Jodi Cobb

By: Stacey L. Sutton

Photographer

Jodi Cobb

• But Cobb is more than an explorer of the globe. She is an explorer of ideas, using her camera to ask important questions – to make us think carefully about the human condition in an increasingly interconnected world.

• As a long-time staff and freelance photographer with National Geographic, Cobb developed an international following for her stirring, visually powerful work. Today she brings her incomparable experience to a variety of freelance advertising and photojournalism assignments, and devotes her time to teaching and lecturing around the world.

Jodi Cobb has always been an explorer. Before turning twelve, she had been around the world twice; since then, her career has led her to work in more than sixty countries…some unfriendly, many of them secretive, all of them alluring to Cobb’s curious and adventurous nature.

Miss Universe, Hawaii, 1998What is beauty? How is it perceived in cultures around the world? And to what lengths do we go to enhance it,

preserve it, flaunt it and fake it?

Louisiana Swoop, Georgia, 1998Child beauty pageant contestant sports the distinctive hairstyle-the Louisiana Swoop- on her way

to the competition.

Pageant Child, Georgia, 1998Young beauty emerges from her motel room on her way to compete.

A beautiful young geisha in her prime, in full makeup and costume. A geisha shows a trace of red under-kimono which is considered subtly erotic.

Bound Foot, China, 1998The Chinese bound their women’s feet for a thousand years, and although outlawed in 1949, the older women still bear the pain of the

mutilation. Very rare to see a foot unwrapped-even husbands prefer the mystery of the tiny feet to the reality.

Bedouin woman, south of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; by Jodi Cobb, whose photos were featured in the October, 1987 National Geographic article, "Women of Saudi Arabia."

Ai Lov You, Italy, 2003A greeting card disguised as a newspaper proclaims the sender’s affections as the

recipient opens it in a cafe in Florence.

Costume Competition, Venice, 2008Contestants Crowd the stage in Piazza San Marco to compete for the best costume prize. They

spend thousands of dollars on their costumes and rivalry is fierce.

Carnival Fantasy, Venice, 2008Tourists from all over the world gather in Venice for Carnival, bringing costly, elaborate costumes

for every night of the ten-day event. They play out their fantasy in the windows of the Cafe Florian, while ordinary tourists gather outside to gawk in a scene straight from a Dickens novel.

Life in a CageSurekha has spent much of her life in this four-by-six-foot brothel cell in Mumbai, India. She

sleeps, prepares her meals, and stores her few possessions here – and this is where she serviced the customer who infected her with HIV.

Victim, Kathmandu, 2002A young woman makes it to a shelter and tells her story, weeping.

• Photo of Jodi Cobb courtesy of Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, Mo. (July 11, 2012), 2012 Recipients of the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism Announced

• http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/ng-revisited/Women Photographers in the Middle East, Posted Apr 5,2011, Posted by Anne Marie Houppert

• “Life in a Cage” – Courtesy of National Geographic Magazine Sept 2003, 21st-Century Slaves

• Biography and all other photos not specifically listed courtesy of www.jodicobb.com