Your favorite photographers and genres?

[Laminarman]

For me Ansel, because I saw and handled so many of his original prints, was always an influence. But I love Joel Myerowitz and Micheal Kenna and Dorothea Lange. But lately Selgado is interesting, kind of just discovered him. What I never realized about Kenna is he prints only 7 1/2" prints, that's it. You think Joel is simply a street photographer until you see his 9/11 work or Cape Cod work. I'm looking for the next undiscovered BW landscape photographer however. What I have NEVER gotten is the conceptual stuff, I must be totally clueless or an imbecile. Like below, Julian Oh "The Hunt for Blue September #1" Gotta think on this one. I don't like to think that much I guess.


187161

[AJ Edmondson]

Agree with you on AA... other favorites are Walker Evans work with the FSA and John Sexton. I have to admit that maybe I am a "shallow thinker" too 'cause "The Hunt for Blue September #1" totally eludes me!
Joel

[neil poulsen]

I like fine art, architecture, and landscape photography. I like many photographers. But, two that really stand out are A. A. and Ezra Stoller.

[Two23]

I would say my favorite is Brassai, and also O. Wintson Link. Both were pioneers. I love night photography and they inspire me!


Kent in SD

[jnantz]

Man ray, Atget and the Starn Twins because i really enjoy their images.

[Laminarman]

Thank you, I really like Stoller, never heard of him and Link's images are cool. I also always liked Elliot Erwit and Lee Friedlander (esp Friedlander). I've tried some street photography, it didn't go so well.

[Hal Incandenza]

Just to name a few...from contemporary LF photographers I like pretty much anyone from the Dusseldorf School; Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer and Axel Hutte. Similarly, there’s Toshio Shibata, Edward Burtynksy, and George Tice, and in a more meditative vein, Hiroshi Sugimoto. Also a big fan of Joel Sternfeld, Joel Meyerowitz, Frank Gholke, Richard Misrach, Steven Shore and Bill Owens. From photographers who blur the divisions between photography and other artistic realms, I like Thomas Demand, Greg Crewdson, John Divola, and Susan Fenton. And of course many many others from earlier eras, and smaller formats.

[Robert Bowring]

Mary Ellen Mark does it for me. Also Friedlander, Winogrand, Arbus, Robert Frank and Disfarmer just to name a few.

[Laminarman]

Wow Hal, that's a lot of photographers! I forgot about George Tice. I love his work.

[Tin Can]

William Mortensen and Sally Mann

Both weirdos that do things a bit different

Educators that share their love of photography outside mainstream banality

[Laminarman]

William Mortensen and Sally Mann

Both weirdos that do things a bit different

I'll say

[Laminarman]

Sometimes, I just don't get it. If I were to put this photo up at a critique, or even post it here, I would probably be drawn, quartered, tarred and feathered. Drew Wiley would have a freaking field day. But I guess because Sugimoto is famous somehow this means something or is even good? Looks like an out of focus photo he forgot to throw away. I hate when I think too much, which is probably why I just like more traditional stuff like landscapes?

187173

[Tin Can]

Blocked!


I'll say

[Laminarman]

Blocked!

Hahaha! Thanks for the morning laugh : )

[jnantz]

Sometimes, I just don't get it. If I were to put this photo up at a critique, or even post it here, I would probably be drawn, quartered, tarred and feathered. Drew Wiley would have a freaking field day. But I guess because Sugimoto is famous somehow this means something or is even good? Looks like an out of focus photo he forgot to throw away. I hate when I think too much, which is probably why I just like more traditional stuff like landscapes?

187173


Laminarman:
Doesn't look like a throw away to me. It's the perfect combination of form, light and fantasy, like a dream while you are awake.
Thanks for posting this !
John

[bob carnie]

I'll say

Why do you call Sally Mann a weirdo??

[bloodhoundbob]

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Dean Collins, arguably the greatest commercial photographer in history, who left us way too soon. IMO he was also arguably the greatest photo educator. Anyone who had the good fortune to attend his seminars and was able to speak one on one with him will not forget him. Randy, I will make a note to myself to get his lighting series DVDs to you.

