras simply too bulky for the kind of intimate and personal photography he has mastered. He still feels today's professional SLRs are still too cumbersome.

One digital camera that Fritz does actually carry with him now is a Canon G7 point & shoot (the newest model is the G9). He tends to use it to check lighting, color balance and also as a way to make visual notes—he may shoot a Chinese sign and then later have it translated.

For a shot of Shanghai’s skyline at night, Fritz was using his G7 point & shoot to check the lighting, and then shot the scene using his Leica and film. Later, when editing the story, the digital snapshot proved to have captured detail that was beyond the range of the same scene shot on film. The photo that ran across two pages of the magazine was the only digital photo that Fritz made, and it was shot with his little G7.

When it comes to digital vs. analog cameras, Fritz cites a sentiment that I have heard from other pros: digital cameras tempt you to look at the preview, or constantly check settings. Fritz explains succinctly: “Film keeps me in the moment.”

But Fritz is thinking about moving to digital, but he wants to do it when he feels that he has found an appropriate aesthetic reason for doing so. Fritz notes that “digital images are like sugar-coated Rice Crispies, they’re too glossy. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just not right for what I’m doing right now. When I go to digital, I want to do something new with it.”

“In Shanghai," he explains "there are all these glass buildings that are reflecting light back and forth. I think digital, which has this inherent brightness to it, would be ideally suited to capturing that wild light.”

And finally, Fritz observes that digital requires time to handle the images after they are shot. “With film, the image is pretty much set when you shoot it. But with digital you have to deal with all this post-processing to get the images to look like you saw them.”

Fritz adds: “I have to be out there making pictures, not sitting behind a computer.”

At National Geographic we do not require photographers to shoot one way or another—we support both approaches. Ultimately, we care more about what is being photographed, and less about how.

See more of Fritz Hoffman’s China images here.

For this column, I try to go through each month’s magazine and pick out one photo to discuss. But for the April issue of NGM I want to focus on what we refer to as “mix.”

Each issue of NGM has five or six main features and we strive to create an interesting blend of stories. There are a number of interweaving factors that go into the process of finding the sweet spot of a well-balanced magazine.

TOPIC. Over the years certain topics have garnered repeated interest from the readers of NGM. (A survey is conducted every month to gauge how each specific story faired among our subscribers.) We consider these our “core” topics. The top categories are Archeology/Paleontology, Natural History, Cultures, Landscape/Geography, Science, Exploration, and the Environment. When we look at an issue’s lineup of stories, we often look first to make sure we have offerings from among these topic areas.

But if it were just the topics, that would make this easy.

LOCATION. We also keep in mind where in the world each story takes place, so that we are not having a majority of the stories concentrated in one part of the world. In the best issues of the magazine, we try to take readers around the world.

SIZE. The length of the stories need to vary to provide a balance of in-depth stories with others that are quicker to get through. We don’t want to make reading the magazine an exhaustive experience.

TONE. We consider the overall tone of each issue so that we don’t end up with an issue that comes off as too doom and gloom, bland, or naively breezy. A good mix has a range of emotional experiences.

LOOK. And finally, but most definitely least, we consider the combined styles of photographic approach. NGM is primarily a documentary magazine and thus we lean heavily on photojournalism. But a number of our core topics, particularly the conceptual science and pre-history stories, require different approaches. These stories often provide great opportunities for interweaving visual variety into the reading experience.

The April issue of NGM is an excellent example of a successful mix taking in all of these variables.

It starts with Pascal Maitre’s classic documentary approach to a large story covering the continent-wide Sahel, then shifts gears to Rob Clark’s studio photography for Bio-mimetics (design inspired by nature), then a short cultural story by Ami Vitali on Rickshaws, a luscious set of photographs of Hawaii’s Na Pali Coast shot on large format by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, and ending on a coverage on tool using chimps by Frans Lanting.

April has excellent mix.

The photographers who shoot for National Geographic magazine often find themselves in situations which require great perseverance to make great photographs. But at other times, powerful photography can come from much easier situations.

This was the case when Magnum photographer Chris Anderson made the image of Palestinian workers lined up in the morning at a crossing point in the security wall built around Bethlehem. As Chris explains: “this was hard to miss, they lined up every morning starting around 4 AM.”

But that makes it sound far too simple. Because what Chris did was not simply record the line of people, he “worked” the situation. This is a term often used by photographers when describing how they will shoot a subject for as long as possible. The goal is to capture that one moment when all the elements come together: the light is favorable, the angle is interesting, the subjects are expressive, etc. As story tellers, photojournalists are trying to capture the essence of the situation in a way that is an honest reflection of the event.

For the wall photo, Chris moved to action as the sun began to climb and illuminate the subjects, he scampered up onto the fence so that he could shoot down on the scene. The higher angle helped to separate the crowd of people and to make it clear that this was indeed a line. And by shooting down the line, Chris employed the converging diagonal lines of the perspective to draw the eye along in the composition.

And then the scene interestingly composed, one worker walked up and scaled the fence to join his friends just a few feet in front of Chris. “It added the needed dramatic element to the photograph,” Chris explained. It was a serendipitous moment that helped to elevate a good image to one that became a dramatic and story telling. The photo went from being good to great.

One way that Chris achieves images with such a natural feel is that he often shoots with a “normal” focal length 50mm lens. Chris says “I know it so well, that I know what is in the frame even before the camera reaches my eye. … this is the way the eye sees, the perspective is the same and there is no distortion.”

The way that Chris works is a lesson for any  aspiring photographers who assumes that having a large selection of lenses, from ultra-wide to super telephoto, is essential to making great photographs. It is simply not true. Superior photographs can be made with the simplest of gear. The important thing is to take time to learn the capabilities of your camera so well that you instinctively know when to capture the magical dance of elements that come together to make a great photograph.

Chris’ story on Bethlehem was just honored with an award in the annual World Press Photography competition. Click here to see more of Chris’ photographs.

I am often asked “how do you pick the photos that get published?” My answer is: “never easily.”

A photographer on a typical assignment for the Geographic may shoot around 20,000 images. From these, we may publish around a dozen. Skilled Photo Editors work closely with each photographer to sift through this eye-numbing variety of images shot for each story.

When selecting photographs, the image’s technical quality and the composition are major factors, but equally important is how well each image works together to tell a coherent story. The most successful photgraphs find a balance between art and journalism, with each image uniquely weighted one way or another, but never entirely devoid of either.

There is one thing that photographers almost universally need to make photographs: light.  But for National Geographic magazine staff photographer Mark Theissen, is drawn not just to light, but to fire.

“As a photographer you are drawn to light and I like photographs that have a light source within them.” Mark explains.

In the October issue of National Geographic, for a story marking 50 years of space exploration, Mark made a frame of spacecraft reentry tiles being tested using concentrated solar rays. Mark was permitted to get close to where the focused beams hit the tiles simulating the intense heat encountered when braking through the Earth’s atmosphere.

What a difference a few years can make. Ten years ago, Brooklyn-based photographer Robert Clark started a story for the Geographic on the beautifully and eerily preserved 2,000-year-old bodies unearthed from European peat bogs.

How do you make distinctive photographs of subjects that have been photographed countless times? That was the challenge British photographer Simon Norfolk faced for the assignment of shooting the classic Mayan ruins of Central America.