On the cover: “Balance,” from 1992, was one of the first images photographer Glen Wexler created using in-house digital imaging via the Macintosh Quadra 950 workstation. Today, with vastly more powerful equipment, Wexler is still creating otherworldly digital photographs that blur fantasy with reality.  

Cover photo: © Glen Wexler

On the cover: Nature photographer George Lepp, PhotoMedia’s Photography Person of the Year, has a knack for finding intriguing wildlife compositions, even in civilized places like California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium, where he photographed these undulating sea nettles.

Cover photo: © George D. Lepp

On the cover: Twin brothers Kevin and Andrew Atherton, part of the Cirque du Soleil acrobatic troupe, seemingly defy gravity in this Greg Gorman portrait. In actuality, they were shot on the roof of his studio, using all natural light with a black background. 

Cover photo: © Greg Gorman

On the cover: A West Javanese dancer in Bandung, Indonesia, wearing a cape reminiscent of iridescent butterfly wings, appears ready to take flight in this photo by travel photographer Lindsay Hebberd. Read our Lindsay Hebberd profile.

Photo Copyright: © Lindsay Hebberd / Corbis

On the cover: Less than a month before the U.S. invasion, Polaris photographer Yannis Kontos caught this prescient image of a Baghdad maintenance worker removing the sword from a statue of the soon-to-be deposed Saddam Hussein. PhotoMedia talked with three other photojournalists about the chaos they saw in the days that followed and the uneasiness that pervades Iraq today.

Photo Copyright: © Yannis Kontos / Polaris

On the cover: Known chiefly for his images of wildlife, Art Wolfe focuses his lens skyward at the west face of Mount Fitzroy in Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park, as seen from the Patagonia Ice Cap. For a preview of his new book on landscapes, see the cover story.

Photo Copyright: © Art Wolfe

On the cover: In photographer Gerald Bybee’s self-styled “photo-cubist” world, people can be two- or three-faced — literally — as can be seen here in “Cosima Blue,” created for a trade advertisement for client Micr0Com. 

Cover Photo: © Gerald Bybee

On the cover: Two vespid wasps cluster on a bamboo shoot in the Amazonian jungles of Peru, near the Tambopata River. Wildlife photographer Gary Braasch, who shot the photo in the mid-1990s for a Nature Conservancy assignment, has dedicated his career to helping protect such fragile ecosystems, earning him this year’s PhotoMedia’s Photography Person of the Year award.

Cover Photo: © Gary Braasch

Ricky Flores' photo of firefighters raising a flag at Groud Zero the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center captures the patriotism and heroism that followed the tragedy. In honor of the many intrepid photojournalists who risked their lives to show the world these atrocities, PhotoMedia presents a special gallery of their best work.

The interaction with his subjects captivates Richard I'Anson, the lead photographer for guidebook publisher Lonely Planet, (featured in this issue's featured interview) who has written a new book on travel photography. On the cover, monks at the Sera Monastery in Tibet mug for his camera instead of paying attention to the debate they're attending. "It's the varied responses [of your subjects] that give character and personality to a collection of people pictures," says I'Anson.