Braving bandits and courting kings, Joseph F. Rock was Our Man in China for National Geographic from 1922 to 1935. Photographing and writing stories for National Geographic, Rock mounted elaborate exhibitions to the roughest hinterlands of China and Tibet. The editor of National Geographic described Rock as an imperious and determined explorer. Highlights among his legacy are the earliest color photographs of rural China and Tibet taken with the Autochrome color process on glass plates.