A Seattle photographer embraces imperfection and pushes the limits of her beloved $30 Holga camera.

For many photographers, their first experience with a camera is with a cheap point-and-shoot, such as an old Kodak Instamatic or a Polaroid. Once hooked, the photographer usually moves on to newer, more advanced models with greater capabilities. For others, however, first impressions are often lasting ones. Such is the case for Seattle photographer Michelle Bates. For nearly two decades, she has held a soft spot in her heart for her first camera: a $30 Holga. While she also uses today's advanced DSLRs for images that require more precision, Bates has continued using the Holga, embracing the format's many flaws and limitations.Mass-produced in China since the early 1980s, the Holga is a study in simplicity: fixed 60mm plastic lens; spring-loaded, nonadjustable shutter; medium-format 120 film; rugged aesthetic. The camera was made to take quick family portraits for the Chinese...

Bill Dobbins, known as one of the world's foremost photographers of female bodybuilders, often compares the supremely sculpted models he shoots to landscapes.
"Those who shoot traditional nudes tend to focus on soft, clean lines of the human body," he says. "But with body builders, with the definition they have in their physiques, you have hills and valleys all over. I often will pose them against rocks or a desert background as if they were part of the landscape."
Or, in this case, poolscape.

About five years ago, while shooting images of model Suzanna McGee — who he describes as an "Amazonian athlete, bodybuilder and tennis player" — Dobbins saw an opportunity to photograph the human form against a different kind of background. While taking a break from shooting, McGee decided to take a dip in a nearby pool. While she swam laps, Dobbins took some photos of McGee's powerful underwater strokes...

Through new distribution platforms, multimedia formats and teamwork, today's photojournalists are trying to resurrect a moribund industry.

BREAKING NEWS — Photojournalism, the use of images to tell stories and convey information about topical events, from the Crimean War to this year's health-care reform debate, has died following a long and gradual illness.

The profession was approximately 150 years old...

Rob Sinclair’s nighttime image of Castle Geyser in Yellowstone National Park is proof that if a hydrothermal eruption happens and there are no tourists there to gawk at it, it’s still beautiful.

Shot in October 2006, the image is part of Sinclair’s ongoing, self-directed project to photograph the wonders of the national park system at night. "I’ve only done three parks, so I’ve got a long way to go," says the Sammamish, Wash.-based nature photographer.

Geysers in Yellowstone, which have been captured easily in countless tourist snapshots since the park opened in 1872, become particularly difficult subjects to photograph once the sun goes down and the mercury drops. Unlike its punctual cousin, Old Faithful, just a short hike away, Castle Geyser is an elusive spectacle...

Few images better evoke the idea of summer than sun, water and happy kids. Ric Peterson's image of children in mid-leap toward a seemingly limitless lakeside horizon is the perfect way to close our summer issue.

The image came about after Peterson had photographed an ad campaign for Guidance Medical, depicting two boys running along a sun-soaked beach using towels as capes. "I thought, 'This has potential,' Peterson says, so he decided to shoot some more images involving children, water and movement for his stock collection.

A dedicated family man, Peterson included his own family members in this particular scene, which was shot on Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota during a summer vacation...

Bay Area photographers Greg Lorenz and Kim Avelar specialize in tricking the eye, in creating images that appear to be real but couldn't possibly exist. In their world, woodpeckers have drill bits for beaks; barracudas cruise the deep with submarine propellers; plants spread solar panels instead of leaves.

And clouds are launched with just a brushstroke and a stepladder.

Although this whimsical scene looks like a clever trick of perspective, it's actually a carefully constructed composite image – a specialty of the husband-and-wife duo. The background image of field and sky was taken on a road trip in Montana. The ladder and model were shot later, using the same 24mm lens under similar outdoor lighting conditions, and merged with the first image via Photoshop...

We present a selection of winners and finalists in Art Wolfe's International Conservation Photography Awards contest, which recognizes photographers who are committed to environmental stewardship.

Known for his passionate advocacy for the environment, nature photographer Art Wolfe created a conservation-themed photo contest in 1997 as "an event for the advancement of photography as a unique medium, capable of bringing awareness and preservation to our environment through art." This year marks the 11th anniversary of Wolfe's annual photography exhibit, which has gone through some name changes and is currently known as the International Conservation Photography Awards (ICP Awards).

The focus of the ICP Awards has been updated to reflect the new emphasis on...

Lofty recollections from the inventor of "height photography."

Situated 746 feet above the waters of San Francisco Bay on May 24, 1987, photographer Peter B. Kaplan was fulfilling his lifelong dream of capturing majestic images from atop one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.

At the same time, however, he thought he was about to get a bird's-eye view of one of the world's greatest catastrophes.

The event was the 50th anniversary celebration of the 1.7-mile-long icon. Kaplan, who had practically invented an entire genre of photography shooting images from tall structures, which he termed "height photography" recently had been named the official photographer of the Golden Gate Bridge...

Rosanne Olson's new book on female body image

Sharing innermost thoughts with others can leave one feeling exposed, vulnerable — naked, even. These feelings can be even more intense when the subject is the person's own body. But the catharsis can also make a person stronger and more confident.

This theme was made literal in a recent project by Seattle fine-art and commercial photographer Rosanne Olson. Her first book, "This Is Who I Am," released in April 2008, is a collection of black-and-white nude studies of women — none of whom are professional models — from all ages, races, body types and walks of life. Juxtaposed with each photo are the stories of each woman as they courageously discuss their bodies with unflinching honesty.

After spending a large part of his career in Southeast Asia, photojournalist Richard Vogel thought he had seen every type of Buddha statue as he covered various religious shrines and festivals for the Associated Press. Until he saw this one in 1996.

While on a two-year stint in Thailand, Vogel came across this uncharacteristic Buddha representation in a well-hidden part of Bangkok. "I had no idea what that Buddha statue looked like and was very surprised when I saw it," he recalls. "It had these giant feet, which was very unusual, and people were praying and putting gold leaf on it."

Vogel, who prefers to be "as a fly on the wall," snapped this quiet image of a man praying at the Buddha’s heel and left him undisturbed. Later, Vogel transmitted the image to the AP wire, where it was sent worldwide...