Thomas J. Abercrombie (August 13, 1930 – April 3, 2006) was a senior staff writer and photographer for National Geographic, well known for his work on Middle Eastern countries.
By designing an underwater housing (commercially unavailable at the time), Abercrombie pushed the frontiers of photography when he photographed a shipwreck at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
Surreal portraits of wife, Lynn Abercrombie, distorted by reflections in stainless steel cook and house ware were published in Life Magazine.
His photograph of a robin straining to extract an earthworm from a dramatically low angle caught the eye of Melville Bell Grosvenor at the National Geographic.
As a staff member of National Geographic, Abercrombie was best known for his work in Arab countries, visited all seven continents, and was one of the first two journalists to reach the South Pole in 1957 (the other was Rolla J.
He visited nearly every country of the Middle East and became so enamored of the region's people and culture that he converted to Islam in 1964, taking the name Omar.