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...

One survivor described the wall of water as "a big black cobra" coming toward him from behind. From about a kilometer away, the man said, it looked higher than the minarets at a nearby mosque in Banda Aceh.

After being knocked off his bicycle by the 9.3-magnitude earthquake on the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, the man instinctively started running with his two young kids. He hadn't even imagined that a deadly wave was coming, but he had happened to run away from the coast. The unconscious decision ended up saving their lives; after sprinting inland for about five kilometers, grabbing his childrens' arms the whole way, the water rushed past...

Water is the source of our being and the thread that ties all life together. What better medium, then, with which to illustrate a new life as it is beginning? For Puget Sound-area photographer Pete Saloutos, images of pregnancy and water were a natural fit.

"I had done a series of pregnant nudes, and I thought this might be an interesting thing to do," Saloutos says of his untitled underwater creation (top, right). A talent agency found a model who was heavily pregnant and willing to pose. "The other one was a friend she invited along for the shoot," he says.

Shot last summer, using natural outdoor light and some silver cards, the pregnant nude study was, for Saloutos, a relatively simple underwater...

To Seattle photographer Nichole DeMent, the figures she depicts in her fine-art portraits are influenced as much by their environment as they are by their own personalities. These selections from two of her recent photo projects show DeMent's affinity for juxtapositions and her belief in the inner duality of the human subconscious.

Her 2003 series, "to anima, to animus," is based on the Jungian psychological theory that all people share masculine (animus) and feminine (anima) characteristics, regardless of their genders. By photographing androgynous models in contrasting red and white...

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...

Judy Horn uses digital technology to blur the line between photograph and painting.

Some have called it "photo painting." Others have suggested "painting with photographs" or even "artography." For Tacoma, Wash., photographer Judy Horn, it's a good living.

For two decades, Horn has been making digital magic with her photos, turning them into virtual paintings with the help of computer editing and graphics programs. Along with these stylized landscapes, she has developed a healthy business creating customized portraits and restoring old and damaged photos with digital tools.

With a background in oil and watercolor painting, Horn says she finds the transition from photograph...

Home: Los Angeles and Mendocino, Calif.

Fine-Art representation: Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A.

Favorite subjects: Bette Midler, Djimon Hounsou, Bette Davis, Leonardo DiCaprio and actor/model Tony Ward. "I like working with those who are willing to experiment; those who will take chances and be creative, regardless of other people's expectations."

Advice to new photographers: "A lot of kids today are not clear on the importance of establishing an identity," he says. "They keep varying their imagery and style according to the flavor of the month. Develop and showcase your own style, and get an assignment that reflects where you want to go. Don't be afraid to be original."

Website: gormanphotography.com

An uncluttered style and a willingness to work closely with his famous subjects has made Greg Gorman one of the most in-demand celebrity portraitist in the business.

The actor leans against a cement wall. He tosses back his shoulder-length hair and lets out a yell. He crouches on the ground and glares. Next, he is doing a handstand. With every movement, a camera shutter clicks.

It's 1994, and a relative newcomer on the Hollywood scene named Antonio Banderas is cavorting shirtless around a Los Angeles rooftop for celebrity photographer Greg Gorman. A few hours earlier, they were downstairs in Gorman's studio, shooting some poster stills for one of Banderas' upcoming movies. But neither of them was satisfied....

Florian Shulz's journey to save North America's wilderness.

More than anything else, wildlife needs room — room to roam, to forage, to follow the flow of the seasons. The same can be said of Florian Schulz, a German-born nature photographer who has spent nearly half his life wandering the wilderness of North America, trying to preserve the fragile paradise around him, one photo at a time.

His cause can be summed up neatly in three characters, Y2Y, an acronym that stands for Yellowstone to Yukon, the vast, 2,000-mile long "ecoregion" stretching from the Alaska/Canada border, down the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming. Inside this region are some of the last remaining areas of pristine wilderness on the continent, mostly isolated in little islands of biodiversity amid growing suburban sprawl...

Chris Jordan's industrial ode to American consumerism.

Thousands of people pass by them every day in most major cities – auto junkyards, mountains of shipping containers, the rusted piles of relics at the end of their life cycles. Few people even notice their existence. Seattle-based photographer Chris Jordan wants to change that.

These images from the half-forgotten industrial graveyards of south Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., are the beginnings of an ongoing photographic series by Jordan in which he attempts to illustrate the unintended effects of a runaway consumerist society. Rather than bludgeoning the viewer with bleak and ugly vistas of chaotic debris, Jordan finds bright colors and bold geometric patterns within the detritus, revealing a hidden and sinister beauty behind the blight...