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.
Hear from Chris at Summit Photo 2026
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 Cultures on the edge: at the crossroads of culture and conservation to the backdrop of Chris Rainier's portraits of indigenous peoples taken over a 40 year period including as a National Geographic Fellow and photographer.
Chris and Olivia will present on why culture matters and the crucial importance of indigenous understanding and traditions. They will explore the link between culture and conservation, the threats to indigenous cultures, languages and landscapes and the growing power and energy of their revitalisation.
Finally, they will touch on the work that their charity, The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation, is doing together with indigenous communities around the world.
Theirs is a passion project – for cultural and linguistic diversity, for indigenous guardianship of land and for extra places around the fireplace discussion of what it means to be human in and how to face the challenges of the 21st century.