[pepeguitarra]

My most admired photographers are Ansel Adams (landscape, conservationists, and innovator), Edward Weston (artist innovator), (Pedro Guerrero (architectural work), Dorothea Lange (her work during the depression), Sebastiaō Salgado (documentary work), and currently Justin Lowery (landscape photographer).

[scheinfluger_77]

Sometimes, I just don't get it. If I were to put this photo up at a critique, or even post it here, I would probably be drawn, quartered, tarred and feathered. Drew Wiley would have a freaking field day. But I guess because Sugimoto is famous somehow this means something or is even good? Looks like an out of focus photo he forgot to throw away. I hate when I think too much, which is probably why I just like more traditional stuff like landscapes?

187173

I have to agree with you. This concept is quite similar to Warhol’s 200 Campbells soup cans. It leaves me flat.

As for my preferences landscape/old things/architecture are probably it. Adams because he broke very new ground, William H. Jackson because he had a long, long life documenting the expanding American West in the 19th. Century. And I think Sally Mann. I’m a little uncomfortable with her intimate subject matter, but you can’t fault her for originality. Maybe Steichen (sp?) because he had a seminal effect on photography as art.

As for the other names mentioned and all the ones I studied in school, i think time and serendipity have as much to do with their acclaim as talent.

Frankly no one posting on this forum needs to play second fiddle to any of the ‘names’ who’ve come before.

[Laminarman]

Why do you call Sally Mann a weirdo??

Well, let's just say that her style is not my thing although there are a few images that are quite beautiful. Randy called her a weirdo, I was merely agreeing : ) I really don't care what someone does in the name of artistic expression but I guess I just don't get it. As far as the out of focus image by Sugimoto, I'm just saying there are other things I'd rather see in a fantastical dreamy blurred way and she wouldn't look like a building. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I once did very well in an art appreciation class when I interpreted four museum works with total and utter bullshit talk and nothing I saw was in line with what I wrote. One piece was a room full of burnt toast hanging on fish line from the ceiling that you had to walk through without touching. Some were buttered, some were high, some low, some with cinnamon, some white bread, some wheat bread, some whole grain stuff. BURNT TOAST. Lightly, darkly or even severely burned. This guy really laid it all on the table. About 500 pieces of toast. I interpreted it as mans struggle with mankind who all may be different and the path we followed through the toast maze was "big brother" making us conform. I got an A++++++ I saw burnt toast, that was all. Writing "I see burnt toast" gives me an F. Call me a self preservationist. I see a blurred building although I admit it's more than just blurred as I study it. It has something else going on. With Sally Mann I see some good stuff, but mostly just naked kids and husband. I am proving myself to be the least art educated person on this forum, right? Not really, I think we enjoy what we enjoy for ourselves and if some photographer out there touches us, it's as much us as them. For example, I don't usually like still life photography, but Igor's work with Polaroids has changed that literally over night. Gorgeous. That's what it's all about, maybe my eyes will open to other photographers as I become familiar. And I've read all the books "Why Photographs Work" and "The Photographers Eye," "Ways of Seeing" and a million others both on photography and art. But I operate on a guttural level- I like it or don't. Kind of like broccoli.

[Hugo Zhang]

Julia M. Cameron
Eugene Atget
Edward Weston
Paul Strand
Ansel Adams

[Peter Lewin]

I gravitate to photographers who use large format. Three favorites who come immediately to mind are William Clift, Sally Mann (especially her earlier people-oriented work), and Jock Sturges. Sturges is probably the most controversial, I am not partial to his subject matter (young nude women) but wish I could have his fluency with large cameras. Since I saw some debate about Sally earlier in this thread, not only do I enjoy much of her work, but I took a workshop with her maybe 35 years ago, and found her to be a remarkable person.

[pepeguitarra]

I gravitate to photographers who use large format. Three favorites who come immediately to mind are William Clift, Sally Mann (especially her earlier people-oriented work), and Jock Sturges. Sturges is probably the most controversial, I am not partial to his subject matter (young nude women) but wish I could have his fluency with large cameras. Since I saw some debate about Sally earlier in this thread, not only do I enjoy much of her work, but I took a workshop with her maybe 35 years ago, and found her to be a remarkable person.

