20 Famous Photographers (Janet Croog)

1. E. J. Bellocq
Bellocq’s photos consist of women, or their portraits. I cannot decide if I like them necessarily, but I find them very interesting. Some give me an eery feeling because some of the women are in the nude but their faces are masked as if they do not want to be recognized. This idea is such a contrast because a woman will expose her body, which is usually covered to where you can only see her face and hands, and hide her face. The photos are very old, early 1900s, so they are black and white, but I prefer black and white photos when the subjects are people.

2. Karl Blossfeldt
These photos are of plant parts magnified. At first I did not find these prints interesting because I did not see any compositional value to them, but once I kept looking through his photos, I realized that the concept had value. We usually do not look at plants like this, especially so close because our eyes just cannot see it. So for me, these pictures resemble the beauty of the hidden life that we miss because of its size.

3. Margaret Bourke-White
Her photos are amazing when it comes to how she catches depression and war. You can see the effects of society on individuals through their expressions. She is very good at placement and size contrast between her subjects and the environment. Her photos really emit powerful emotions which makes her work very successful.

4. Harry Callahan
What stands out to me the most of Callahan’s work are the portraits of Eleanor. They are very beautiful, and I have a bias towards portraits. When I see a series of photos of the same person, though, I feel a connection to that person, or I feel like I can see that person through the photographers eyes which connects me to what the photographer may be feeling about his photos.

5. Imogen Cunningham
As opposed to Karl Blossfeldt’s work, Cunningham uses a more compositional technique when portraying the beauty of plants and all the details we miss with our eyes as we dart through life. So he has the concept as well as the composition down which is very nice and makes very successful photos. He seems to have a decent eye for shadows within curves of objects, like cloth, and plant tissues.

6. Emmet Gowin
Like Callahan, there are multiple pictures of a woman, Edith. Because there are multiple pictures of this woman, without knowing anything about the photographer except the pictures he’s taken, you automatically know there is some form of relationship between him and Edith. You know that Gowin sees a beauty in Edith which is why there are multiple pictures, and therefore you can relate, or see the beauty the photographer sees. I love that.

7. David Hill and Robert Adamson
I do not take interest in these photos for their concepts as much as I do for their history. These photos were taken over 100 years ago right into the mid 1800s. I like to see the evidence of history through photos more than text because text comes from the mind, which is always uneven and colored, while photos are real, actual images straight from the eye. But there still is an art in these photos, especially the portraits and the emotions they convey. These are fun to look at and relate to now compared to then.

8. Lewis Hine
Not only do his pictures portray the history of industrialism, but they have nice compositional technique which adds appeal to the photos. There is a balance between making evidence of history and making art out of that evidence, and Hine does both. So while there is an art to his photos, his concepts are very dynamic in showing the dangers of the way these people are working and the strength they need to fulfill their duties.

9. Cameron Davidson
I like these aerial views in his photos because, similar to the magnifying technique, these shots are not something you can see unless you use another piece of equipment, other than your eyes and camera to see. You cannot see these images otherwise, or unless you are high up on a cliff or mountain. This is another way to see the beauty in life, or nature, that I cannot see on a regular basis.

10. David Armstrong
His photos are very blurry but very soft. They give an abstract idea about them, but you can still make out his subjects just enough. The photos are similar to paintings which are nice; I love to paint. Also, if these were black and white photos, they would not look as nice because the color is used to determine the subject or the mood of the photos. Black and white coloring would only lessen the beauty and appeal of the photos.

11. Alioune Ba
Her photos are nice about depicting another culture. She uses creative man-made textures against the natural body to create a vivid connection between the both. I like how she uses the body, like hands and feet, as an art form.

12. Alex Brattell
His work has a spacial value to it. His photos emit a sort of peace through that space. His use of black and white media adds to that emotion, because if his photos were in color, they would add more energy to the photos, which would not be as calming.

13. Martin Brent
His photos are about unintentional art and I admire that to an extent. I actualy prefer to make art intentional, but I also know there is a beauty when we connect to the world randomly, or unintentionaly, and when we see something through our periferal vision.

14. Doc Edgerton
With the invention of the electric flash, Edgerton added a new way to photograh which I find very interesting. This is an art on a different angle than what I am used to because, once again, we cannot capture these moments with our eyes and retain some solid picture. He captures the beauty of what fast motion really looks like when it’s stopped in the middle of moving.

15. Josef Koudelka
I like how Koudelka captures people. They are caught at times that are not proper almost. Their faces are all scruntched or they are doing something unsanitary or their body is missing a limb. And all the photos are around Europe in the 70’s. And he uses their angles very well to create artistic compositions when capturing people.

16. Clarence Laughlin
Laughlin (funny name) has very interesting photos. They are not like the usual historic photos. They are almost like today’s modern photography, kind of tripy and dreamy. They have more of a creative imagination appeal to them rather than capturing as much of the depression of the time.

17. Helen Levitt
Her photos are realy nice in the sense that she captured quite a few smiles from a very depressing time in the U.S., especially from the children. She has pictures of the chalk drawings, or kids playing in the streets. It lightens up the mood of that time period, but it doesn’t ignore it because you can still see what the kids are wearing or the depressed faces of the people in the backround, or the dirty backround in general, with everything torn up or trashed.

18. Edward Weston
His phots are interesting because he uses the human body in some photos and they are displayed to show off curviture, like landscapes, but he also has pictures of landscapes ad they remind me of the human body. He also has photos of vegetables that have this similar human form. So I feel like he brings the human form to nature or vice versa. I’m not sure if that was his intention, but that is what I get from his photos.

19. Jerry Uelsmann
His work seems more contemporary, similar to how photographers today use photoshop, even though his photos were taken decades ago. I’m not sure what thechnique he is using because I don’t know what kind of technology was available at that time but it seems to be some sort of layering technique to change what is really seen from the camera, which makes it more interesting and artistic, compared to all the historical photos of that time displaying depression and reality. This is like an escape from reality.

20. Nadar
Because I take interest in portraits, I like many of Nadar’s portraits . A few of his works are nice compositionaly, but really the idea of these people existing in the 1800’s is what captures my interest the most. There is more of a historical value to these photos rather than an artisitic one.