Tamara Merino
Tamara Merino is a Chilean National Geographic Explorer and award-winning documentary photographer whose work explores the relationship between people, place, and survival through stories of subterranean communities, cultural heritage, identity, human rights, and climate adaptation. Through long-term visual storytelling, she creates deeply researched narratives that reveal overlooked ways of life with intimacy, empathy, and journalistic rigor.
For more than eleven years, she has led UNDERLAND, an ambitious global project chronicling contemporary subterranean communities across seven countries and four continents. Combining photography, reporting, oral histories, and historical research, the project explores one of humanity's oldest and most enduring strategies for survival while building the first visual archive of contemporary subterranean communities. UNDERLAND has been featured twice on the cover of National Geographic Magazine, including a 26-page cover story, alongside international exhibitions, educational resources, and public lectures, and continues to expand into new regions of the world.
Her work has been recognized with four National Geographic covers in total; three selections for the magazine's Year in Pictures and Best Photos of the Year; the Wayfinder Award, a Level II Grant, and the Emergency Fund, also from National Geographic; and the Magnum Foundation Inge Morath Award. She was also selected for PDN's 30, the World Press Photo 6×6 Global Talent Program, the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass, and the International Women's Media Foundation.
Her photographs have been published in National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, TIME, Bloomberg News, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Wired, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and numerous international publications. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Myanmar, and Antarctica.
Beyond editorial work, Merino is committed to making visual storytelling accessible through exhibitions, public lectures, workshops, and education. She is a National Geographic Expeditions Expert, a contributor to National Geographic Learning, and regularly speaks at universities, museums, schools, and cultural institutions around the world.
Collaboration is central to her practice. In 2020, she co-founded Ayün Fotógrafas, a collective of women photographers and storytellers dedicated to diversifying visual narratives across Latin America. She frequently collaborates with writers, scientists, researchers, local communities, and trusted fixers to produce rigorously reported, culturally grounded stories.
Based in Santiago, Chile, where she lives with her husband and their two children, Merino travels the world documenting how people adapt, survive, and create a sense of home in extraordinary places.