For Gypsies, Bruce traveled with gypsies over a period of six months, starting in England and ending up in India. "We hired a Gypsy and his wife to travel with us as an entrance to other Gypsies, and in each country we met with anthropologists who'd been working with Gypsies. They took us to areas where there were enclaves of Gypsies, and we'd stop, meet them and photograph. We met with Gypsies in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan—of course, you could never go to those places today. We'd go into villages and camp at night, and people would just come and talk to us and play music for us. In southern Iran there was a village in which the people spoke an unusual language. Linguists investigated and found out it was Romany, but with a European accent. It turned out that the people's ancestors had fled India at the invasion of Genghis Khan, had gone to Europe, then decided to go back to India and got as far as Iran and settled there. In their language was their history, the story of where they'd been."

Photographing for the book, Bruce traveled to so many places in such a short span of time that he was forced to photograph quickly, and he regrets that there wasn't much time to spend getting to know the people. But there was an advantage to that: "When we walked into a village, the people were doing whatever they happened to be doing. They weren't waiting for us or expecting us. I photographed them exactly as they were. If we had stayed another week or two, they would have started dressing for us and performing for us. So there's a total spontaneity and freshness to those pictures that I don't think I would have gotten if I'd spent two or three weeks with each group."

Often his dedication to his assignments was so intense that he has little memory of the moment. "Sometimes when I see my [published] photographs, I say jeez, I'd like to go there, and then, hey, wait a minute, I shot that picture! Usually you're working so darn hard you don't really appreciate the beauty of the place."

Readers of National Geographic, though, have been able to appreciate the more than 2,000 images Bruce published in the magazine on subjects ranging from the nature of time to the journeys of explorer John Wesley Powell; from aviation safety to the Santa Fe Trail. "I was more of a generalist than most Geographic photographers," he says. "I've done underwater photography, aerial images, people studies and a lot of high tech and scientific stories." Looking back on it all, he says, "If I were to go back, I might stick more with people, because I think that's more significant."

Still, it's one of Bruce's nature photographs that's achieved a unique significance: it's on the Voyager I spacecraft, which is now at the outer edge of our solar system, and that's significant enough for Bruce. "I may not have photos on display in any New York galleries," he says, "but Voyager is one gallery that's going to be around for a while."

To see more of Bruce's work visit his website.

Bruce Dale has been an NPS member since 1998.