Famous Photographers - Michelle Acas

1. E.J. Bellocq
1910’s – Women portraiture. Women pose and are the main focus of the composition. EJ captures an array of different expressions, and positions of the women that capture an element of the women’s personality.

2. Bill Brandt
1930’s – Street photography, portraiture. Some candid, some not. He has the ability to capture photos at what can be considered “the right moment.” Hi photographs can be considered to be documentary.

3. Harry Callahan
1940s – 1980s – Photographs consists of motion blur, angles, simple and meaningful compositions. Compositions are nontraditional for the time period that they are taken in, such as the photograph of a woman’s head in the water.

4. Julia Margaret Cameron
1860s – 1870s – For the time period the photographs were taken in, they appear to be different and successful in compositions. Cameron appears to take photos of mostly women subjects, in meaningful, emotional poses.

5. Robert Doisneau
1940s – 1950s – Simple, candid compositions. Sometimes the subject is at a far distance, silhouette-like. I love how the subjects are either looking straight into the camera or looking at odd glances to the side.

6. Walker Evans
1930s – 1970s – A mixture of simple landscape compositions and candid portraits. I like how he captures subjects “in the moment,” or candidly, such as the photo of where he took a quick snapshot of two people driving by in the car, or of normal, everyday people sitting in the subway. He is able to capture the essence of what happens presently, without having to control the composition too much, only how he frames and angles the shot.

7. Lee Friedlander
1950s – 1980s – A mixture of architectural, landscape photos and portraiture that is tends toward a more documentary-type photography. Sometimes he places subjects towards the bottom of the frame, leaving a lot of negative space in the upper portion of the framework. It’s also nice that the subjects in portraits don’t always look straight into the lens, but may be glancing off to the side or preoccupied with doing something, such as play the piano or talking with their hands.

8. Emmet Gowin
1960s -1970s – Focus on humans as subject. Has very interesting angles and placement of figures in the frame. Obviously he puts more thought in the posing of the models, and doing more dramatic angles from the side, above, or below.

9. Andre Kertesz
1910s – 1960s – Street photography. He uses different approaches to taking his photographs, sometimes from afar, such as the top of the stairs or through the bars of a fence; and sometimes from up close and head on.

10. William Klein
1950s – 1960s – Has such dynamic compositions, such as a photograph of a boy pointing a gun straight at the lens, as well as taking odd, random, and unplanned shots of people. He implements the use of blur, like how he captures the motion blur of a moving crowd.

11. Josef Koudelka
1960s - 1980s – Thoughtful, somewhat planned out compositions of people outdoors. People tend not to be looking straight at the lens, usually looking away or caught in the act of what they may be doing.

12. Dorothea Lange
1930s – 1950s – Popular Depression-era photographer who took interesting documentary-type photos. She seems to be able to capture the essence of the moment at the right angles, either close up or from far away.

13. Helen Levitt
1940s – Her photos mainly consist of candid street photography from New York City. She captures the moments of everyday life of ordinary people, such as children drawing chalk or a person walking down the street.

14. Ralph Eugene Meatyard
1950s – 1970s – Interesting, thought out compositions. In the photos I saw he implemented a mask that held as a common theme amongst numerous photos. His compositions are certainly not traditional photographs for the time period he took them. He seems to experiment with motion blur as well.

15. Joel Meyerowitz
1960s – 2000s – Many of his photographs are in color, and are usually taken from a distance away from his intended subjects. Most are candid, or planned photographs of architecture/landscapes.

16. Arnold Newman
1940s – 1990s – Implements use of symmetrical composition. He seems to be a photographer who has photographed many famous and influential people. His photos of Picasso and other are very nontraditional, placing the person at odd places in the frame, either the far back, very near to the front of the lens, which creates an exaggerated angle.

17. Gordon Parks
1940s – 1990s – He seems to take photographs that are documentary-type portraits. He mainly focuses on human subjects, arranging the composition to where the setting, objects, or the position of the subject is representative of that person’s life.

18. W. Eugene Smith
1940s – 1970s – A documentary type photographer who tends to take more candid shots of his subjects, because the subjects throughout his photos appear to have noticed the presence of the camera at the very last second prior to the shot. He seems to take his photos from behind the scenes, watching the main event from afar.

19. Jerry Uelsmann
1960s - 1980s – Takes photographs and manipulates his final works, sort of like an early form of photoshop, where objects, people, and scenes are manipulated in the final photograph. He tends to take two different subjects and blend them together into one photograph.

20. Garry Winogrand
1950s – 1970s – His photographs are mostly candid, shot “in the moment.” Motion blur is captured in some of his photographs, where a person or animal may be running or jumping. Others appear to be planned and well thought out compositions but still remain candid shots.