Home & Office: Los Osos, Calif.

Stock agencies: Corbis, Getty, Photo Researchers, AgStock.

Favorite equipment: The Canon EOS 1Ds camera. Also, Singh Ray's new Vari-X neutral-density filter. "It allows a variable ND filter to 10 stops," Lepp says. "I use it for long exposures on water and where I want a long exposure to make moving people and cars disappear."

Favorite place to shoot: Mono Lake, in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

Website: georgelepp.com

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...

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