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With Henri gone, who is the greatest living photography icon?


summitar

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It is rare these days to see someone who does editorial assignments with the degree of

integrity that you saw from HCB. Having said that, the world has changed and I would say

David Burnett comes as close as anyone, in terms of being published in mainstream

publications while maintaining a high degree of personal vision and visual integrity.

Burnett has also been on top of virtually every major world event from Vietnam onward,

and has managed to maintain a freshness of approach that must be very difficult. In that

respect, he echos HCB. Personally, I love the way Burnett is using a Speed Graphic and a

Rolleiflex on this year's political campaign to get a different kind of image than the rest of

the pack with their Canon 10Ds and their resulting cookie-cutter pictures.

 

Of course, Sebastiao Salgado also comes to mind, but he is highly focused on

commissioned NGO projects and one rarely sees his work published, except in books, so I

feel he is less analogous to HCB in that respect, but maybe closer in terms of pure visual

esthetic.

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WOW of the fourteen or fifteen real photographers mentioned in this post up until now. I have only before this thread heard mention of one. David Douglas Duncan The others I may have read their names somewhere but not in any context to register. I have been a very very active photographer for the last 28-29 years and on the net for the last 4. So I guess none of them would hit on my scale.

 

Funny I guess I don't need an icon to be able to take photographs weither they be snapshots, art, paid commisions, or just stuff.

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As one who has just purchased her book "I'll Be Your Mirror", I'm with Nan Goldin, both as photographer and as icon. Her subject matter is not as wholesome and palatable to many people, but the imagery is brilliant (and if the public can accept the gender bending of David Bowie, and Melissa Etheridge (who is on my TV tonight singing a diet with Dolly Parton, maybe the world is ready for The Ballad of Sexual Dependency).

 

Her work is snapshot based which I would say is one step removed from HCB, yet her composition sense is original and stunning, and her colours are not to be believed. Studio people who use assistants to help them with colour don't come up with the pallettes she does.

 

 

Plus she uses Leica, has done an ad for them, in fact.

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I don't believe there is a one single name. Of the names mentioned, Richard

Avedon would come the closest. His work is outstanding and he's still working

hard at it. He reached "fame" in his 20's like HCB and has had many beautiful

books and museum shows. HCB, following in the footsteps of Kertesz, broke

new ground in photo reportage, making it into an art form. Avedon did the

same with his "new" portraiture.

 

I love the work of Koudelka and Klein (and Richards) but they have not gotten

close to an icon status.

 

One last note. When I think of Avedon a virtual slide show of his images go off

in my head. I can't say the same for the others.

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William Eggleston is the greatest living photographer. His influence on photography is on par with Cartier-Bresson. It's surprising he's not been mentioned on this forum. He's even a "Leica man". Perhaps you meant who is the greatest living photography icon doing journalistic type photography in the style of HCB?

 

I just read a recent article about David Burnett where he mentions that his "hybrid" approach also includes a digital camera, a 10D I think. That was omitted from the mention of his speed graphic and Rollei, above.

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I've loved David Burnett's work for years. But "icon"? c'mon. In the vein of "photojournalism

, James Nachtwey are the current active standards to aspire to.<P>

<I>... than the rest of the pack with their Canon 10Ds and their resulting cookie-cutter

pictures.. </I><P> Burnett isn't the first photographer to take a different technical

approach from most political campaign photographers. For instance, Arthur Grace used a

twin lens Rollei back in either 1988 or 1992. There are other photographers using a

panoramic cameras. No matterthe camera, what distinguishes a photographer is his or her

"eye' which is to say their view on life. <P>

 

And as for the cookie cutter comment: the camera has nothing to do

with that. The guilty parties are mostly the photo editors and in a distant second place in

the guilt sweepstakes, (unfortunately) the

photographers who don't think, and don't care.

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<i>"Personally, I love the way Burnett is using a Speed Graphic and a Rolleiflex on this year's political campaign to get a different kind of image than the rest of the pack with their Canon 10Ds and their resulting cookie-cutter pictures." - Rolfe Tessem</i>

<p>

Using a certain kind of equipment to get a different kind of image may be briefly interesting, but has little lasting value compared to getting a different kind of image because of <i>a unique sense of vision</i>.

<p>To answer the original question, definitely James Nachtwey.

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