David Guttenfelder
Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer David Guttenfelder has spent his career documenting life at the world’s edges, from war zones to social justice uprisings, to some of the most closed societies on Earth. With rare access and deep empathy, his work reveals the quiet resilience, dignity, and humanity that persist even in the most constrained circumstances.
Witness Bearer
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Frontline Historian
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Global Chronicle
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Witness Bearer • Frontline Historian • Global Chronicle •
More about David
A photojournalist and National Geographic Explorer, David focuses on geopolitical conflict, conservation, and culture. He has spent more than 30 years living in Japan, India, Israel, the Ivory Coast, and Kenya, covering world events in more than 100 countries. In 2011, he helped open a bureau in Pyongyang for the Associated Press, the first western news agency to have an office in North Korea. David made more than 40 trips to the isolated country. ONe of David’s North Korea images was named among TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential Photographs Ever Taken.”
David’s 20 stories for National Geographic include Migratory Songbirds of the Mediterranean, Afghanistan’s Opium Wars, 100 years of Yellowstone National Park, The Mekong River, and Tokyo: The Megacity. David has also borne witness to global conflicts, including the Rwandan Genocide, the post 9/11 US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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David has worked most of his career overseas, but the COVID pandemic grounded him at home, in Minneapolis. Two months into the shutdown, following the arrest and death of George Floyd, David’s Minneapolis community erupted, kicking off a global protest of police brutality and racial inequality. David did what he knows best-he picked up his camera and pushed out into the chaos to tell the story.
An eight-time World Press Photo Award winner and a seven-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, David was awarded the ICP Infinity Prize for Photojournalism, the Overseas Press Club of America John Faber, Olivier Rebbot, and Feature Photography awards. Pictures of the Year International and the NPPA have each named him Photojournalist of the Year.
Speaking Topics
Resilience
Geopolitics
Culture
Watch David in action
Presentations
30 Years at the Frontlines
For over 30 years, David Guttenfelder has captured history from the front lines. As a leading conflict photographer, he has documented wars, uprisings, and humanitarian crises worldwide. Through his lens, we witness soldiers, civilians, and families navigating chaos. His images go beyond events, revealing the human stories and personal costs behind global conflict with unmatched clarity and impact.
"It's always useful, anywhere in the world, for people to understand each other. And for people to look hard at someone else's life and imagine that could be them."
– David Guttenfelder