The four greatest photographers?

[Bob Carnie]

Ok so now I feel guilty

add 4 more

Lewis Hine
Steichan
Joseph Sudek
Curtis

 

[Les McLean]

Edward Weston
Paul Caponigro
Wynn Bullock
Don McCullin

 

[catem]

As I was so awkward not giving any I'll now just give one who hasn't been mentioned - understand it could also be others -

Fay Godwin

(might come up with some more later )

 

[anyte]

None. I guess that's why I don't call myself a photographer.

 

[CraigK]

Cameron
Cameron
Cameron
August Sander

 

[Wigwam Jones]

None. I guess that's why I don't call myself a photographer.

Me neither. I'm a meat popsicle.

 

[VoidoidRamone]

Ehhhh...

Joel Sternfeld
Gregory Crewdson
Stephen Shore
Bernd & Hilla Becher

-Grant

 

[medform-norm]

Too bad the query is not only limited to four but also to aesthetical photography. Otherwise I might have mentioned photographers in the scientific field, like the inventor of X-Ray photography, or vote for the Mars Explorer that took the first pics of the red planet, microscopic stereophotographs that allow students to identify (malignent or benign) bacteria and virusses or even endoscopy, however unsavory it may sound.
But then, some people find great beauty in mathematical equations, so why not, let's count this in as well....!

 

[Pearl]

well - him and Roger Fenton...

and William Henry Jackson

 

[Rob Skeoch]

Adams
Salgado
Penn
Karsh

-Rob Skeoch

 

[Sportera]

My 4

Daguerre/Niepce (needed each other)
Weston
Adams
Steiglitz

 

[df cardwell]

This is interesting, but I wonder what would present 4 of the many great photographers. I think that would need to be 4 that established a new direction for photography, that made the work of other great shooters possible. I've had a chance to re-think this, and will change one vote. Sort of.

Of the early workers, I think Fenton, Brady, Marville, et al., deserve equal mention: they used the camera as a new tool that exploited it's difference from drawing and painting. The tendency was explore one's world, and Cameron was doing this as was Fenton, et al. Just a different world. Photographers like Fay Godwin carried on this tradition.


At the end of the 19th C, as the choking effects of the Salons were suffocating good photography, PH Emerson ignored the Respectable and Setimental hacks like Robinson and set photography back on the tracks. Stieglitz followed this course, as did Strand: Emerson was the one that broke the ground. His work, I think, was fulfilled by Adams, the final blossom of American Neo Romanticism.

Weston, the Modernist: Photography's Picasso. Sheeler can't be discounted, nor Strand, but it's Weston on whom they all rest: Gibson, Erwitt, Avedon. Even Minor White and Eggelston follow in this vein Eggleston: probably the only photographer -still- who made color pictures that needed color and simply weren't B&W pictures on color film ). Sander, yes, a romantic modernist.

The spot for Smith is for the perfection of the Essay; Kertesz, Brassai,Capa, HCB all were monumentaly important but it was Smith that fulfilled the direction they all were heading while beginning the direction to be taken by Salgado, Richards, Mark, and others. Smith shot people, yeah, but he changed the form.

Postmodernism ? Can there be a PostModern Photography ? I don't think there was. Probably the closest we came to a PostModern sensibility were ... well, never mind. That would just start a flame war. And only the innocent would be hurt.

The next Great Photographer ? We're still waiting. Probably someone who is able to ignore the Agonies of Post Modernism, and the Rapture of Commercialism. Probably a kid out there playing with a pinhole camera.

 

[manalishi]

I got six:
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Sebastiao Salgado
Michael Kenna
Josef Hoflehner
Pentti Sammallahti
Keith Carter


M.

 

[Petzi]

Andreas Feininger made a number of pictures that I really like. He deserves to be mentioned here.

 

[Gene_Laughter]

Misonne
Stieglitz
Strand
Weston

 

[Gene_Laughter]

Four isn't enough. I'm going for six. Actually six doesn't scratch the surface.

Misonne
Stieglitz
Strand
Weston
Steichen
Demachy

 

[Kino]

I agree with Gene; I can list four each time my mood changes.

Margret Bourke White
Alexander Rodchenco (a little agitprop anyone?)
Man Ray
Paul Strand

This is a useless exercise... (but fun)

 

[rfshootist]

If you want to be humble (hmmm - this is apug) you could maybe go for the four most important to you (but not to many uncle Fred or auntie Ethel picks please). Or be as grandiose as you want and name the four greatest of all time - every other photographer is a mere mortals by comparison.

But be prepare to defend your choices - in a duel if necessary!

Sorry, but why four ? Not three ? Or ten? I am afraid I cannot pick four out which I would keep as the greatest or most important ones, important in which context ever. There are too many great photogs all on the same level of greatness IMHO.

BTW, it would have been very interesting if you had asked for the reasons of the choice too.

Regards,
bertram

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

Hello Tim,

Thought you might find this interesting:

http://pdngallery.com/legends/

Unfortunately more than four, but some of the names have appeared here. Seems most APUG and Large Format Forum participants prefer landscape or fine art photographers, but maybe some will find a few of these photographers interesting. Enjoy!

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

 

[battra92]

Wow, what a list you people are making. What is a little disturbing is how a few have said Matthew Brady, whose photographs make me tear up my own portraits realizing I'll never be as good as him, but a lot of the photojournalism he did was taken by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan.

Gardner's images of Antietam are very striking to me. To me, even in the instant images from the front of dead terrorists in the field don't seem to move me like Gardner's images do.

Of course my favorite image of the war is this one with three Confederate prisoners. But I think that's because it is sort of a calm moment as opposed to the scores of posed pictures of people standing erect or dead on the field.

The photographer for that image, is unknown. So he's there just unknown. Matter of fact, I'd say all the Mr. Unknowns could beat Ansel any day of the week. They just never became famous or had their work shown. Therefore I can't really say there is a greatest photographer, I just know it's not me.

By the way, I don't give a care about Ansel Adams. For some reason I just can't worship the guy like everyone does. Of course, I am the photographer who came across some old reprints of his photos and sold them on eBay so I'm like the ultimate blasphemer.

 

[pelerin]

<snip>


BTW, it would have been very interesting if you had asked for the reasons of the choice too.

Regards,
bertram

Right, 7 pages latter and we have yet to get to brass tacks. Of course we have had the predictable carping about the value of craft.
Celac.

 

[George Papantoniou]

You guys are all nuts with Weston .... What in the world do you see in his work ?

Here are mine:

1st *(annd most important): E. Weston
2nd (there isn't a second, noone can be compared to Weston)...

OK, I also like the Neue Sachlichkeit philosophy, like the work of Albert Renger-Patsch. The Subjektive Fotografie (Otto Steinert + co). And Karl Blossfeldt.

Too many Germans, huh ? OK, I'll not let the other ones out.

Britain: Simon Norfolk - B Brandt (although he came from Hamburg)

USA: F Woodman - J Sturges - D Arbus - E Curtis - P Strand - W Bullock

France: R Doisneau - Gustave Le Gray

Japan: Ryuji Miyamoto (and Araki, when I'm in a kinky mood)

Italy: Gabriele basilico

 

[HeliH]

I've already mentioned five, but would like to add two more :
Pentti Sammallahti
Ritva Kovalainen

 

[André E.C.]

:
Pentti Sammallahti

Yes, Finland`s B&W virtuoso, I have the pleasure to know and see him to show my work.
That silent period of evaluation still "kills" me .
Great image maker and human being!

Cheers

André

 

[catem]

My Greats for Today

*Martine Francke*

For (amongst other work) her emotive documentary of and isolated community in Ireland - the Tory Islanders.

*Eve Arnold*

For (amongst other work) her documentary of women in hospital including in labour and childbirth, revolutionary at the time and influencing the perception of pregnancy/childbirth as something "normal" and not "taboo".

(See Magnum website for both these www.magnumphotos.com

*Grace Robertson*

For her down-to-earth journalism for 'Picture Post' in the 1940's
http://millais.solent.ac.uk/default.asp?level1id=9550&level2id=9551&Level3id=10901

*Fay Godwin*

Expanding on my choice from yesterday -
For showing through her photography that the land can have spiritual significance and for documenting the land of the U.K. and it's people, and for sharing through her work her belief that the land belongs to us all.
http://www.djclark.com/godwin/index.htm

I could come up with some different choices every day - (which for me would be a more illuminating exercise than trying to pin down 'The Four').
I think another interesting thread would be - "Spotlight on your Favourite Photographer (for Today"). - I'm more interested in hearing more about photogaphers I've never heard of. A few on this thread - thanks Heli and others.

Cate