National Geographic cover features work of Becky Hale '99
By Hannah Benoit
The cover of National Geographic magazine's November 2006 issue featured an arresting portrait by NG staff photographer Becky Hale '99 and her colleague Sarah Leen. Their winsome cover girl was not your usual magazine model--she was the constructed likeness of a 3.3-million-year-old child whose bones were found six years ago in the Dikika region of Ethiopia.
Hale and Leen worked for three days to produce the studio photograph of the early hominin, resulting in Hale's first cover credit for the magazine. The assignment put Hale right in her element.
"I've developed a real love of studio photography," Hale says. "It's a fine-tuned approach, where almost every element can be controlled, and is so different from photojournalism, which is a direction I initially thought would interest me more."
It all stemmed from a photography course Hale took with Professor of Art Andrew Howard during her senior year. Hale says she was hooked on the craft immediately and left Wheaton feeling "hopeful but skeptical" that she would find a job related to photography.
Shortly after graduation, she began working as an internal temp for the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., moving to an administrative post in the photographic department six months later. She continued to take photography classes and workshops and soon landed a studio photographer's job, which she has held for the past three years.
Hale says her Wheaton education empowered her to believe she could aspire to a career in photography, even though she discovered the field late in her college years.
"I attribute my post-graduation path to some important messages that Wheaton sent me as a student," she says. "For example, the staff at the Filene Center encouraged me to pursue internships--none of which had anything to do with what I do now--but as a student, those opportunities instilled in me a great sense of 'why not?' I felt like their mantra was, 'If you're curious, try it.'"
Hale also drew encouragement from her conversations with Jane Martin '74, who helped her brainstorm about the D.C. job market. Now a Filene Center liaison herself, Hale often serves as a sounding board for Wheaton seniors and recent grads who are starting the job search in and around the nation's capital.