I like William Clift, but the other two are kind of focussed on child nudity?

[Peter Lewin]

Sturges took most of his bests known work on nude beaches in Europe, primarily teens and twenties. He married one of the subjects, and was known for getting new releases from the people in the photos not only at the time of taking, but every time he had a show containing their images. While it isn’t a genre I’m attracted to, I find the naturalness of his work amazing, looking more like 35mm than 8x10 (that’s what I meant by “fluidity.”) Sally Mann made pictures of her own family on their Virginia farm; her children played a lot naked, so that’s what is in the pictures. One of her favorite words is “quotidian” meaning “every day” and she photographed them doing everyday things. Her pictures of other young people (see her book “At 12”) has them clothed. And for the last few decades she has concentrated on landscapes of the Civil War South as well as the impact of racism on Southern culture.

[Laminarman]

Sturges took most of his bests known work on nude beaches in Europe, primarily teens and twenties. He married one of the subjects, and was known for getting new releases from the people in the photos not only at the time of taking, but every time he had a show containing their images. While it isn’t a genre I’m attracted to, I find the naturalness of his work amazing, looking more like 35mm than 8x10 (that’s what I meant by “fluidity.”) Sally Mann made pictures of her own family on their Virginia farm; her children played a lot naked, so that’s what is in the pictures. One of her favorite words is “quotidian” meaning “every day” and she photographed them doing everyday things. Her pictures of other young people (see her book “At 12”) has them clothed. And for the last few decades she has concentrated on landscapes of the Civil War South as well as the impact of racism on Southern culture.

She makes beautiful images. I'd like to see the southern landscapes.

[JMB]

Man Ray
Edward Weston
Ansel Adams
Paul Strand

And a soft spot for Margrethe Mather

[Dugan]

Oliver Gagliani, Arthur Tress, Paul Strand, Margaret Bourke-White, Charles Sheeler, Michael Kenna, Mark Klett, Frantisek Drtikol, Karl Struss, Jerry Uelsmann, Minor White, Wm. Mortensen, Robert Demachy....
Just to name a few off the top of my head

[invisibleflash]

A few of my favorite photographers…

Lisette Model, Robert Frank, Mary Ellen Mark, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michel Chelbin, Les Krims, Maggie Steber, Don McCullin, Salgado, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Gail Halaban, Cristina Garcia Rodero, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bruce Davidson, Robert Doisineau, Jane Evelyn Atwood, W. Eugene Smith, Martin Munkasci, Larry Fink, O. Rufus Lovett, Weegee, Robert Capa, Judy Dater, Ray Metzger, Erich Salomon, Harry K. Shigeta, Emmet Gowin, Jill Freeman, James Nanchez, Helen Levitte, Shelby Lee Adams, Brassai, O.Winston Link, Graciela Iturbide and William Mortenson.

[DarioLT]

But I operate on a guttural level- I like it or don't. Kind of like broccoli.

I like the idea that you operate like brocolli.

[pozzello]

Pretty good list with many of the classics. One of my favorites is the lesser known finnish photographer Pentti Sammallathi- his panoramic landscapes with stray dogs are particularly beautiful - definitely worth a look :

187426

187427

187428

[seabee1999]

I would have to say that my favorite photographers tend to stay within the landscape/nature genre. I enjoy seeing the images made by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Brett Weston, Willard Van Dyke, Galen Rowel, John Sexton and Michael Kenna. A few others like Penn, Mann and Burtynksy I have begun to appreciate more as time moves on.

R/
Dave

[Alan Klein]

I find it's the individual piece that I like rather than the person who snapped it. So it's also not limited to genre. If a picture works, it works. Kind of like music. If you like the tune, it doesn't matter who's singing or playing it or whether it's rock, country, jazz, or classical.

[Bob Sawin]

I like A. Aubrey Bodine and Fan Ho. While not often mentioned they did amazing work.

