A National Geographic staff photographer since 1990, Mark Thiessen has published numerous feature stories and covers for National Geographic magazine and other Society publications on subjects ranging from Peruvian mummies to Egyptian archaeologists to Russian smokejumpers. He recently documented film director and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence James Cameron's dive to the ocean's deepest location at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Mark's photographs for the July 2008 National Geographic cover story “Under Fire: Why the West Is Burning” earned first-place recognition by Pictures of the Year International. Mark also directs the National Geographic photo studio, and was featured in Out There, a series aired on the National Geographic Channel. In 1996, Thiessen began a personal photography project on wildland firefighters that took him to the front lines of wildfires every summer. To better understand the world of this little known subculture, he became a certified wildland firefighter. An award-winning online piece, FireCall, features Thiessen's photographs and interviews with a veteran wildland firefighter.