What Photographer(s) inspire you

[André Ferreira]

Fantastic thread!!! I´m learning so much!

I´d have to say Sebastiao Salgado, Doisneau, HCB.

Thank you all for such an amount of information! I´m still trying to metabolize it all...

André Ferreira.

 

[VoidoidRamone]

I would say that Michelle Bates was the one who got me really interested in Holga/toycamera work. www.michellebates.net
-Grant

 

[bjorke]

All of them.


(Okay, Sylvia Plachy)

 

[Bob F.]

I just received a copy of Japan, by Michael Kenna, so at the moment the answer is: Michael Kenna.... Beautiful!

 

[TPPhotog]

With this colder and much wetter weather with very little to inspire at the moment around here I'm spending more time looking in book stores. What I have personally found is that over the years I have been inspired by many more photographers than I realised, some of which are still nameless to me. The picture is certainly a powerful tool that stays in the memory.

 

[Nicole]

Jean-Claude Gautrand

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Michael Kenna

Cheryl Jacobs

 

[Lee Shively]

"I just received a copy of Japan, by Michael Kenna, so at the moment the answer is: Michael Kenna.... Beautiful!"

I'm in total agreement, Bob. Gorgeous book! I also recently got both his Retrospectives. I usually don't like this type of photography but I really have come to enjoy Kenna's work.

 

[Wouter from Brazil]

I like Pierre Verger. He was a frenchman living in Brazil for most of his life. His pictures reflect the brazilian social landscape, mainly the black/african heritage. Have a look at them at: www.pierreverger.org . Also a nice place to see what you can do in B/W with a Rolleiflex.

 

[m.steig]

lest we forget

Len Jenshel
Joel Sternfeld
Richard Misrach


I'd like to add these three heavyweights to the list.

 

[André E.C.]

Paul Strand, Minor White!

Cheers

André

 

[Joe Symchyshyn]

Brooks Jensen.

For all the things he does for photography other than his photography...

joe

 

[Grunthos]

Michael Scarpitti
Hans Beckert

 

[TheFixer]

Andreas Feininger
Pirkle Jones
Herb Ritts
Cal Slack
Sam Abell

 

[c6h6o3]

Michael Scarpitti
Hans Beckert

If you like their work, you might want to check out the work of that most masterful of photographers (and as such is not, nor can he ever be, an artist), Ornello Pederzoli. His style is very similar to the photographers you mention.

 

[Jim Chinn]

Andre Kertesz
Brett Weston
Edward Weston
Wynn Bullock
Harry Callahan
Albert-Renger Patzch
Ralph Gibson
Alexander Rodchenko
Irving Penn
Avedon
Walker Evans
Eugene C. Smith
Wright Morris
Aron Siskind
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Helen Levitt
Manuel Alvarez Bravo

I can't say how much they influence me, but I find myself returning to look at their work in books or going to exhibitions of their work when ever possible.

Also if I ever win the lottery, I will be out buying a print from each one. I already have the list of specific prints ready if the day ever comes.

 

[David]

Edward Steichen, Minor White

 

[Kevin Lyons]

Gilles Peress
Larry Towell

 

[jimgalli]

Certainly Edward Weston and August Sanders are at the top of my list. Ansel Adams whether it's popular to admit it or not. There are many current photographers that I admire and would love to aspire to but one that is currently at the top of that list is Quinn Jacobsen. When I grow up I want to make pictures like his

 

[lee]

one guy not mentioned yet so I will. Art Sinsabaugh landscape photographer taught at Chicago Art Institute shot banquet cameras very nice work

lee\c

 

[Charles Webb]

William Henry Jackson,E S Curtis,
M Brady and his assistants,
George Mellon,
Dorthea Lange,
Paul Strand,
M.B. White,
W.E. Smith,
Larry Burroughs,
D.D. Duncan,
Leon Kannamer,
Peter Gowland
D.Peterson,
Kurt F. G. Jafay
E. Weston and sons.
Tina Modotti,
Especially A.Adams,
And many of those listed earlier in this thread.

 

[BradS]

Lately, I am most insipred by Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places but, I can't find any really good links to his work on the world wide wait.

 

[sionnac]

Vaughn Sills
Sally Mann
Tina Modotti
Jean Gaumy
James Nachtwey
Eudora Welty
James van der Zee
Josef Sudek

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

Inspiration hmmmmmm.In many ways I've been inspired in one way or another by every photograpgh that I've ever seen and that has touched me in some way.

But to name a few-George E. Todd,amoung others in BW
Simon Marsden www.marsdenarchive.com in IR.

Thanks for the link Jim, I`ve long admired Simon`s B&W images, especially his infra red work which adds to the eerieness. Hauntingly beautiful, yet macabre.
Kodak should stop making their excellent HIE infra red mono film.

 

[Sparky]

Well, since I'm pretty new here..

... and I have not yet participated...

I'd have to answer "many, very many of the photographers I've come across" in my 28 or so years shooting (mostly LF). But the ones that really stand out as personal influence are:

Ralph Gibson: for the sublime iconography
Bill Brandt: for the heavy atmosphere
Michael Kenna: atmosphere and the je ne sais quoi.
Joel Peter Witkin: his work - nature morte. the stillness and beauty.
Diane Arbus: depth
Andre Serrano: If you have to ask...!
Doug & Mike Starn: holy crap! on the witkin/serrano plane.
Ray K.Metzger's abstracts.
Michael Disfarmer: just so so odd. haunting.
Edward Weston: he's a classic!
Minor White: though he sort of misses the mark.
Jeff Wall: for personal reasons.

though there are many more artists NOT using photography that have inspired me even more intensely. Like Malevich, Herbert Bayer, Tom Dean, Walter DeMaria, James Turrell, Anish Kapoor. And writers - and I could go ON and ON and ON. So I'll stop here.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Great thread with lots of great names. I would have to cite the Westons, Minor White and HCB but above all William Eggleston for his brilliant use of color (achieved initially by using the costly dye transfer process) and his great eye for making pictures out of subject matter that 1,000 others would dismiss as mundane.

Least favorite - Ray Moore. I feel sorry for the man personally, he seems to have been eaten alive by bottomless depression, but I profoundly regret his influence (which he probably never sought) on British photographers over the last 20 or 30 years - I have met so many who seem to think that catatonic misery is the most desirable mental state to which an artist can aspire.