A mom with zoom

You just know the little girl in the photo isn't from Petra, Jordan. Her back is to the camera, but her T-shirt and blue jeans, and the scrunchie in her honey-brown hair, are in stark contrast to the Bedouin shepherd holding her hand as they walk companionably on a pebbled path. The image is a veritable poster for cultural understanding, and you think, "Cool."

Then: Where is her mother?

Behind the camera. That's where Annie Griffiths Belt has been for much of her children's lives, whether they're swimming with sea lions (and the occasional shark), camping at 20-below (and waking to grizzly paw prints), or riding an especially flatulent horse (with Mom gamely following behind).

On Thursday night, Belt will wrap up the National Geographic Live! speakers series at the State Theatre in Minneapolis with stories of traveling with Lily and Charlie, and being one of the magazine's first female photographers. She'll also show photos from her new book, "A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel" (National Geographic, $35).

Some of her stories might make a mother hen twitch, but there's risk anytime you do anything, said Belt, who grew up in Minneapolis.

"When we were in Petra, Jordan, I worried about my kids falling out of a tree and breaking their arm, same as my mother worried about," she said. "In a funny way, I had to take my kids overseas to have the childhood that I had, where my mom would throw us out the back door and say, 'I'll see you at suppertime,' setting us free like butterflies and trusting that we'd be on our bikes and be safe and knowing that every adult would be looking out for us."

While careful to say that everyone has to figure out their own style of raising their kids, she watches with some concern the hovering "helicopter" parents -- a peculiarly American species. Such protectiveness, while well-meant, also implies, I'm not sure you can handle this. "It's an erosion of kids' confidence that's going completely unattended," she said. "What we're saying to them is, 'I'm not sure you can do this, so let me help you.'"

Reminiscing a bit, Belt recalled "the world's greatest sledding hill" in south Minneapolis that would turn to "absolute ice because we all slid down on cardboard." When someone would show up with a saucer sled, speeds seemed supersonic. And still, "nobody died."

Finding the balance

Belt graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1976. When she talks about her 30 years as a National Geographic photographer, she gets a familiar line of questioning: Can you do this? Do you have to choose between work and family? What do I have to sacrifice to pursue my dream?

"It sort of astonished me because I thought my generation already fought that battle," Belt said. "Over time, I realized that women -- and some guys -- are still really asking those basic questions."

From the start, she and her husband, National Geographic writer Don Belt, decided to take family travel one year at a time. "I mean, in this job, it really made no sense to have children -- or to be married!" she said, laughing. "We really talked about how to do this -- and still do. Every year, we take everybody's temperature and we do adapt our work stuff to the family's needs."

She kept meticulous expense accounts to avoid any suggestion that the family was taking unfair advantage, tapped old baby-sitting strategies for keeping kids happy (pack lots of their favorite foods; make sure they get enough sleep) and traveled with "amazing" nannies. After five years, Belt knew that her work had remained top-notch and decided to go public with her strategy to let other parents know that it could be done.

Today, Lily is 18 and leaving home in Great Falls, Va., and heading off to college. Charlie is 15. If Belt has one regret, it's that she doesn't have many photos of them while young. "When I was with them, they didn't want to see that camera because that meant I was working. It was very intentional for me to really be present with them."

And not just because they were anywhere from Montana to Jerusalem. "In any of our jobs, it's very easy to come home and be with the family and not be there at all, but be on the cell phone or the computer and just mentally not be there at all."

Belt intends to keep doing what she's doing. "I have absolutely no desire to stop." That's this year's plan, anyway. Another year, another family meeting, may lead to a new conclusion.

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185