My love affair with National Geographic photography began in elementary school, when I used it to illustrate a report on the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Since then, I’ve found so much inspiration in this publication. I spent one summer as a teenager trying to write a poem for every picture I saw in Nat Geo – I didn’t get as far as I wanted to with it and the poems were pretty absymal, even for an angsty sixteen year old, but that failed project represents the creative source that photography has always been for me. It’s just as easy to get into a rut with photography as it is any other creative endeavor; these books are beautiful and flipping through them helps me break out of “photographer’s block” by reminding me to follow my heart when I look through the viewfinder.