Home: Sebastopol, Calif.

Photographic equipment: A 6-megapixel Kodak 760 — based on a 35mm Nikon body — that replaced his Kodak 560. "I just purchased a Kodak 645 Pro Back and Mamiya 645 system that is taking the place of my medium format film cameras," Bybee says. "I have a drum scanner — and have had for a long time — for film. Most of my files are on film, but in the last couple of years I've switched over to do as much as I can digitally. I'm trying to go 100 percent digital capture now."

Advice for aspiring studio shooters: "Follow your passion and instincts," he says. "Work harder than your competition if you have to. Be a constant observer of light. Your ability to see and record light will ultimately set you apart and define your style."

Website: bybee.com

Gerald Bybee continues to shake up the studio world with his beautiful and eerie images.

Like photo-cubism, the genre he invented, Gerald Bybee has many facets. He's not totally visible from any one side. A glimpse of his self-portrait below reveals one aspect, but then the image shifts. He seems not totally in one space, not completely in another.Or maybe he is, and it's your own perspective that's skewed.

Consider some facts about Bybee: He has a client list to die for. Ad agencies and magazines count on him for images that are odd, yet realistic, and sometimes shocking. He's a burgeoning artist. He's the kind of guy who works all night to meet a deadline, meticulously piecing together images. He's a family man who appreciates...

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...

Each year, PhotoMedia recognizes a person in the photography industry who has best demonstrated exceptional artistic and business accomplishments, photographic passion, devotion to the industry, inspiration to colleagues and humanitarian achievements in the community.

By devoting most of his career to warning the public about the consequences of global warming, Oregon-based wildlife and nature photographer Gary Braasch is trying not to change the world, but to help save it from changing too much.

By devoting most of his career to warning the public about the consequences of global warming, Oregon-based wildlife and nature photographer Gary Braasch is trying not to change the world, but to help save it from changing too much.

One miserably cold day in late March, the evening news carried a chilling science story. In Antarctica — where apparently it wasn't quite cold enough — a 1,200-square-mile chunk of the Larsen ice shelf had shattered into 720 billion tons of crushed ice. The formerly Rhode-Island-sized ice shelf, which had taken only a month to break apart and fall into the ocean, had been frozen to Antarctica's jutting Palmer Peninsula for 12,000 years. An average temperature rise of...