PhotoMedia salutes the entrants in this spring's World in Focus Photo Contest.

In June of this year, PhotoMedia presented World in Focus, a multifaceted three-day event with an exciting mission: "To promote the awareness of the critical need to preserve and protect the beauty and diversity of our natural world and its cultures through the visual messages of photographers."

The event, held in Seattle, included inspiring seminars with some of the foremost nature, environmental and endangered-cultures photographers in the industry.

After an issue full of conflict and change, we thought we would end with an image that is as timeless as it is beautiful. On a trip to Varanasi, India, Canadian photographer Christopher Gora discovered this quiet scene of a woman sweeping out a walkway.

"During the festival season, I lived in an ancient apartment overlooking the Ganges River." Gora said. "Daily, I would get up before dawn to witness people's rituals and then pass through this archway on my way to the market. I was often struck by the play of light through the arches, but there was never anyone there to complete the space...

With much of the country preoccupied with imminent war and a sagging economy, this topsy-turvy image from commercial photographer John Terence Turner seems appropriate for our entry into 2003.

Created for Turner's stock portfolio of motion shots, the photo is a result of trial and error, and more than a little ingenuity. He first tried to get a kinetic image of this Seattle roller coaster by riding in the seat in front of the two models and aiming his camera backward. He soon found that the safety bar was too restricting and the g-forces of the turns were too great to...

It's hard enough to be a nature photographer — slogging through jungles and enduring the burning desert sun to set up just the right shot of a rare creature. But just imagine doing it all on a half-hour air supply. That's what underwater wildlife photographers like Geoffrey Semorile must do to produce these crisp, brightly colored images of the other three-quarters of the world hidden beneath the sea.

"All underwater creatures know three things about underwater photographers - when you are out of film, when you are in focus and when you are out of air," Semorile says. "They then strike that pose you have been waiting your whole tank of air for, right after you have shot your last frame of film or refocused your lens ten times."

A selection of images from PIEA's 2004 International Student-Teacher Photo Competition.

The top student photographs from around the world were lauded recently in the Photo Imaging Education Association's (PIEA) 2004 International Student-Teacher Photo Exhibition and Competition.

In January, the judges for the PIEA competition chose 120 images from more than 4,200 entries sent in by 105 schools from the United States and six other countries. The chosen photos were exhibited at the...

To some people, ancient myths are dusty relics from the past. To visual artist Nicole Dextras, however, they are living, breathing entities. In part of an ongoing photo series, she reinterprets various Greek myths in her newest work, often placing them in modern settings.

Dextras has always had a fascination with ancient legends and symbols. "I chose Greek mythology because it is so rich in stories," she says of her latest work. "I like to tell stories instead of being vague and obtuse, as so much contemporary photography tends to be."Shooting in various locations around her native Vancouver, British Columbia, Dextras uses models - usually friends, artists, actors and dancers — to represent gods, goddesses and other mythical characters in consciously theatrical setups.

Seattle Times Shows Courage Under Fire

It began as a tribute to the loss of American soldiers. It ended as a bitter lesson about the precarious nature of the freedoms for which those soldiers gave their lives.

On April 18, the Seattle Times ran a photo on the cover of its Sunday edition showing soldiers inside a military transport plane preparing rows of flag-draped coffins for a flight to Germany. The photo was accompanied by a story by Times staff writer Hal Bernton describing the immense care and respect that the honor guard were displaying for each of the fallen soldiers who had been killed in Iraq.

The sparkling new Seattle Public Library, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, was introduced in May to rave reviews for its innovative use of interior space and asymmetrical forms.

Here, Seattle photographer Jason Hasenbank adds to the disorienting nature of the building with an abstract photomosaic of the library's meshlike metal and glass skin. The image was made while Hasenbank was assisting architectural photographer Fred Housel in setting up a photo shoot of the new structure.

Location: Beverly Hills, Calif.

Popular wedding destinations: Venice and the Amalfi Coast in Italy; Mexico; The Bahamas; New York City; Napa Valley, Calif.; the south of France; Miami; and Aspen, Colo.

Accolades: Buissink has received numerous International Grand Awards for his work from the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International. In February 2007, American Photo nominated him as one of the Top 10 Wedding Photographers in the World. Kodak hired Buissink to shoot its ad campaign for the Portra film line in 2003. He was also selected in 2005 to be Apple's spokesperson for the wedding industry for the release of the Aperture suite.

Website: JoeBuissink.com

Location: Encino, Calif. He turned his family room into an office/art studio.

Preferred shooting studios: Industria in New York and Smashbox in Los Angeles.Major awards: "I have won awards," he admits, "but since I don't enter the call for entries much, I'm not really sure what."
Advice for aspiring celebrity photographers: "Don't do the obvious," Ockenfels cautions. "Find your own voice. Being a portrait or ‘celebrity' photographer is about the opportunity and what you do with it."

Website: FrankOckenfels3.com