Sam Abell is an internationally recognized photographer for National Geographic. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1969 where he served as a staff photographer for the Kentucky Kernel and as editor of the Kentuckian, which contained an extraordinary photographic essay on life at UK. He became a contract photographer for National Geographic soon after graduation. He has published on cultural and wilderness subjects and has lectured and exhibited his photographs throughout the world. In 1990, Eastman Kodak and Thomasson-Grant published a retrospective monograph of his photographs titled Stay This Moment. A companion exhibit of his photographs was shown at the International Center for Photography in New York City. He has published four other books in the past five years, two on the Civil War, a book on contemplative gardens of the world, and a book on the American west.