90 Days in 90 Seconds: Follow a National Geographic Photographer

Want to experience the life of a National Geographic photographer? While on assignment for the magazine, photographer David Guttenfelder shot one second of video per day over 90 days. Those tiny clips were then combined into the 90-second video above.

The three months shown in the video were part of a three-year project Guttenfelder undertook that explored the impact of dams along the Mekong river in China.

“While most people think of it as a dream job, the reality can be a lot more complex,” writes National Geographic. The video is “full of tiny visual trinkets that individually might not mean much, but together tell a whole story” of “what an endurance race it is to be in the field for National Geographic magazine.”

“And the ups and downs of that endurance race is exactly what Guttenfelder wanted to show.”

The resulting video captures the hustle of working as a photographer in the field, the diversity of the people and places encountered, and the challenge of repeatedly saying goodbye to family after stays at home.

“Everyone always says: ‘It’s my dream to be a National Geographic photographer.’ And it’s my dream too. It still is,” Guttenfelder says.