Chris Rainier is a Royal Geographical Society Fellow and a National Geographic photographer and explorer. He started out his career as Ansel Adams’ last photographic assistant and is known for his documentation of indigenous cultures and languages around the world
For over 15 years, he co-directed a program at the National Geographic Society documenting endangered traditional knowledge and language. He has published six photography books focused on the documentation of traditional Indigenous communities.
Rainier is presently working on a five-year project photographing Native American and First Nations communities across the US and Canada.
Chris is the co-founder and director of The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation, a global charity whose mission is to partner indigenous communities to help protect their culture, language and land.
Chris will be speaking at Summit Photo 2026 alongside Olivia McKendrick.
They are honoured to be invited to talk at RGS’ Summit Photo event and will focus their presentation on Why Culture Matters - and the Link between Indigenous Knowledge, Conservation and Exploration.
To a backdrop of Chris’ images taken over the last four decades of indigenous peoples and sacred places, they will discuss the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity and the cultural revitalisation that they are seeing across the world.
