no strangers explores the ways cultures express a shared humanity and navigate the circle of life.

POYi2009 honors the work of winning photojournalists and visual editors from Pictures of the Year International (POYi).

Photographer Chris Rainier is a master at creating powerful images that document the anthropological story of indigenous cultures whose ways are under threat.

As executive vice president and group editorial director of National Geographic and editor in chief of National Geographic magazine, Chris Johns oversees the Society’s core digital and print content.

Lynn Johnson is known for her intense and sensitive work, dividing her time between assignments for National Geographic and various foundations.

Stories that have become most important to Randy Olson involve cultures or environments that are under threat, usually from some form of commercial consumption.

An Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, Wade Davis has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.”

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami is a writer, photographer and award-winning filmmaker based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Paris, France.

For over 30 years, Steve McCurry has been a one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography, with scores of magazine and book covers, over a dozen books and numerous exhibitions around the world to his name.

Thirty-five years ago, American-born Carol Beckwith and Australian Angela Fisher met in Kenya and began a relationship with the African continent, journeying over 270,000 miles, through 40 countries and recording 150 African cultures.

Bjoern Lauen has been involved in photography for the last 20 years.

His work has largely focused on the struggle to preserve traditional cultural identity in the face of globalization.

Budi N D Dharmawan is an independent documentary photographer in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, who is interested in socual and cultural issues.

Since 2006, Carlos Villalon has been photographing in the Darién Gap, the frontier between Colombia and Panama, where the Pan American highway disappears and gives way to a network of rivers, forests and swamps.

Dani Planas Labad is a traveller who loves photography or maybe a photographer who loves to travel.