[Helcio J Tagliolatto]

Josef Sudek
Carl Weese
Clyde Butcher
Édouard Boubat

[Louie Powell]

Michael Kenna, Tillman Crane, William Abranowicz, Ernestine Rubin, Jock Sturges, Timothy Greenfield Sanders, Ferit Kuyas, Roman Loranc, David Vestal, et al

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Herbert List, he made in the 1930ies surrealism, influenced and teached by Andreas Feininger, then in the 1950ies some stories in the Swiss magazine "Du", about people in Caribia and Naples. He is clearly one of the best. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Herbert+List+&t=canonical&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images Especially: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/image/PAR302473.html this is not only fine art as a fine print but real art as an artwork.

Pierre Verger, went to Brazil, made a book about people in Bahia: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Pierre+Verger&t=canonical&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

[Ray Van Nes]

I am surprised that almost no one mentioned Brett Weston. He was a singular voice and I enjoy his work very much. I tend to agree that much conceptual stuff is the "Emperor has no clothes!". The art world is much about fashion or as Bruce Barnbaum called it, "The Detroit School of Photography". Novelty trumps vision and craft in our current art world.

[bob carnie]

I am surprised that almost no one mentioned Brett Weston. He was a singular voice and I enjoy his work very much. I tend to agree that much conceptual stuff is the "Emperor has no clothes!". The art world is much about fashion or as Bruce Barnbaum called it, "The Detroit School of Photography". Novelty trumps vision and craft in our current art world.

I love Brett Weston's work , but the three I listed just barely edge him out.

[sanking]

I love Brett Weston's work , but the three I listed just barely edge him out.

Bob,

I can not find your previous listing?

Are you blocking your messages?

Sandy

[Hugo Zhang]

I forgot to mention August Sander. One of my favorite.

[Merg Ross]

Bob,

I can not find your previous listing?

Are you blocking your messages?

Sandy

Hi Sandy,

I recall Bob's answer was "three prints by Brassai."

[Merg Ross]

I am surprised that almost no one mentioned Brett Weston. He was a singular voice and I enjoy his work very much. Novelty trumps vision and craft in our current art world.

Ray,

I echo your choice. Brett was special in person and vision.

Best,
Merg

[bob carnie]

Bob,

I can not find your previous listing?

Are you blocking your messages?

Sandy

Thats funny I had to look back to see where the post was and I cannot find it myself.. August Sander, Brassai, Avedon or Eugene Smith

[bob carnie]

Hi Sandy,

I recall Bob's answer was "three prints by Brassai."

Thanks Merg , Yes I love his work , I wonder where this post went.


Drew did you hi jack my post?

[Merg Ross]

Bob, I was recalling this thread.

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?150431-What-Artist-if-Only-One-Could-be-on-Your-Walls&highlight=randy+moe

[bob carnie]

Bob, I was recalling this thread.

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?150431-What-Artist-if-Only-One-Could-be-on-Your-Walls&highlight=randy+moe

Thanks Merg

both similar types of threads.
Sandy how dare you think I would block you after all these years...

[sanking]

Thanks Merg

both similar types of threads.
Sandy how dare you think I would block you after all these years...

Bob,

No problem, and the issue would be moot if your memory and mine were as good as that of Merg!

Sandy

[Jody_S]

I gravitate to photogs I admired as a youth and am incapable of emulating. Growing up in the 70s in a french town, with the magazine 'Photo' (Paris), in no particular order: Brassai, Helmut Newton, and Mapplethorpe. Later in life, Sally Mann, Karsh, Nan Goldin.

[bob carnie]

I gravitate to photogs I admired as a youth and am incapable of emulating. Growing up in the 70s in a french town, with the magazine 'Photo' (Paris), in no particular order: Brassai, Helmut Newton, and Mapplethorpe. Later in life, Sally Mann, Karsh, Nan Goldin.

I have a renewed interest in Nan Goldin and her recent protests.

[Jody_S]

I have a renewed interest in Nan Goldin and her recent protests.

