On the cover: “Height photographer” Peter B. Kaplan hangs just below the red light on top of the Empire State Building’s antenna, roughly 150 feet higher than the roof of the 105th floor. 

Cover photo: © Peter Kaplan

On the cover: Actor Jack Black snarls in a detail of a frenetic collage made for Giant magazine by celebrity portraitist Frank Ockenfels. The original image was torn into pieces and rearranged as a page in Ockenfels’ journal. 

Cover photo: © Frank Ockenfels

On the cover: Peter Menzel’s photo of a Palestinian doctor casually jogging past burning oil wells was one of the more arresting images to come out of the 1991 Gulf War. Ironically, the runner, Dr. Mohammad Walid Daoud, was studying the effects of breathing oil-well fire smoke. “On particularly bad days, he told me that he wears a heavier charcoal mask,” Menzel recalls. 

Cover photo: © Peter Menzel

On the cover: Ken Ross has been to some of the most remote corners of the globe, but he still manages to find intriguing images closeto home, as seen in this minimalist arrangement of sun, spray and sunbather in Phoenix, not far from his studio.

Cover photo: © Ken Ross

On the cover: This sultry image of singer Christina Aguilera, shot at Quixote Studios in Julyfor the cover of The Advocate magazine, shows why Jill Greenberg is one of the most sought-after fashion and celebrity shooters in Los Angeles.

Cover photo: © Jill Greenberg

On the cover: A Sanford’s lemur clings to a bamboo stalk in a Madagascar rain forest. Frans Lanting has dedicated his life to cataloging these and other endangered creatures, and to the preservation of their dwindling habitats.

Cover photo: © Franz Lanting

On the cover: Yes, that’s really Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, dangling from a tree to demonstrate the memory capacity of a CD, circa 1995. Not only does photographer Louie Psihoyos have the imagination to dream up such arresting imagery, he has the guts to pull it off.  

Cover photo: © Louie Psihoyos

On the cover: A wheelchair-bound woman is helped by another stranded hurricane survivor in New Orleans as they wade through toxic flood waters toward a rescue helicopter.

Cover photo: © Kathleen Flynn

On the cover: The narrow walls of a grotto in Utah’s White Canyon are both imposing and inviting to landscape photographer David Muench. “You know you’re going through a labyrinth,” he says.

Cover photo: © David Muench

On the cover: A yellow Mustang convertible on the twisting Kula Highway on Maui, Hawaii, captures the sense of adventure and excitement found in the travel photography of Colorado’s Blaine Harrington, profiled in this issue. 

Cover photo: Copyright © Blaine Harrington