Your five favorite photographers

[hadji_singh]

Meyerowitz has been photographing the WTC site since 9/11,

using mostly a large format camera (sorry, don't know what

kind). The photographs are amazing. But he also had a Leica M

around his shoulder.

 

Back to the original question... my favorite photographers are

always on a rotating basis. But the five that I've been particularly

enjoying lately:

 

Luc Delahaye, Paolo Pellegrin, Gregory Crewdson, Daido

Moriyama, Larry Towell. All have released new books in the past

few years.

[Spearhead]

By the way, Daido is one of the photographers in <a href="https://www.phaidon.com/phaidon/showseriesscroll.asp?series=55s">Phaidon's excellent 55 series</a>, all priced at $7.95. What makes the series especially worthwhile is the text that accompanies each photograph.

[cd thacker]

Yes, I have several from that series as well. Don't know why someone didn't think of that sooner: photo books that people can actually afford to buy. Granted, the size is small and the litho not the best; but who cares? A chance to see and collect lots of good stuff for the price of a magazine, basically.<P>

 

My favorites are always changing, as well. Ask me again in six months, I'll give you a different list. (One book I've wanted to see but haven't yet is <B>Falkland Road</B>).

[olivier_reichenbach]

Niels, I just realized that I posted my Lartigue story for "Sally and Bill". Of course I meant "Niels

and Bill". I apologize for that little slip.

[nickperzik]

Not necessarily in this order:

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Antonin Kratochvil, Mary Ellen Mark, Robert Frank, Sebasiao Salgado.

These are the people who's work, at various times in my life, has effected not only my own work, but also the way I think about photography in general. But is it really fair to limit it to just five? If I come back to this question next week, I could end up saying Joseph Koukelka, Steve McCurry, Harry Callahan, Roy DeCarava, William Claxton, Elliot Erwitt, Paul Fusco, William Allard, Diane Arbus, Joel Meyorowitz..... and the list would just keep growing.

Dang! Now I'm all inspired. I'm gonna go shoot now.....

[photography of the daily l]

It's a very interesting question you've made here. I thought about it a long time but I have come to this 5:

<ul>

<li>1.<a href="http://www.afterimagegallery.com/ronis.htm">Willy Ronis</a>: A French master like Cartier-Bresson, Great capture of 'everyday moments'

<li>2.<a href="http://magnumphotos.com">Steve McCurry<a/>: fantasic colours, and people photographer.<BR>

<li>3.<a href="http://edvanderelsken.nl">Ed van der Elsken</a>; Dutch street photographer, famous for his black and white printing qualities.

<li>4.<a href="http://magnumphotos.com">Elliot Erwitt</a>: Not only dogs.....

<li>5.<a href="http://members.lycos.nl/fotoworks/index-15.html">Sally Mann</a>: Great family photographs....

</ul><div></div>

[iwmac]

Dave Heath. His book "A Dialogue With Solitude" was reissued last year. It had a profound effect on me when I first saw it in the mid-sixties.

 

Andre Kertesz.

 

Dorothea Lange.

 

Lewis W. Hine.

 

Robert Frank.

 

And there is no way that Walker Evans can be left out.

 

I have to also add a painter. I have not heard that he used a camera, but Edward Hopper's work is very much documentary in style. (And of course Ben Shahn, who was a social realist painter and documentary photographer for the FSA.)

 

There is no possible way to limit the list to just five favourites!!

 

How about a list of favourite styles in descending order? And then the favourites in a particular genre?

[cd thacker]

I'm learning so much from all these great selections. Five is tough, isn't it? More like, impossible. I like your ideas Ian. You first.

[iwmac]

I didn't expect such a quick response, and will have to give some

thought to a 'definitive' answer, but certainly to start, the genre that is, to me the most important and thereby my favourite is Documentary/Social Realism. In that field there are so many photographers that can be named. The ones I already noted, but also Cartier-Bresson, Smith, Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Bourke-White, Marc Riboud, Helen Levitt, Jacob Riis.

 

I'll have to give some more thought to the next few styles, but certainly at the bottom of the list fighting for last place will be wedding and flower pictures!

[cd thacker]

Unless they're documentary/social realism wedding and flower pictures . . . !

[patricks]

I do enjoy this post. I don't recognize 80% of the names of people's favorites. It means that I have a lot of great photo experiences ahead of me. HCB, Gibson, Salgado are some of the photog work I know and enjoy....

[cd thacker]

Hope you didn't take amiss, Ian, my jesting answer. Speaking seriously, it is interesting to think about the different styles one enjoys - I enjoy so many! I confess to a prejudice against over-slick, commercial medium format imagery - the kind that usually these days has a sloppy border around it. I confess to prejudice, therefore, against most of what I see in PDN (Photo District News) - all technique, faux style, and no substance or integrity. Also, the "edgy" fashion photo of the stray pubic hair, blown highlight school. Trend-pandering, in a word, is something I have a tough time with.<P>

 

What I have a much easier time with are those very wedding and flower pictures you so abhor. I, too, had a pronounced aversion to them when I first came upon this site. But what I've found since is that, regarding first, wedding shooters: there are a handful of real masters out there. Can't offhand name names, but they exist and their work is fine, in the fine sense. They transcend the genre. A lot of other wedding photographers are passionate about shooting and just want to make their living with it. To be continued.

