Christopher Michel
@christophermichel
Photographer and explorer. Usually found with a camera, a dog, or a boarding pass.
“The important thing is that we learn from our failures. And I make the point that I never learned from my successes.” Bruce Alberts, President of @nationalacademies.org from 1993 to 2005. More: explorers.com/bruce-alberts/
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has left Mars behind. On May 15, it passed within 2,864 miles of the planet. It is now traveling toward the metal rich asteroid Psyche, where it will arrive in 2029. Portrait of PI Lindy Elkins-Tanton. More: explorers.com/lindy-elkins... @nationalacademies.org
I visited Bran Ferren at his fantastical workshop in Burbank. Bran is an inventor, engineer, designer, artist, and storyteller. For him, an idea is not finished when it can be explained. It has to be built.
Lisa Kaltenegger is an astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at Cornell, and the director of the Carl Sagan Institute. She studies the atmospheres of distant planets, looking for the faint chemical fingerprints that might reveal oceans, vegetation, or life. explorers.com/lisa-kaltene...
“Progress is a demonstrable fact.” - Steven Pinker See my portrait and story of Steven Pinker in New Heroes: explorers.com/dr-steven-pi... @nationalacademies.org
“There is great beauty in the depth of knowledge humans have collected.” - Lindy Elkins-Tanton Lindy is director of @ucbssl.bsky.social, and the PI of @missiontopsyche.bsky.social, leading our first close examination of a metal rich asteroid. explorers.com/lindy-elkins... @nationalacademies.org
I photographed Lindy Elkins-Tanton high in the Berkeley hills at the Space Sciences Laboratory. Lindy is the principal investigator of NASA’s mission to 16 Psyche, a metal rich asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. explorers.com/lindy-elkins...
@jeffdean.bsky.social is leaving Google after twenty seven years. He is joining Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le to found Discovery Loop. Their aim is to shorten the long distance between an idea, an experiment, and the knowledge that follows. More: explorers.com/jeff-dean/
It takes more than a sailor hat and roller skates to get noticed in San Francisco.
Tim Berners Lee: the inventor of the World Wide Web. explorers.com/tim-berners-... I made this portrait as part of my New Heroes project, which is about spending time with the people shaping our future and trying to see them clearly, as they are. @timbernerslee.bsky.social @nationalacademies.org
Google's Chief Scientist Jeff Dean has spent much of his life building systems most of us will never see, though billions of people pass through them every day. Read more about Jeff here: explorers.com/jeff-dean/ @nationalacademies.org @jeffdean.bsky.social
On foggy mornings, old California sometimes surfaces for a moment, rough, solitary, and still half wild.
There are corners of San Francisco where the city disappears completely. Just trees, fog, and the feeling that you’ve wandered somewhere you weren’t meant to find.
No one does amused better than @kevinkelly.bsky.social. Walk with him and be ready for “What did you learn?” Offer conventional wisdom and he will gently pull it apart. Kevin is an artist, a friend, and one of our great question askers. explorers.com/kevin-kelly/
John Jay Osborn Jr.‘s The Paper Chase wasn’t just a great novel. It introduced millions of people to the intensity of Harvard Law School and the Socratic method, where every assumption is challenged. Years later, life came full circle, and John became a dear friend.
I often saw Lawrence Ferlinghetti at Caffè Trieste, arriving by bicycle from City Lights to sit among the North Beach regulars. Losing him at 101 felt like losing a living link to the city’s past and the Beat Generation. @citylightsbooks.bsky.social
One of those naps where even Antarctic rain can’t wake you.
I got to know Tony Hawk while hiking Japan’s Nakasendo Trail. Away from the ramps and roar, I found him thoughtful, funny and deeply present. We walked through cedar forests and old post towns. Somewhere along the way, I made this portrait. @tonyhawkproskater.bsky.social
When the kid drops to the ice and decides the day is over. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The ice offers no argument. Alone out there, you meet whatever you carried in. Union Glacier, Antarctica.
“We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves.” Those words are bound for Jupiter. Ada Limón wrote “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. The poem aboard the spacecraft, now making its long passage toward Europa. More: explorers.com/ada-limon/
Gravity has no known edge. Every star, every planet, every person pulls at us, however faintly, and we pull back. Gobi Desert, Mongolia.
Avi Loeb asks questions that make many astronomers uncomfortable. His views on ‘Oumuamua and extraterrestrial technology are controversial. I photographed him at home in Lexington, Massachusetts. explorers.com/avi-loeb/
American icon. @stewartbrand.bsky.social Some people move through this world differently. Stewart has spent a lifetime looking past the edge of the present, toward what might come next. More: explorers.com/the-long-now...