National Geographic’s First Butterfly Calendar Features Jay’s Photographs Exclusively
The phone rang one summer’s evening. “Is this the Jay Cossey who has that amazing butterfly photography website?”
The voice claimed my images were the best photographs of butterflies he’d seen online, and he was wondering if I’d consider doing a calendar at some point. I’d had similar offers before that never materialized, so I said I'd love to, then basically forgot about it.
Months later, the vaguely familiar voice called again, asking me to send him some images to consider for an upcoming calendar. He cautioned that there was no guarantee the calendar would be produced, but they had to create a mock-up to move forward. At the end of our conversation, he casually mentioned that, incidentally, he was the photo editor for all National Geographic calendars.
Having read National Geographic Magazine all my life, I was pretty excited. He warned me however, that before they paid to use any of my images, he was required to go through Nat Geo’s vast archives. Since the Society already owned the license to use those photographs, they must be given priority over mine.
A couple of weeks later, the calendar editor called me back and congratulated me—all 24 of the images selected and approved were my own! I was please, but decided not to celebrate until I held the printed piece in my hands, complete with the coveted yellow Nat Geo logo in the top corner. I’d been disappointed before when projects were canceled at the last minute (notably, an Audubon Society Butterfly Calendar). I told no one but my immediate family and less than a handful of friends, along with the disclaimer: believe it when you see it.
It seemed like forever, but finally, my first copy of the Butterfly Calendar arrived in early September. Long before the peak calendar season, in early November, the Butterfly Calendar had already sold out at the distributor's.
Later on I heard that the project had, by the narrowest of margins, survived a last minute cut-off. Right before press time, the National Geographic Society decided not to proceed with several proposed calendars, including the titles “Whales” and “Lions” due to an underwhelming volume of pre-orders.