I had no idea she was doing this. She lost me with her mission statement (https://www.sacklerpain.org/mission-statement):


We demand that they reeducate doctors to stop over-prescribing these medications except for patients who are in extreme pain

As someone who has lived with pain every waking hour for the last 25 years, her approach isn't helpful. 'Training' doctors to not prescribe opioids because some people abuse them leads to chronic under-treatment of pain, which in turn leads desperate people living with pain to buy off the black market, which leads to people dying of Fentanyl overdoses from using counterfeit opioids of varying degrees of purity. Opioids are both a first- and last- line defense against pain, they are far less harmful to your body over the long term than what they want docs to prescribe instead, NSAIDs. Which also kill hundreds of thousands, in fact my father-in-law very nearly died from kidney failure a couple years ago from one, and I nearly died of a bleeding ucler 20 years ago, again from an NSAID. I now have to take a whole cocktail of drugs to deal with the side-effects of long-term NSAID use. I have bone damage from rather short-term corticosteroid use. But no damage whatsoever from long-term opioid use, nor have I ever had an 'overdose' from being prescribed opioids to manage chronic pain.

The fact that a few people are susceptible to addiction from using them (roughly 10%) and that a fraction of those 10% do become 'addicts' in the classic sense (using them to 'get high') is not grounds to deny people in pain the safest and most effective treatment option for their pain. We don't ban alcohol which has similar addictive properties and arguably no health benefits, despite it killing far more people than opioids. In a trivial sense, any drug that successfully treats a patient's pain will be addictive, in that a person will experience negative physical and emotional effects when the drug is taken from them. That doesn't mean that the majority of people dying from opioids are addicts, because they aren't. The typical Fentanyl overdose victim is a 45-50 year old male construction worker. Someone whose body is being destroyed by his job, can't afford to quit, and can't get adequate treatment through the medical profession. The same people who buy black market Oxycodone.


There are timed-release formulations that are much less susceptible to abuse, and Purdue Pharma's sin was in marketing a highly-addictive drug claiming it wasn't addictive, displacing those other opioids which actually are (nearly) non-addictive. Any 'solution' to the so-called 'opioid crisis' that doesn't put the patients' needs first isn't a solution at all.


Edit: I don't view this as a political subject, as it transcends political parties and national boundaries. It's a human subject. Nor do I judge an artist's art based on their activism in their personal life; the fact that I disagree with Goldin on this subject does not cause me to view her photographs any differently. I simply wish she would speak with chronic pain patients before crusading to remove their meds from the market. The desire to 'do something' about a problem that is killing thousands every year is very human and laudable, unfortunately doing something just for the sake of doing something is rarely helpful.

[Tin Can]

uh oh!

Here goes.

I visited this 2016 ARTIC photo exhibit (http://www.thecompmagazine.com/alexandr-zhitomirsky-capitalist-fascist-critic/) 3 times with friends and family. I copied a lot of it with cell phone. (allowed)

Then I took to see this right upstairs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sunday_Afternoon_on_the_Island_of_La_Grande_Jatte)

of course it's all not art...


I have a renewed interest in Nan Goldin and her recent protests.

[Tin Can]

I agree that opioids are OK for 85% and not for 15%.

I also have 'needed' them and did not become addicted. I want to be able to get them when I need them again and i will.

I also want what Aldous Huxley took on his deathbed. When I need it, but I prefer Valhalla the traditional way. Not always possible. Moe is a town in Norway, where my lineage hails.

Not now of course, but I did take both the red pill and the blue pill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill) at different times

Lot of secret saints my age who deny a lot of things...


I had no idea she was doing this. She lost me with her mission statement (https://www.sacklerpain.org/mission-statement):



As someone who has lived with pain every waking hour for the last 25 years, her approach isn't helpful. 'Training' doctors to not prescribe opioids because some people abuse them leads to chronic under-treatment of pain, which in turn leads desperate people living with pain to buy off the black market, which leads to people dying of Fentanyl overdoses from using counterfeit opioids of varying degrees of purity. Opioids are both a first- and last- line defense against pain, they are far less harmful to your body over the long term than what they want docs to prescribe instead, NSAIDs. Which also kill hundreds of thousands, in fact my father-in-law very nearly died from kidney failure a couple years ago from one, and I nearly died of a bleeding ucler 20 years ago, again from an NSAID. I now have to take a whole cocktail of drugs to deal with the side-effects of long-term NSAID use. I have bone damage from rather short-term corticosteroid use. But no damage whatsoever from long-term opioid use, nor have I ever had an 'overdose' from being prescribed opioids to manage chronic pain.

