So, who are the four Greatest photographers? (or maybe even the four most important photographers)

Who are the four that you think anyone who calls themselves a photographer must have looked at... (so generally aesthetic rather than technical - though there are some who embody both)

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!

I'll kick off with - the four greatest photographers of all time...:

Atget

Walker Evans

Andre Kertesz

Wm. Eggleston

Jut the ones who matter to me in 2006.

Koudelka
Penn
Parr
Gene Smith

all old, tsk

heavy on the journalism but that's a big deal numbers-wise

Never liked Atget much
Evans has some great stuff (early Penn was totally about aping Evans)
Egg great but I think commercial guys out-styled him
Kertesz I'll give you

Smith, Weston, Emerson, Cameron

So, who are the four Greatest photographers? (or maybe even the four most important photographers)

Who are the four that you think anyone who calls themselves a photographer must have looked at... (so generally aesthetic rather than technical - though there are some who embody both)

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!

Hmm just 4? Well in no order and pretty much the first 4 to pop into my mind….

Joseph Sudek: The Poet of Prague and shot a lot of large format with only one arm.
WeeGee: Can any one not like Weegee?
Lewis W. Hine: His photography of the working class speaks for itself.
Edward Weston: Day Books and no light meter… Amazing

The four most Important:

Nicéphore Niépce
Louis Dauguerre
William Fox Talbot
George Eastman

They basically enabled the start and early continuance of all photography as we have it today. I think it is tougher to pick out the greatest photographers, since that all too often involves personal tastes and perceptions of individuals. However, the one name I could come up with that even non-photographers can state as representing photography is Ansel Adams. I really only like a few of his images, so he would not make it onto my personal list of whom I consider the greatest.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

Hey - some cool choices so far - all of them on my own longer list and bookshelf... but interestingly, only a couple of crossovers
(BWT Gordon, I just started reading the novel The Mercury Visions of Louis Duguerre - we'll see if if it's any good)

My fav's:

Gene Smith
Edward Weston
Imogene Cunningham
Ansel Adams

Jack Dykinga
David Muench
Joe Cornish
Ken Duncan

Are you asking for only photography? Or photography/printers?
Tremendous difference.

Are you asking for only photography? Or photography/printers?
Tremendous difference.

Good point - I consider Christopher Burkett probably the greatest Ilfochrome printer around, although not one of the greats in terms of photography.

My fav's:

Gene Smith
Edward Weston
Imogene Cunningham
Ansel Adams

I'll second that but in a different order

Adams



Cunningham
smith
Weston

why four?

off the top of my head...

Walker Evans
Alfred Stieglitz (for impact more than work, but I love the work too)
Robert Capa
Charles Sheeler

B.

Off the top of my head
Ray Manning
Livinia Hanachuic
D F Cardwell
Bill Schwab
and
Robert Kangus

Sorry thats five and I am not a fan of admiring those who I don't know -- otherwise how do I know they're great. Sometimes there is a tendency to replace big/popular/successful with great. These folks I know and I think they are great.

Oddly, if you had asked about painters I would have listed those who were big/popular/successful -- all except Max Beckmen.

Mathew Brady -- The birth of photojournalism
Edward S Curtis -- Classical composition
Jacques-Henri Lartigue -- Photography as whimsical art
Dorthea Lang -- Social Commentary as art

Unfair! Only 4?

Henri Cartier-Bresson -- Distillation of the experience to a moment

Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Sally Mann. I'm fifth.

Hey,
In chronological order:

Watkins
Atget
Cartier-Bresson
B + H Becher

Ok, glove down, I'm right and you're wrong. What is your rationale?
Celac.

<snip>
...I am not a fan of admiring those who I don't know -- otherwise how do I know they're great.
<snip>


I was going to jump in here with enough witty palaver to surely earn the ire of Mr. Callow but, I will try to stay on topic. John, isn't it the work one ought to consider and not the biography. This is certainly true of many writers I admire. I love to read them, but I certainly wouldn't want to live with, or like them.
Celac.

Whoever you want (but not just printers) - bear in mind a photographer is a person who takes a photograph. Some print their own work, others don't. It really matters little either way.

Mathew Brady -- The birth of photojournalism


well - him and Roger Fenton...

well - him and Roger Fenton...

Hey, I didn't set the limit on names! ;)

Hey, I didn't set the limit on names! ;)

Yeah - but the Brits claim Fenton was the father of photojournalism while the USAians claim Brady... :-)

Marko Kovacevic
Milomir Kovacevic
Les Mclean
Robert Capa

I really matters little either way
Well Tim,
I guess you meant to say "It really matters little either way."
So, to you capturing the image is all that matters?
That's all there is to being a photographer?
All of the time, effort, skill, successes and failures that go into learning how to print don't matter to you?
Are you sure? Why?

Weston, Edward and Brett.
Alfred Stieglitz
Cunningham
and Elliot Porter
Speak to me as photographers and muses. I know I cheated by naming two.