Discover, Unravel, Redefine Your Future: Chase Jarvis on new marketing strategies for photographers

Photographers hoping to flourish in the uncertain years ahead will need to adapt to numerous changes, including the rapid and ongoing developments in camera equipment, technology and social networking. Photographers also must have the willingness to learn an entirely new way of thinking when it comes to the marketing and distribution of their work...

Over a three-decade career, James Balog has used his stunning, alarming images to educate the world about global climate change and its potentially disastrous effects if left unchecked.

James Balog strolls out to the deck of his Colorado mountain home and eases himself into a chair just in time to glimpse another glorious Rocky Mountain sunset.

"I just enjoy sitting down and chilling out and looking at the world," he says with a sigh. "I like to watch...

Office: Boulder, Colo..

Websites: jamesbalog.com and extremeicesurvey.org.

Staff: Currently three people (can vary widely).

Family life: Wife, Suzanne, and daughters Simone, 23, and Emily, 9, both of whom, he says, already have "a pretty amazing knack for snapping photos".

Office/Home/Gallery: Indian Lake Estates, Fla.; main website: BirdsAsArt.com.

Staff: Daughter Jennifer Morris is his executive director; Jim Litzenberg is his manager.

Family Life: Two daughters (from a first marriage) and four great-grandchildren. "I lost my best friend, beloved second wife Elaine Belsky-Morris, to breast cancer in 1994," he says...

After growing up in New York City hardly noticing birds, Morris became one of the world's foremost avian photographers

Artie Morris is one rare bird.

As one of the world's top avian photographers, he readily shares with others the information he has gleaned over nearly 30 years of stalking winged and feathered vertebrates. He conducts photo workshops worldwide, with plans in 2012 for trips to Japan, the Galapagos Islands at the Equator, and South Georgia and Falkland islands in the Southern Ocean. He has also parlayed his business, called Birds as Art, into a thriving web presence, selling everything from e-books and CDs to camera accessories and apparel.

At 65, this busy resident of Indian Lake Estates, Fla., shows no signs of slowing down. He still shoots 180 days a year while traveling the world, writes almost-daily blog posts at BirdsasArt-blog.com, and...

Home and studio: Santa Barbara, Calif.

Representation: Janet Borden Gallery (janetbordeninc.com), New York City; Kathleen Ewing Gallery (kathleenewinggallery.com), Washington, D.C.

Family life: Everton enjoys working with his wife, Mary Heebner, an abstract painter and writer. The couple collaborated on "The Western Horizon" in 2000 and "The Book of Santa Barbara" in 2010. A documentary film about their artistic partnership called "Full Circle," by director Russ Spencer, premiered in 2000...

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...

Home and office location: Greenport, N.Y., on Long Island, but he‚ not there for very long stretches. "Home is where you store stuff," Moffett says. 

Most memorable assignment: Photographing Phyllobates terribilis, the world‚ deadliest poison dart frog, in a remote valley in Colombia when the frog decided to leap at him. A single frog, which is lethal to the touch, could kill 400 to 500 people.

Advice for nature photographers: "Know the science behind what is being photographed," he says. "Look for the new and be a storyteller. The fact is, I believe life is all about telling stories."

Website: MarkMoffett.com