RANDY OLSON, the Magazine Photographer of the Year for 2003 in the Pictures of the Year International competition, has spent the last dozen years working for National Geographic in places as diverse as the Siberian Arctic, Africa, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Newfoundland, Guyana, American Samoa, Turkey, Republic of Georgia, Australia and the South Pacific.

Olson was awarded Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1992, one of only two photographers to win the title in both media in a contest that has been operating continuously since World War II.

Olson was also awarded an Alicia Patterson Fellowship to support a seven-year project documenting a family with AIDS. His story on problems with Section 8 housing earned him a Robert F. Kennedy Award. He was awarded the Nikon Sabbatical grant in 1996. The Pittsburgh resident is a graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri.