Photographers to inspire
A mistake I made for a long time was looking to gear for inspiration, but there are so many great photographers out there making so much great work that it’s really hard to keep this brief.
Alex Webb — for complex street scenes that are chaotic but balanced in both colour and composition. Tells complex stories in a single frame and so good to look at. He’s one of the very best out there.
Henri Cartier-Bresson — Godfather of composition, use of shapes and balanced frames, was a painter then founded Magnum with Robert Capa. Work might seem dated, but laid the groundwork for a lot of photography as we know it today… More information on Henri can be found here.
Matt Stuart — London street photographer who very intelligently composes his scenes to tell witty and often socially aware stories but still producing beautiful images. Bridges the gap between humour and beauty. Each image takes time to digest, to find the visual play… then you find it and it’s like woooah. It’s good.
Arnold Newman — frames within frames my friend. My favourite quote of his goes something like ‘photography is 90% moving furniture, and 10% taking pictures’.
Christopher Anderson — big influence, really amazing editorial documentary and travel photographer. Shoots Nikon which I like and massively just jumps in and gets to the heart of the stories. No idea how he produces such photogenic work in the situations he finds himself in.
He did this series on escaping Haiti by boat which is just woah… so full of real emotion. Also his portrait of Chuck Close is amazing — crazy framing, really intimate, it’s great. His face is like a landscape.
Bruce Davidson — documentary photographer, reminds me a little of John Bulmer. Proper legend in the field.
Mary Ellen Mark — amazing storyteller, beautiful image maker.
Sebastião Salgado — bit of a legend, very powerful contrasty black and white images. Very deep blacks and great technical control… Was an economist before he was a photographer, so have a soft spot for his work.
Nadav Kander — top of the portrait game. Meticulous control of light leads to some of the most stunning portraits, but his landscape work from China is also pinnacle. Think he shot it just to prove he could and it’s so well done that everyone must want him to fuck off…
Bryan Schutmaat — shoots large format, not a great deal of his work out there but his read on light is amazing… the series he shot in the small mountain town, Grays the Mountain Sends, is absolutely beautiful.
Spencer Murphy — great modern portrait photographer.
Jack Davison — really modern and one to watch I reckon, went from nothing to shooting for the New York Times in the space of a year it seems. Really forward thinking and creative portrait photographer… lots of distortion and personality in his work.