Your 10 Most Influential Photographers

[Robbie Shymanski]

as I see this thread (I'm ignorant, I know..) I don't know whether all the names dropped, are supposed to be influential to photography or to the photographer mentioning them.

More interesting to the photographer. Leave "to Photography" to critics writing books and grad students writing their theses as it is an academic thought.

[jcoldslabs]

The two most influential photographers in my life were:

1. My grandfather, who gave me my first ever camera at age eight (a Kodak X-15 126 Instamatic) and showed me how to use it both literally and by example.

2. The mother of a good friend, an established (though not much published) photographer herself, who instructed me in the use of her 4x5 and her Mamiya RB when I was all of 16 years old.

The work of famous photographers (listed in a post above) certainly influenced me as far as illuminating the possible, but the two people mentioned here had the most direct effect on setting the course of my photographic life.

Jonathan

[Eric Biggerstaff]

Not in order-
1 William Clift
2 Brett Weston
3 Paul Caponigro
4 Ansel Adams
5 Irving Penn
6 Ray McSavaney
7 Laura Gilpin
8 John Sexton
9 Edward Weston
10 Morley Baer

These have been an influence to me, maybe not to the history of the art but they represent people who I feel have been important to my understanding and development.

[Ari]

No one, really, but when I started taking photography seriously, I couldn't get enough of Avedon, and, to a lesser extent, Penn.

[David R Munson]

Also not in any particular order:

1. Minor White
2. Daido Moriyama
3. Nobuyoshi Araki
4. Toshio Shibata
5. James Fee
6. Bill Henson
7. Keith Carter
8. Gregory Crewdson
9. Phil Marco
10. Mark Laita

Those are the 10 that come to mind most directly who have clearly influenced my work, bit I actually have a lot more than 10. In fact, the following photographers are important enough to require addition to the list:

• Michael Kenna
• Eikoh Hosoe
• Shomei Tomatsu
• Yasuhiro Ishimoto
• Tim Flach
• Toshihiro "Tommy" Oshima
• Craig Cutler
• Danny Clinch
• Todd Hido
• Bert stern
• Art Kane
• Mark Seliger
• The photographers at Hedrich Blessing (esp. Nick Merrick)

Clearly the two biggest groups by which I have been influenced are post-war Japanese photographers and American commercial photographers.

Edit: I forgot Sam Abell! He definitely belongs somewhere on that top 10 list.

[Merg Ross]

Here is my short list, in no particular order and for different reasons. Seven of them I knew personally during my formative years as a photographer, perhaps unaware of their influence at the time. Looking back fifty years later, I can fully measure their influence.

Brett Weston
Edward Weston
Wynn Bullock
Ansel Adams
Imogen Cunningham
Aaron Siskind
Morley Baer
Paul Strand
Andre Kertesz
L. Moholy-Nagy

I should add, as suggested by others, that much of my photography influence in a visual sense, came from those engaged in other disciplines: most prominently, sculptors, painters and architects.

However, each photographer on my list was influential during my formative years, those being my teenage years. They are not necessarily my favorite photographers for their vision; in that case, my list today might be quite different.

Edward Weston, through his work, I was introduced to the beauty of a contact print. It was later I learned that not every photographer made such prints. Also, the range of subjects intrigued me; a toilet, a pepper, a nude, a rock, there were no limits.

Wynn Bullock, his experimental work with solarization and photograms. I spent hours making similar imagery, learning that there were no limits to creativity, and more than contact prints. Wynn Bullock would be on my present day list of favorites for his vision.

Morley Baer, who taught me that one could do "personal" work and still make a living at commercial photography without artistic sacrifice. I followed his example for many years with a career in architectural and commercial photography.

I could bore with the rest of the list, but these were my influences and I thank them, all now departed.

[mortensen]

well...
1. Bas Princen
2. Peter Bialobrzeski
3. Sze Tsung Leong
4. Andreas Gursky
5. the Becher's
6. Nadav Kander
7. Michael Wolf
8. Friederike von Rauch
9. Olaf Otto Becher
10. Axel Hütte
11. Toshio Shibata
12. Thomas Demand
13. Naoya Hatakeyama

... oops, couldn't stop

[bob carnie]

I know Ed Burtynsky is a local hero and inspiration to photographers in our region.
He is a local photographer and it has been interesting watching his career.
So on this level Ed is very much influential to me.

More interesting to the photographer. Leave "to Photography" to critics writing books and grad students writing their theses as it is an academic thought.

[Bruce Watson]

Ansel Adams
Margaret Bourke-White
Elliot Porter
Edward Weston
Imogen Cunningham
Ruth Bernhard
John Sexton
William Corey
Tyler Boley
QT Luong

Interestingly, all of these are LFers. Might explain something about me. Heh.

[Brian C. Miller]

As of Mortensen's post, here's the top group of photographers receiving three or more votes:

20 Edward Weston
15 Ansel Adams
13 Paul Strand
11 Walker Evans
9 Wynn Bullock
8 Paul Caponigro
7 Brett Weston
7 Edward Steichen
7 Irving Penn
7 Richard Avedon
6 Alfred Stieglitz
6 Minor White
5 Aaron Siskind
5 Eugene Atget
5 Josef Sudek
5 Man Ray
4 John Sexton
4 Michael Kenna
4 Morley Baer
4 Robert Adams
4 Sally Mann
4 Yousuf Karsh
3 Andre Kertesz
3 Berenice Abbott
3 Bill Brandt
3 Carleton E Watkins
3 Daido Moriyama
3 Dorothea Lange
3 Edward Curtis
3 Elliot Porter
3 Harry Callahan
3 Henri Cartier-Bresson
3 Imogen Cunningham
3 Keith Carter
3 Margaret Bourke-White
3 Salgado

There were nearly 200 different photographers in the lists.