20 Different Portraits

Photo District News (PDN) has a <a

href=http://www.pdnonline.com/20years/20mostinfluential/uelsmann.html>

list</a> of its 20 greatest photographers online.

<br><p>

The list is interesting for a tangential reason; it is accompanied by

20 different approaches to portraiture of the worthies.

Leaving Elliott Erwitt off the list is like making plum pudding without plums.

The list is more interesting for whom it omitted than who were included. For example, it must have been made before Karsh left us. Like it or not, he set the standard in formal portraiture, and I don't think that I can pay too much attention to any list without him.

In addition to Karsh, it seems quite wrong, also, to have omitted Ansel Adams, Walker Evans and Garry Winogrand. The US Post Office Masters of American Photography stamps is another interesting list of 20 great ones, in spite of the fact that it confines itself only to US photographers.

Come on. guys. Erwitt, Karsh, Adams et al, are not considering "important" portraitists, though

they've enjoyed commercial success. The PDN list is sound.

I think some of you guys are misreading the purpose of the list.

It's not the 20 best portrait photographers. It's a list of the 20 Most

Influential Photographers, in general. A big difference. Mani was

saying the list is interesting because the portraits of the

photographers on the list are done in different styles.

Karsh being absent is really silly.I personally did NOT like his style.He was however a truly great photographer.The absense of Karsh

makes me think at least one of the judges was French,getting another oppurtunity after the Olympics!Much as i love Elliot Erwitt,he's not a portrait photographer.Avedon....well he can be an assasin!The group sort of OK.

You guys are missing the point . for starters; the twenty different

portraits done by twenty different photographers and brief

appreciations written by almost twenty different photographers

9about why these twenty are so influential are interesting of their

accord; twenty different approaches to the same basic subject:

the human character.<P>As for the choices: as I recall this piece

deliberately focused on 20 photographers who have been very

influential and very busy creating new work during the first twenty

years of Photo District News' publishing history (get it: 20 for 20);

It is a summing up of the mostinfluential photographers in photo

journalism, fashion and comercial photography from 1981-2001,

<U>not</U> a twenty all time best list. <P>The big misses it

seems to me are Walter Iooss, Jr. & Jodi Cobb. Frankly I can't

think of a single important or ground breaking portrait done by

Karsh of Ottawa after about 1964.

Ellis- Has Cartier-Bresson been "very busy" in the last 20 years? The writing on Robert Frank for all intents and purposes refers to 'The Americans' which was released over 40 years ago. There seems to be plenty of confusion about what this article is really about! I guess that should be expected though, since "best of' lists tend to be inherently silly, anyway.

It's a pretty good list I think. The picture of Helmut Newton gave me the first laugh of the day!