Overheard at National Geographic - Playback: The Real-Life MacGyver in Nat Geo's Basement

Playback: The Real-Life MacGyver in Nat Geo's Basement

11/22/22 • 30 min

2 Listeners

In the basement of National Geographic’s headquarters, there’s a lab holding a secret tech weapon: Tom O’Brien. As Nat Geo’s photo engineer, O’Brien adapts new technologies to capture sights and sounds previously never seen or heard before. In this episode, originally published in June 2021, O’Brien leads us on a tour of his lab as he designs and builds an underwater camera and shows us some of his favorite gadgets—including a camera lens that flew over Machu Picchu in a blimp, a remote camera he designed for the film Free Solo, and a piece of gear known simply as the “funky bird train.”

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

Want more?

See National Geographic's Pictures of the Year and our five picks for Photographers of the Year. To capture one of the year's best pictures—an encounter with elephants in Gabon—O'Brien outfitted a photographer with 1,100 pounds of custom gear.

Our photographers capture millions of individual frames per year. In a previous episode of Overheard, Nat Geo's deputy director of photography breaks down the process to select only the best images.

See photographs mentioned in this episode, including wolves captured by a gnaw-proof camera, sage grouse as seen by the funky bird train, and a cheetah running in super slow motion. Want to see what goes on in Nat Geo’s photo engineering lab? Follow Tom O’Brien on Instagram @mechanicalphoto. And learn more about Tom’s predecessor, Kenji Yamaguchi, who held the job for more than 30 years.

Also explore:

Learn more about Jacques Cousteau, who pioneered scuba gear, brought the oceans to life, and jolted people into environmental activism.

And hear more about beavers and how they shape the world on a previous Overheard episode, “March of the Beaver.”

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

Want more?

Also explore:

Learn more about Jacques Cousteau, who pioneered scuba gear, brought the oceans to life, and jolted people into environmental activism.

And hear more about beavers and how they shape the world on a previous Overheard episode, “March of the Beaver.”

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Previous Episode

Pictures of the Year

Every year, National Geographic rolls the year into a collection of photos for its “Pictures of the Year” issue. It’s a mysterious process, and we’re about to share it with you. We’ll see what baby carriages are like in Greenland, witness the moment SpaceX burst into a cypress swamp, and make a new four-legged friend as deputy director of photography Sadie Quarrier shares with us the choice photos for this year.

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

Want more?

Interested in learning more about Kiliii Yüyan? We’ve got an article for you that explores how he became the photographer he is today.

Also explore

To see Mac Stone’s photos, take a look at his website, macstonephoto.com. He specializes in photographing swamps, the Everglades, and Florida Bay.

Plus, Katie Orlinsky’s photos go far beyond tapirs. See some more of the photos she’s taken around the world at katieorlinskyphoto.com.

For subscribers

See how we summed up 2022 in the “Pictures of the Year.” It hits newsstands in December.

Fuel your curiosity with a free one-month trial subscription to Nat Geo Digital. You’ll have unlimited access on any device, anywhere, ad-free with our app that lets you download stories to read off-line. Explore every page ever published with a century of digital archives at your fingertips. Check it all out for free at natgeo.com/exploremore.

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Next Episode

There’s a Bear in My Backyard

1 Recommendations

Sure, we love bears when they show up in books or cartoons. But what if one is outside our window? Human-bear encounters are becoming far more frequent as development continues to spread and people and bears seek similar resources of food, water, and shelter. National Geographic Explorer and large-carnivore ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant dispels a few myths about bear behavior, describes what it’s like to cuddle a bear cub, and offers tips on what to do if you find a bear in your backyard—or bump into one in the wild.

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

Want more?

If you haven’t seen the viral Instagram video of Rae Wynn-Grant cuddling with bear cubs for science, you can watch that here.

And you can keep up with her adventures with more species, like ring-tailed lemurs and African lions, on her website, r aewynngrant.com.

Or you can also listen to her podcast, Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, where you can hear her interview fellow conservationists about their work, from studying hyenas in Kenya to coyotes in California.

Also explore:

Read Christine Dell’Amore’s piece about how bears and other wild animals have adapted to urban areas across the U.S.

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices