Thank you for that link to Don Worth. Beautiful stuff! His trees and fog shot has such a "liquid, dream like quality" to it, it's a shot I would like to own! I read that his first love was music, and not surprising at that. His work has a musical quality to it. Rhythms, repeating phrases etc. Wonderful.
In the beginning I was devoted to AA, but then I found that what I was enamored with was more the technical aspect of his photography (my engineering background coming out) than the "art". Once I seriously started looking at the images as visual statements I found the ones I enjoyed the most were taken during a very short time window 1936 to 42.
After that I found his pictures uninspiring for the most part. Technically outstanding, but uninspiring. His color stuff really missed the mark. There is a discussion of B&W photographers trying to cross-over to color on photo.net under the LF forum if your interested. I must have committed hearsay by saying AA's color sucked as my post was deleted by the moderator. Must be a major AA fan.
For the long haul my favorite LF photograhers are Edward Weston and Bruce Barnbaum. I have favorites in 35mm and medium format as well as I find that the format used seems to influence the style of photograhy.
Other fav's are Penn, Ritts, Arbus, and Newton for people.
Eric
__________________
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins
they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. - Willard
My favorite photographer is Jay Dusard. He is an Arizona guy that has devoted his life to the western way of life. I think he lives way down on the border now. His book about the North American Cowboy is a classic and commands very big bucks on the used book market. He has done some landscapes and I believe he is the one that ingnited the 4x10 format.
lee
Sponsored Ad. (Subscribers to APUG
have the option to remove this ad.)
My work is very influenced by Keith Carter (He does alot of selective focus work by using tilt/shift cameras). I also Like Mary Ellen Mark (not only do I love her work, but admire her for using a 4x5 for her style of photography), Irving Haberman (simmilar stuff to WeeGee).
1. Ansel Adams. I grew up in California and his photographs were the first that were imprinted in my mind and what first instilled in me the love for both photography and the outdoors. Although I have since discovered photographers whose work I like every bit as much, you never quite lose the special place you have in your heart for your "first".
2. Harold Edgerton. As an engineer, I have always wanted to explore what could be learned through photography. Edgerton really pioneered the world of technical photography. Although he didn't really create art the way Adams did, he created some incredible images and pioneered techniques that help to shape parts of our craft today.
Avedon. I become aware of LF photography in the first place because I happened by In The American West in a bookstore years ago and my breath was taken away by how *lensless* the photographs looked. Like there was just no glass between me and the subject whatsoever.
Also, I admire how he's been an 8x10 user for decades and yet it's just not about the equipment. It's always about the eyes, period.
Also, I am becoming a fan of Mark Tucker, from Nashville. He does such a great job of selective focus.
Paul Caponigro, whose ability to transform the mundane into a deeply thought provoking image always astonishes me. His Stonehenge images are an exquisite example of vision and arrangement and are the most beautiful silver prints that I have ever seen.
Don McCullin, whose war photographs are made with care and sensitivity, and illustrate the futility of conflict.
__________________
"Digital circuits are made from analogue parts"
Fourtune Cookie-Brooklyn May 2006
Brett Weston...which is actually quite interesting to me in that my first impression of his work was that I could not understand why anyone would print some areas of the print with such low value. Today I find his work quite compelling in the fact that he was able to abstract the image in such a compelling way. He was apparently able to get past the egotistical way of thinking that something had to be represented in a conventionally acceptable way. This seems to have been a quality of his work from his earliest years.
__________________
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Linear Mode
