VSP

In describing photojournalist Joe McNally, it's hard to avoid using words like versatile, determined, curious, ambitious -- because those are the very characteristics that define both his personality and his career. "The qualities that I think get underestimated quite often are durability and tenacity and a willingness to just keep at it," he says. "Time spent behind the camera is just phenomenally important. It's like anything. You have to get better at it."

Having worked his way from copy boy at the New York Daily News to becoming a staff photographer at Life magazine and a regular contributor to National Geographic, the 46-year old photographer has built a supremely successful career in less than two decades. His work is marked not only by an uncanny ability to snatch those once-in-a-lifetime revealing moments, but also by a willingness to take chances and seek solutions where none seem obvious. While on assignment for National Geographic covering Senator John Glenn's Space Shuttle training, for example, McNally (an experienced diver) insisted on being dive-certified by NASA so that he could shoot underwater images from inside their massive training pool. He also had 30,000 watt seconds of strobe and a professional motion-picture lighting crew brought in to light the shoot.

McNally has covered everything from World Series baseball (he bluffed his way into an assignment with UPI by telling them he was an experienced sports shooter -- he wasn't) to in-depth stories on vision and the human brain. In fact, says McNally, it is the very unexpected nature of his next assignment he has grown to love: "The variety keeps you alive. Everything is different," he says. "Sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad, but it's always different."