About Randy Olson
Randy Olson is a social-documentary photographer whose work, often with his wife Melissa Farlow, has taken him to over 50 countries in 30+ years. Best known for his extensive work with National Geographic, he has also been published in LIFE, GEO and Smithsonian. Together Randy and Mellisa have contributed to over 70 books and taught at the University of Missouri and the Missouri Photo Workshop.
Olson received prestigious awards including the Alfred Eisenstadt Magazine Photography Award, an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Nikon Sabbatical Grant, and funding from the National Archives. His work often explores resource extraction and its effects on indigenous communities and ecosystems.
He has completed over 30 National Geographic assignments, earning titles such as Magazine Photographer of the Yearand Newspaper Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year International (POYi) competition—one of only two to win both. He also won the 2017 SIPA Photographer of the Year and the 2021 HIPA Photography Appreciation Award.
In 2011, Olson founded The Photo Society to support photographers amid changing media economics. He also represented National Geographic photographers in copyright negotiations, helping secure their rights through the Photographers Advisory Board.
In this episode Randy and I talk about how much the landscape has changed for documentary photography, how we need to be more performative in finding audiences and his ability to lower the tone at a dinner party!
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