Series explores world beyond magazine pages

If you’ve ever wanted to walk around inside National Geographic magazine or to explore the pictures and stories beyond the margins of the page, you might be right in the target audience for “National Geographic Live,” a four-part multimedia lecture series that begins next week at the INB Performing Arts Center.

The series allows Nat Geo photographers and explorers to present their work and detail the often dangerous conditions they experience when capturing the perfect shot. The first “Live” installment, “Coral Kingdoms and Empires of Ice,” will feature underwater photographers David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes presenting a year in their lives via pictures and video, beginning in the coral reefs off Papua New Guinea and ending in Antarctica.

Doubilet has been shooting for National Geographic since the early ’70s, while Hayes’ background is in aquatic biology; they’ve been working together since the early 2000s. They say that the “Live” series not only allows them to share the personal stories behind their work – something the magazine doesn’t always allow – but also satisfies our natural curiosity about the strange world around us.

“As long as humans have been on the land, we’ve looked across the surface of the sea and seen to the edge of the horizon,” Doubilet said. “What went on below this surface of this molecular-thin dividing line between the air world and the water world was unknown. One of the things Jennifer and I are fascinated with is crossing this barrier and going below.

“Every dive peels back another layer of this ocean, and that’s what we want to talk about.”

“You’re bringing people along with you on the journey,” Hayes said. “We take them right underwater with us. We take them out on shark dives, we show them how it works. … Sometimes things go perfectly well on assignment, and sometimes they just go to hell. Here we get to share the story behind the story.”

The “Live” series continues into 2015, and future installments cover everything from grizzly bears to the mysteries of Mars. Andrew Pudvah, director of the National Geographic Speakers Bureau, said the lectures bring a human dimension to the images you might see in the magazine or on the Nat Geo television channel.

“You’re really getting these terrific pieces of detail and the humorous stories and the near-death experiences that go into making the National Geographic programs and stories,” he said. “When you’re face to face with someone and hearing their story, there’s a much greater impact than something you read in the magazine.”

Following the visual presentations from the traveling lecturers, audiences will get a chance to ask the experts questions, which both Doubilet and Hayes said is what makes the entire enterprise worthwhile.

“We get some of the best questions and some of the best feedback,” Doubilet said. “It’s really the payoff for all the years and the work we do on these assignments, to have people look at us and have this human contact.”

“What’s nice is that you get to inspire,” Hayes said. “You might have a student in the audience or a young kid who sees this, and who knows? Maybe he’s going to get caught on fire and go out and become the next Cousteau.”