Through the use of interactive media and print-on-demand technology, Rick Smolan has pushed the limits of the photography book and brought the world closer together.

In the assignment photography world, the best in the business tend to thrive on pressure — the pressure of looming deadlines, tight travel schedules, difficult access, impossible working conditions, live ammunition. But all of these factors pale in comparison to the toughest challenge a photographer faces: lack of control.

In just his third assignment for Time magazine, a young Rick Smolan landed a color cover story on the famously intimidating opera conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1975. "I had never shot any color...

The founder of one of the nation's most prestigious photo workshops is helping aspiring photographers carry on her passion for socially concerned imagery.

Committed. Concerned. Caring. Those three C's pretty much sum up photographer Julia Dean, who not only has incorporated those elements into her life and work but also has strived to encourage other photographers to do so through her teaching.

"The thing that impresses me most about Julia is her desire to make a difference in people's lives," says longtime friend Reid Callanan, founder and director of the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops.

This year, Dean, who established the prestigious Julia Dean Photo Workshops nearly a decade ago, is moving into high gear with her love of photography about...

For more than 30 years, David Hume Kennerly, former staff photographer for President Gerald R. Ford, has enjoyed unprecedented access to our nation’s leaders.

The night that Gerald Ford assumed the presidency, he approached David Hume Kennerly about being his personal photographer. "I didn't want to report to anybody but him," Kennerly stipulated, "and I wanted total access to everything that was going on."

"What?" replied Ford. "No use of Air Force One on the weekends?"

Sarcasm aside, the new president apparently respected Kennerly's ground rules because, the next day, Ford offered him the post. More than 30 years later, in October 2007, Kennerly is set to release his latest book, "Extraordinary Circumstances: The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford" (University of Texas Press), a collection of Kennerly's photographs, along with comments from Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, former...

Best known for his award-winning advertising images and jazz portraits, is embarking on a quest to establish international image licensing standards for the good of all photographers.

Imagine a man in his mid-40s, with short, dark hair and a slight five-o'clock shadow, standing in the center of a life raft with a camera in one hand and a paddle in the other. This is a good visual metaphor for the work of Jeff Sedlik, award-winning photographer and industry mover and shaker. A rising tide lifts all boats, so the saying goes, and if Sedlik has his way, the photography tide is about to get higher. Besides maintaining a successful career as a high-level advertising photographer, he's dedicated to buoying the profession as a whole and teaching other photographers to navigate the rising waters...

Known mostly for his pioneering sports shooting, our Photography Person of the Year also has spent half a century as a photojournalist, an editor and a mentor for the next generation of aspiring photographers.

By his own admission, he's no athlete, but Rich Clarkson holds a sports record unlikely to be broken soon: he has just photographed his 50th NCAA college basketball championship. He shot his first back in 1952, and hasn't missed one since 1960. Along the way, Clarkson's pictures have helped redefine the way we look at sports.

The Final Four is just one facet of a remarkable career with roots reaching back to the 1940s and still running full-throttle today. At 72, Clarkson is a photography dynamo, busy with a demanding shooting and...

He’s one of the best nature shooters around, but he’s more than happy to give away his secrets to the next generation. For that, PhotoMedia salute Lepp with our Photography Person of the Year award.

Even as a little boy, George Lepp got into photography in a big way. As a sixth-grader, he lugged a 4x5 Crown Graphic around, making photos, line negatives and halftones for the school newspaper. "Why they had such a sophisticated paper in a middle school, I have no idea," he said in a recent phone interview. "But it was fun, and it got me out of doing...

The photographs of Natalie Fobes help to illustrate the forgotten stories of the world’s indigenous peoples.

Want to give back to the profession? How about creating a funding mechanism so that photographers can do valuable documentary work. Thinking about humanitarian goals? Perhaps you should self-fund a trip to show the ravages of a massive oil spill, or a native people's disappearing way of life. Did you recently resolve to do more good with your life? Take a lesson from Seattle photographer Natalie Fobes.

Photographing endangered environments and cultures, crafting multimedia educational projects and supporting other photographers in such efforts have earned Fobes the...

By devoting most of his career to warning the public about the consequences of global warming, Oregon-based wildlife and nature photographer Gary Braasch is trying not to change the world, but to help save it from changing too much.

One miserably cold day in late March, the evening news carried a chilling science story. In Antarctica — where apparently it wasn't quite cold enough — a 1,200-square-mile chunk of the Larsen ice shelf had shattered into 720 billion tons of crushed ice. The formerly Rhode-Island-sized ice shelf, which had taken only a month to break apart and fall into the ocean, had been frozen to Antarctica's jutting Palmer Peninsula for 12,000 years. An average temperature rise of...

Reid Callanan, founder and director of the Santa Fe Workshops, is the PhotoMedia Photography Person of the Year for 1999. An engraved sculpture is given annually to a member of the photography industry who has earned recognition for "exceptional artistic and business accomplishments, passion, devotion to the industry, inspiration to colleagues, and humanitarian achievements in the community."

PhotoMedia honors Callanan and the Santa Fe Workshops for educating thousands of photographers at all career stages, while promoting the highest standards of professionalism, ethics and support for the photographic community in New Mexico and worldwide.. Through his dedication to these principles, Callanan has been able to attract the highest caliber...

It's not a statement you might expect to hear from a successful businesswoman and arts supporter. But "unexpected" is sort of what Marita Holdaway is all about. With her upbeat, energetic patter and infectious laugh, it's not difficult to picture Holdaway on stage riffing her way through a stand-up routine. In fact, it's easy to imagine her accomplishing just about anything. What Holdaway has accomplished—a reputation for being unusually artist-supportive—is no laughing matter.

Positioned smack in the bustle and noise of First Avenue in downtown Seattle, close enough to bite the ankles of the Seattle Art Museum's Hammering Man, Holdaway's Benham Gallery...