‘Visual memoir’

Ex-National Geographic photographer traveled world telling stories

Steve Raymer has witnessed world history firsthand.

Over the course of his storied career with National Geographic, the photojournalist has traveled the world telling important stories.

He began with the magazine in the mid-1970s when the publication was reinventing itself as a leader in storytelling.

“It was the best of times,” he says in a recent interview. “I was really lucky to work there in the ’70s when they wanted to change the look of the magazine. All of the new hires were in our 20s, and it was the golden age. There was plenty of money to take the time and do an assignment. I’m sure it’s not like that today. They wanted you to come to them with story ideas.”

Raymer is on a tour for his latest book, “Somewhere West of Lonely.” He will have two stops in New Mexico — one in Santa Fe and one on Albuquerque.

The book contains 150 images, along with his accounts of his time on assignments.

Raymer says the book came about because he was retiring from Indiana University.

“When I formally retired in April 2016, I was thinking about this visual memoir, and I presented it,” he says. “Colleagues told me that I should do a book. I spent four or five moths gathering the pictures from National Geographic. It actually went very fast and was in layout in the fall of 2017.”

Raymer was often first on the scene to world events and revealed the connections that tie us together.

Beyond documenting tragedies such as the devastating famines in Bangladesh and Ethiopia and exposing the extensive corruption crippling the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, his work tells a complex and wide-ranging story about life and human nature.

With assignments that were big news, one specifically sticks out in his mind.

Raymer, now 72, covered the last five years of the Cold War. And he did it while he was based in Russia.

“I got to a point when I was 40 and I was sick and tired of the developing world and conflicts,” he says. “I got a (John S.) Knight (Journalism) Fellowship at Stanford, and I spent a year getting ready for this. It was the privilege of my life. We were there when everything was changing by the day. We were able to go to so many places that Americans weren’t allowed to. I witnessed the enormous changes.”