Most Influential Photographers

Right at the start of his book “50 Paths to Creative Photography“, Michael Freeman urges aspiring photographers to Study the Form, i.e., to learn from the top 100 photographers of all time, and build on their achievements:

• “Not to copy, but to understand.  Study other photographers’ work, both established and contemporary.  Decide which images you like, analyse why, and understand the underlying ideas and approaches the you can use yourself.”

This post is my attempt to do exactly that.  I have tried to make extensive use of Pinterest to reference key works and provided links to the photographers home website or the one that best represents them.  The list of photographers presented represents my personal preference; as of the date this post is published and will, hopefully, over time develop and change.

See also my post: “First Notes on the History of Photography as an Art Form.”

If you have any suggestions regarding photographers I should be considering or any other comments, please post them below.

To see more posts on other photographic topics, or to follow my learning progress, please like or follow me on the social media channel of your choice to the right.

[Read more…]

Barbican Exhibition Summer 2018

Two female photographers from different eras, both working on long term politically motivated documentary projects, and achieving their aims through a series of situational portraits.  Downstairs, Dorothea Lange’s “Politics of Seeing”; upstairs Vanessa Winship’s “And Time Folds.”

Dorothea Lange is one of the most important photographers in the history of the art, if only for her Migrant Mother image, which became an icon of the American Depression in the 1930’s and remains one of the most recognizable photographs of all time.   Although “The Politics of Seeing” exhibition has one section entirely devoted to the Migrant Mother series, and another to the depression era images for which she is best known, it aims to give a much broader view of her work over her entire lifetime.  Arranged chronologically, it covers her early work as a portrait photographer to the rich and famous in San Francisco; her work documenting the internment of Japanese American citizens during WWII; and various projects after the war associated with civil rights and environmental concerns.

Vanessa Winship is a contemporary photographer from the north of England who rose to fame in 2011 as the first woman to win the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson award. The award enabled her to travel across the USA and create her most notable work to date, “She Dances on Jackson”, which documents the lives of the invisible middle American working class.  Like Lange, much of her work is politically motivated and seeks to raise awareness of dispossessed and marginalized communities.  Her exhibition “And Time Folds” is again organised chronologically with her early work made in Eastern Europe, including the Balkans and Turkey, telling the story of today’s desperate populations.  Then, closer to home, her minimalist landscapes show the harsh bleakness of the north of England.

My objective with this post is to encourage anybody who hasn’t been, to go.  Barbican exhibitions tend to be for quite short periods, so be quick!

If you’ve been and disagree with me, I would love to hear from you, either through the comments box below or through the social media channel of you choice right.

[Read more…]

hours 805 to 806

London Nights Photography Exhibition Review

The exhibition at the Museum of London spans the period from the start of the 20th Century (pretty much the dawn of photography) to the present day, covering the genres and styles that have been popular throughout this period, including:

• Pictorialism
• Portraiture
• Conceptual
• Film.

The cohesive objective of the exhibition is to show how both the night-time character of London has changed over this period, and how its depiction through photography has also changed as the art form has developed.

Most contemporary is the image by Tim Peak taken from the International Space Station.

My objective with this post is to encourage anybody who hasn’t been to go.  If you’ve been and disagree with me, I would love to hear from you, either through the comments box below or through the social media channel of you choice right.

[Read more…]

El Nino Graffiti in Granada Spain

If Al Hambra is the official No. 1 tourist attraction in Granada, the the Street Art Graffiti of El Nino and others is certainly the unofficial leader.  It is impossible to miss.  On our arrival in Granada, the taxi from the train station to the hotel took us past walls lining major roads entirely covered in the highest quality pieces.  All of it, apparently, painted illegally; although  many of the works are signed and the most prolific artist is the famous “El Nino de las Pinturas” (“the boy with the pictures”) or “El Nino” for short.

I hope anybody reading this blog post will enjoy the images, and if they subsequently find themselves in Grenada, will seek out these works rather than immediately joining the ranks of the 10s of thousands of others at the Al Hambra.

If you have any comments on this post, please post them below.

To see more posts on other photographic topics, or to follow my learning progress, please like or follow me on the social media channel of your choice to the right

[Read more…]