The fact that a few people are susceptible to addiction from using them (roughly 10%) and that a fraction of those 10% do become 'addicts' in the classic sense (using them to 'get high') is not grounds to deny people in pain the safest and most effective treatment option for their pain. We don't ban alcohol which has similar addictive properties and arguably no health benefits, despite it killing far more people than opioids. In a trivial sense, any drug that successfully treats a patient's pain will be addictive, in that a person will experience negative physical and emotional effects when the drug is taken from them. That doesn't mean that the majority of people dying from opioids are addicts, because they aren't. The typical Fentanyl overdose victim is a 45-50 year old male construction worker. Someone whose body is being destroyed by his job, can't afford to quit, and can't get adequate treatment through the medical profession. The same people who buy black market Oxycodone.


There are timed-release formulations that are much less susceptible to abuse, and Purdue Pharma's sin was in marketing a highly-addictive drug claiming it wasn't addictive, displacing those other opioids which actually are (nearly) non-addictive. Any 'solution' to the so-called 'opioid crisis' that doesn't put the patients' needs first isn't a solution at all.

[Jody_S]

Not now of course, but I did take both the red pill and the blue pill at different times

Lot of secret saints my age who deny a lot of things...

I have ho quarrel with people who want to get high, for whatever reason. They say before you judge a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes. Then, when you judge him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes.

[Tin Can]

Good to know!

I was referring to a distant past and reality.


I have ho quarrel with people who want to get high, for whatever reason. They say before you judge a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes. Then, when you judge him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes.

[prado333]

Richard Misrach and his Desert Cantos series.

[Ben Calwell]

George Tice, Ansel, Evelyn Hofer

[Old_Dick]

Ansel, E. Weston, D. Lang, Imogen Cunningham, Doremus Scudder.

[Vaughn]

Britt, Jackson, Watkins, and the usual suspects of the period.
Contemporary photographers/genres -- too many to have a favorite. Any that I might name would just be the ones I have been exposed to, have met, worked with, or have worshipped from afar. After this many years, the list is too long to list...and not long enough to say I know enough to have favorites.

[Per Madsen]

I forgot to mention August Sander. One of my favorite.

Agreed !!

[DDrake]

Photographers I'm currently looking at (not all LF):
Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Mark Ruwedel, Jeff Brouws, Stephen Shore. Plus Lee Friedlander and William Eggleston. Also interested in artists who take pictures, but aren't exclusively photographers, e.g., Ed Ruscha and Roni Horn.

[germansaram]

I recently discovered Jon Paul's photography for myself.

[Julian Flynn]

My first photographic loves were Eugene Atget, Sally Mann and Mary Ellen Mark.

I soon fell in love with Cartier-Bresson, Kertesz, Friedlander, Frank, Walker Evans, Bill Brandt, Josef Sudek. I've soft-spots for Witkin, the Bernd and Hilla Becher, Winogrand, Julia Margaret Cameron, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, August Sander, Harry Callahan, Stephen Shore, William Klein...

I could go on and on. My real photographic love has always been looking at photographs - whilst producing photographs is fun and rewarding I get a more profound reward from looking at photographs - I like slightly arid, boring, photographs, that slowly reveal themselves. Atget does this - most of his photos are quite dull at first sight, but if you stay with them, if you take them seriously, all of a sudden they can blossom into a miraculous but subtle beauty.

I guess my tastes are 'formalist' - and, yes, I tend to go for black and white work - not that I dislike colour, but I think colour can very easily submerge the compositional element of photography, colour being such a dominant and visceral thing, it - compositions have to be bolder to make themselves felt. I think Stephen Shore is an exception to this.

[Paul Coy]

Arthur Fellig