A Putney story shaped by curiosity, care, and returning year after year.
As Putney celebrates 75 years, we’re spotlighting the voices of the people who have sustained its spirit over the decades. Britt Basel has been leading programs with Putney and our previous collaborations with National Geographic for 18 summers (and counting!).
Outside of Putney, Britt’s work centers on the relationship between people and the environment. That perspective carries naturally into her summers with Putney, where her primary role has long been photography.
Working with students and their cameras, Britt focuses on helping them slow down, observe carefully, and tell meaningful stories through images.
“It’s always been about how to help students engage more deeply—how to see through their cameras, but also how to tell the deeper story.”
Britt first came to Putney because she understood the impact of formative experiences at a young age. When she was fourteen, she studied abroad—an experience she credits with shaping much of what followed.
“I could probably attribute everything I’ve done since then to that specific program,” she says.
She joined Putney wanting to offer students that same opportunity: space to step beyond familiar routines, build confidence, and discover new ways of seeing themselves and the world.
What has kept Britt returning year after year is the combination of students and community.
Putney summers, she says, are intense, joyful, and deeply grounding. They are a chance to engage young people in things that matter and to reconnect with colleagues who feel like family.
“It’s my happy place,” she says.
Over nearly two decades, Britt has watched Putney evolve and grow while holding onto its core.
“Even as it’s expanded, Putney has always maintained a sense of family,” she says. “There’s a real personal investment in who you are and how you show up.”
For Britt, Putney’s legacy lives on in its students, in the generations of young people shaped by summer programs that leave a lasting mark on how they move through the world and connect with others.
After eighteen years, she still jokes each spring that it might be her last.
Thankfully for us, it never is.
