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As the summer festival frenzy begins, one is not all about corn dogs and vendors, but celebrates three globetrotting photographers that have held their own in making the world better through their documentation of it.

The floodgates opened on June 12th, for the second annual Look3, Festival of the Photograph, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

But don't let the small town location (about 2-1/2 hours from Washington, D.C.) fool you. For the second year, the one-time-backyard-barbeque, officially opened to the public last year event, is peppered with thousands of national and international visitors made up of professional and amateur photographers. The energy infused into the downtown is contagious.

This year the focus is on three masters: James Nachtwey, Mary Ellen Mark and Joel-Peter Witkin.

The event is an outgrowth of "Hotshots," a show that began 20 years ago. Photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols, now an editor-at-large with National Geographic magazine, used to hold these get-togethers for his fellow photographers when he lived in California.

They would show their own photo slides while sitting on a sheet in his backyard in Berkeley. Anyone interested party could come and watch. The last time Nichols did it, he had 500 people camped out on his lawn.

Now that he is living in Charlottesville, Nichols took that idea and expanded it. Along with festival co-executive director Jessica Nagle, he presents what he refers to as "three days of peace, love and photography." Each day, the festival focuses on the work on one of the three photographers--that day he or she is interviewed on a theater stage in a huge event culminating the day.

"I am a witness and I want my testimony to be honest and uncensored," said Nachtwey, one of the three photographers the event is centered around.

"I also want it to be powerful and eloquent and do justice to the people I'm photographing."

From wars to floods, famine, AIDS and industrial pollution, Nachtwey has captured the world at its worst. Since his first foreign assignment to cover civil strife in Northern Ireland in 1981 during the IRA hunger strike, he has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and social issues.

His exploration into the art and craft of photography began after seeing images from Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement. A self-taught scholar of the craft, to further his life experiences, the Dartmouth grad spent time as a truck driver and riding on merchant marine ships. These experiences, he believed, would prove valuable and help in acquiring the skill set he needed to cover difficult subjects.

Odd jobs out of his system, Nachtwey began his career as a newspaper photographer in New Mexico before moving on to New York in 1980 and being a contract photographer for Time magazine and a member of Magnum.

Nachtwey's work, especially the wartime photography, has been exhibited internationally, and his numerous honors include the Robert Capa Gold Medal (five times), the World Press Photo Award (twice), and Magazine Photographer of the Year (seven times). Drawn toward places in the world that are suffering, such as Darfur, he is the author of many books.

The late Richard Avedon called his book Inferno "the most painful and beautiful book in the history of photography." The book is a collection of 382 war-crime photos. Nachtwey, who has taken shrapnel and had his hair literally parted by a bullet, has never lost his compassion as he captured abused Romanian orphans, Rwandan genocide victims, a rat-hunter family of Indian Untouchables barbecuing dinner or the skeletal dehydration victims in Sudan for the book. In 2007, Nachtwey was one of three winners of the TED Prize, an award "dedicated to ideas worth spreading."

Another of the three photographers, Mark, has most recently been published in the Washington Post. She and her assistants set up a makeshift photo studio in April at Charlottesville High School, the town where the festival is located. Mark is working on a three-year "snapshot-like" project called Prom. Charlottesville High was the seventh of 12 schools she is photographing.

"Prom is a slice of Americana for me," Mark said in the Post. "You learn about a culture and how different racial groups bring their own style to prom."

From prom kids to celebrities, Mark began photographing with a Brownie camera at age nine. From the moment she picked up an old Retina camera for her first school assignment, she knew what she would be doing for the rest of her life.

"I think each photographer has a point of view and a way of looking at the world... that has to do with your subject matter and how you choose to present it, she said. "What's interesting is letting people tell you about themselves in the picture."

Mark's images of our world's diverse cultures are landmarks in the field of documentary photography, exhibited worldwide and published in over 16 books. As with the academy award nominated film Streetwise, Mark has collaborated on her most recent book & exhibition project with her husband Martin Bell. Extraordinary Child features children at two specialized schools for the disabled in Reykjavik, and Bell's film Alexander: Extraordinary Child, will be screened at this year's Festival.

Perhaps the most non-traditional of the three visiting artists is Witkin, who began making photographs at age 16. Documenting accidents and suicides in the Army in the early 1960s would later shape his dark, surreal style. According to Nichols, his work centers on "beautiful" yet disturbing still-lifes of "freaks, body parts, things from the morgue."

"History shows that only the artists who worked outside the parameters of established art, have, and will always make contributions to history," said Witkin.

While pursuing graduate work at the University of New Mexico he refined his work in relationship to the history of painting and sculpture. With his unique vision, Witkin said he stages photographs that "confront our sense of normalcy and decency, while constantly examining the teachings handed down through Christianity."

The 3-day program of exhibitions, outdoor projections, workshops, interviews with the world-famous photographers and special events transforms the downtown into a "living image." This year's festival will run through June 14, 2008.

On each evening of the festival, National Public Radio's Alex Chadwick will host in-depth conversations and big screen projections with the three featured photographers in the historic Paramount Theater.

"I feel lucky and proud to be a photographer after witnessing the brilliant presentations from my heroes as well as the rising stars in our profession… This is the 'Sundance' of photography," said Jeff James, manager of Photography at Rosetta Stone.

Photography's 'Sundance' Festival or not, the event has touched on a nerve. "We've had so much positive feedback [last year] about how refreshing it is to slow down for three days and celebrate the medium we love and the talented people whose creativity inspires us," said organizer Nichols.

"Last year's inaugural LOOK3 Festival was a dream come true. I saw my photographic heroes on stage telling us the story of their lives. Add in the epic projections, the gallery shows, the presentations, the parties, and people coming from around the world, it was incredible," he added.

Last year's featured photographers were: Eugene Richards, William Albert Allard and Sally Mann.