Next month our distinguished photo editor, Lowell Georgia, will retire after 30 years, having co-founded this magazine in 1981 with original publisher Donald Hart. He has shot 353 of 361 covers.

Born in Wisconsin, Georgia's high school was across the street from the Green Bay Press-Gazette. He learned there was a job opening there, which led to his working in the press room early on. Then, lightening struck: the paper needed a go-fer in the photography department. So while just a high school sophomore, Georgia was steered into photography, first, mixing chemicals for the pros, and soon thereafter, going with them as they shot games for the Green Bay Packers, among other happenings.

He worked evenings, weekends and summers at the paper through high school and college, attending St. Norbert's in DePere, nearby. Graduating with a degree in English in 1955, he joined the newspaper full-time, shooting as many as 20 assignments a day: traffic accidents, political campaigns, sports—"you name it." He won Wisconsin Photographer of the Year in 1958.

From 1960 to 1967, for the Denver Post, he shot candidates along the 1960 presidential campaign trail, JFK's inauguration and funeral, and Lyndon Johnson's inauguration. While at the Post, he also freelanced for National Geographic. In 1962, he was named National Press Photographer of the Year by the prestigious Columbia School of Journalism for his Post portfolio.

Soon, he was in Washington full-time for Geographic as a photo editor for the magazine and their special-publication book division.

His career with Investor gave the magazine its visual identity. It included trips to 30 or 40 countries (and probably 20 to New York City alone), yet he and wife Mary Kay raised six children as well. Ask Lowell about any of these adventures, and he always says: "I grabbed a few shots and it turned out very well."

Here, he reflects on some assignments for Investor.

Investor: How did you transition from National Geographic to Investor?

Georgia: I missed field work and Denver, so I had an opportunity to come back and work at King Resources, which was starting a magazine. That lasted less than a year, so thank goodness I still had freelance work at Geographic. For a dozen years, I shot over 100 assignments for them. Periodically I would lecture on photography at Colorado State University's journalism department and …that's how I met Don Hart.

Investor: The rest is history.

Georgia: He called me with this idea to start an oil and gas magazine like Geographic. We structured it like a traditional oil deal, with Don, myself and others each taking an eighth.

Investor: Were you ever in physical danger while on assignment?

Georgia: I've had three light-plane "incidents" that were not the usual intent. I ground-looped while landing on the tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We had landed and were bouncing along; the pilot hit the brakes and the plane flipped right up on its nose. Fuel was coming down the windshield and it was a few frantic seconds getting out of that seatbelt.

On another occasion, we landed on an ice-covered river, and the plane's skis went through the ice. It was three days until someone picked us up. I also went down while in a Coast Guard helicopter off Seattle, just after coming in off a shoot. All of a sudden, every light on the instrument panel went red. We landed in a marsh, just barely onshore.

Investor: You've had some wild experiences abroad.

Georgia: When you go overseas, your hosts usually give you a ceremonial dinner. When (exploration editor) Peggy Williams and I were in Kazakhstan, part of the dinner was a roasted sheep. The host offered me an eyeball! He said, "May you only see great things while you are here." It was about the size of a ping pong ball—but of course, you cannot deny your hosts. I tried chewing it, but I ended up basically swallowing it whole.

Investor: And you had a weird experience in China.

Georgia: Senior editor Brian Toal and I were shooting near Bohai Bay, and wearing suits and dress shoes because we were doing interviews. A beautiful sunset was happening across an inlet, so our hosts stopped the car. I walked along the shoreline to get a better angle. It was really gooey, and we had to throw my shoes away.

When we got back to our five-star hotel in Beijing, a full string quartet was playing in the lobby, but I had to come in barefoot and with my pants rolled up. It was embarrassing!

Investor: What do you think about digital?

Georgia: Especially going overseas, it was always a worry, going through the x-ray at the airports: would the film be damaged or not? The security people always searched every part of my camera bag. We were fortunate, we never lost any film.

Digital is much more convenient. This past week on my Bakken shoot, I probably shot the equivalent of 33 rolls of film in five hours, and yet, we didn't have to stop once for me to reload, and in the process, maybe lose a great shot.