[cd thacker]

Briefly interrupted there. Where was I? Oh, yes, flowers and weddings. <P>

 

So, anyway, my point is only that, anymore, I find that I look more at the work than at its genre. I think we all have an aversion to hacks, as well we should. But when someone has passion for their craft, it usually comes across. <P>

 

Flower pictures were never something I thought about - excdept maybe to think "yuck." But take a look at <a href= http://www.photo.net/photo/574370>this</a>, <a href=http://www.photo.net/photo/366264>this</a>, and <a href=http://www.photo.net/photo/530681>this</a> by <a href=http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=337689>Terry Palka</a>, who is perhaps better known on this site for <a href=http://www.photo.net/photo/818382>other work</a>. And of course we wouldn't want to forget <a href=http://www.masters-of-photography.com/C/cunningham/cunningham_stapelia_full.html>Imogen Cunningham</a> who, for my money, did some pretty nice stuff with some otherwise pedestrian flora.<P>

 

I have a tough time with categories. Take, for instance, the work of one of my favorites, <a href=http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_06/photoshr/17.htm>James Nachtwey</a>. He must be one of the most prolific and most consistent (consistently strong) PJs in the biz. Put his work in a gallery, however - or, better still, just call it something else, something besides "photojournalism" - and it takes on a whole new cast. <P>

 

Or take another of my faves, <a href=http://www.martinparr.com>Martin Parr</a>. I could very well be wrong about this, but isn't his work supposed to lie within the "Documentary/Social Realist" category? To me it looks like some sort of ironist sub-genre - but then, all Documentary/Social Realist work looks that way to me - like something highly subjective, in other words - the world as seen from inside a submarine (a yellow one, at that).<P>

 

I'm not sure I believe in these categories very much. I know they're useful and all that. But I think in art - photography included - people are engaged in nothing more or less than their own autobiography. And ultimately each is its own. At least, that's how I see it right now.

[cd thacker]

By the way, here are those links that were broken in my original question: <a href=http://www.masters-of-photography.com/W/winogrand/winogrand_new_mexico_full.html>Winogrand</a>; and <a href=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/photo/109pc_meyerowitz.html>Meyerowitz.

[bernhard]

Ian, Doug,<br><br>

 

I agree that wedding photography should probably somewhere on the bottom of the genre list, but a look in <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=146059">that folder</a> made me think.

[MTC Photography]

<ul>

<li> Ralph Gibson

<li> Freeman Patterson

<li> David Muench

<li> Edward Weston

<li> Long Tsin San

<li>

 

 

 

 

</ul>

[cd thacker]

Bernhard,<P>

 

Thanks for that. Some of those pictures are so beautiful, it makes me (almost) want to get married. But only if this guy can shoot it. And the divorce.

[mattias_jennerholm1]

1. William Eggleston (Leica): one of the world's five best color photogs

2. Joel Meyerowitz (Leica, large format): another one of the world's five best color photogs

3. Christer Strömholm (Leica): "le grand suédois", monumental & legendary Swedish photog, among Europe's best ever, surreal, disturbing and tender

4. HCB (Leica + 50/3,5): for obvious reasons, the man who almost by himself embodied Leica-style shooting

5. Lennart Olson (Leica): for his exquisite and almost abstract b&w photos of bridges with an existential and eternal quality

 

(6, 7 and 8: Ernst Haas, Steve McCurry & Alex Webb, the other three of the world's five best color photogs...)

[karl_georg_wolf]

Wonderful queery, Doug, here is my late answer.

 

 

Besides the big shots already mentioned, here are five great photographers who at least in large portions used LEICAs for their work:

 

Dr. Paul Wolff, LEICA-pioneer

 

Ernst Haas, swiss photographer working for Magnum, if I do noot miss things up,

 

Walther Benser, LEICA-lecturer and author of books on photography for the amateur,

 

Ed van der Elsken, had been mentioned above; saw an exhibition about his work a year ago. Really great travel photography from the 50 ies and 60 ies. Socially very concered guy.

 

Werner Bischof, swiss photographer, killed on assignment in a car accident in Peru.

 

Best regards

[chris_tennyson]

Mapplethorpe.. i notice only one other mention of him.. im curious, is that because he is not a top 5 favorite, or because people are afraid to admit they like him..

 

McCurry

Nachtway

Kertesz

Adams

[Troll]

Ernst Haas was Austrian.

[robert_clark]

Many photographers have impressed me with individual photographs that seemed to capture my attention and draw me back to them. But If I were to chose just five whose work as a whole has continued to impressed me, even after years of lecturing on them, it would look something like this:

 

Kertesz: form, lines, shadows; creative looking and seeing.

 

HCB: timing, transformation of the ordinary, powerful sence of time and place.

 

Don McCullen: (has anyone mentioned him?) Intense and driven look into the abys of suffering brought on by men.

 

Weston: photography as a celebration of the senses.

 

Dianne Arbus: for reflecting my immediate reactions and judgements back at me.

 

Of course a list of five is difficult, I could also mention William Hine, Salgado, Nan Golding, Robert Frank, Ian Berry and Walker Evans and more, and not forget the humour of Doisneau.

[larry_miller5]

Ed Weston

Ansel Adams

David Muench

James Kay

John Shaw

[brambor]

Josef Koudelka, Viktor Kolar, Josef Sudek, Martine Franck, David Alan Harvey