In the year since Sept. 11, 2001, we've seen many somber images fraught with the significance of that day. As we head toward another winter of uncertainty, it's nice to be reminded of the days when art was more often created for art's sake.

This joyous sculpture, dancing amid its own solar system, was captured by stock photographer Larry Brownstein just days before the 9/11 attacks, while he was attending a week-long event known as the Burning Man Festival.

Held every year the week before Labor Day, Burning Man is a free-form gathering of the avant-garde, who create temporary artworks in the remote Black Rock Desert outside Reno, Nev. At the end of the week, an enormous wooden statue in the shape of a standing figure is burned in a ritual bonfire, the significance of which is left to each viewer to decide...

For some photographers, images come in an instantaneous flash. For others, like Seattle-based stock shooter Paul Conrath, the most enduring images come from a process carefully developed over time. "It’s really like a craft," he says. "The best photos are ones that are built."

This space-age timepiece follows Conrath’s metaphor in a very literal sense. Shot for a law firm representing computer chip maker Intel, the photo was the result of a collaboration between Conrath and Intel’s design firm.

"We had about three or four meetings before we even went into the studio," he says...

Part man? Part frog? You decide.

Freelance photographer Jason Millstein's image of a swimmer launching into his backstroke during a high school competition in Fort Pierce, Fla., captures the strength, speed and determination of today's young athletes. Taken in 2000, while Millstein was a staffer for the Palm Beach Post, the photo won him a National Press Photographers Association Monthly News Clip Contest award in the Sports category.

But sports photography is hardly his only specialty. Millstein's website (illumephotography.com) demonstrates his versatility as a shooter, covering such disparate topics as portraits, nature and landscapes, editorial photography, and weddings, along with various magazine photo essays.

As we head into the heady summer months, it helps to keep a little spring in your step. Dean Davis, a Spokane, Wash.-based commercial photographer, has taken such advice to extremes in this colorful image.

"Spring Man" was originally created as part of a series to illustrate a capabilities brochure for Spokane-based ICM Asset Management. Davis was hired to work with West Public Relations and a local design firm, Klundt-Hosmer Design, to provide a visual representation of a phrase used in the company's brochure: "The battle may go to the strong, and the race to the swift."

To complete the image the team envisioned, Davis set off on the literal route to find industrial-strength springs, eventually finding two specimens from Pohl Spring Works in Spokane. After consulting with a cobbler at a real bootmaking facility...

Experience with model testing and a love of theater combine in this "almost spontaneous" mid-1999 shot by Seattle photographer Michael Doucett. His subject is Zaza, one-third of the clown troupe Los Excentricos, traveling performers then appearing with Teatro ZinZanni in Seattle. Doucett was photographing the ZinZanni cast for Resonance, a local arts magazine.

"I do have a connection to these circus people," says Doucett, 33, a Tacoma native. "My family is all involved in the arts: professional artists, makeup artists, musicians...

Avid hiker Mike Albert grabbed this shot of a lonely trekker on the French alpine slopes of Mont Blanc three years ago while backpacking through Europe. Albert took the photo after riding a tram that takes hikers and tourists up the face of Mont Blanc, a massive glacier-encased mountain like Mount Rainier in Washington State, only higher at 15,771 feet.

About the tram ride, Albert says, "It's the only time I ever took the easy way out. It was a hot summer day. You wouldn't believe how many people were hiking that trail. Yet there was this one guy off by himself. I got this one shot...

Extreme action is the mark of photographer Colin Meagher, who captured whitewater kayaker Chuck Kern cresting the falls on the Kootenai River in Northwest Montana. Like his subjects, says Meagher, "I find that I am drawn to things that have a lot of high-energy. Whether it's running or climbing, mountain biking or snowboarding, I'm looking for that little slice of time that most people aren't even aware of."

It's on those occasions, Meagher says, that having a motor drive is one of the nicest luxuries. "It allows me to anticipate that moment, but often times, I won't even have the motor drive running. I'll just be clicking one frame at a time. Just to keep sharp...