Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: Digiteyesed on December 29, 2005, 04:17:36 pm

Title: Name your influences
Post by: Digiteyesed on December 29, 2005, 04:17:36 pm
I am curious to hear from some of the folks here which photographers (living or dead) they consider to be their greatest photographic influences? Here's my top three in no particular order:

Courtney Milne (http://www.courtneymilne.com/)
Mr. Milne is a photographer living in Saskatchewan who has probably done more than any other artist to bring alive the hidden beauty of Canada's prairies. Being a fellow rural dweller, and living just a stone's throw from Saskatchewan, I'd have to say that Courtney Milne's work really speaks to me.

Ansel Adams
Studying Ansel's work taught me the importance of previsualising my images. I can now look at a fairly drab scene and realize that there is a great photograph there if I have the patience to work it over a bit (http://www.urbanrefugee.ca/example05.php) in my digital darkroom.

Michael Reichmann
I like Michael's work because of its subtlety. His images are permeated by an understated elegance, shibui if you will. His ability to isolate details in his photographs, ones that most others would overlook, gives me heart palpitations.

Anyone else want to share?
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Richard Dawson on December 29, 2005, 04:44:23 pm
My wife and I went to the Margaret Bourke-White exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum yesterday.  Stunning.  It's hard to think about anything else.

She (my wife) has added Bourke-White to her very short list of women, living or dead, that she would like to have dinner with.  I concur.  A fascinating woman and photographer.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Jonathan Wienke on December 29, 2005, 05:54:46 pm
Ansel Adams would be high on the list. Not so much for his visual style per se, but his approach to the process--starting with a visualized end result, and then performing the entire process of composition, shooting, post-processing, and printing to bring that result into being with the highest possible level of technical and artistic excellence.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: boku on December 29, 2005, 08:41:50 pm
I used to use the stock answer: Ansel. Then, this image changed everything for me...

(http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images20/sweeping1301-thumb.jpg)

Thank you Michael!
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Frere Jacques on December 30, 2005, 03:41:21 am
Salgado, Salgado, Salgado! The man has biblical composition. I am also very fond of the early --> mid 20th century French photographers -- Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Ronis, Brassaï. Magical stuff created with what we would consider primitive equipment. Just reinforces the point that it doesn't matter what technology you use, the image is all that matters!

Happy shooting!

Bon Nouvel An!!!
Title: Name your influences
Post by: tshort on December 31, 2005, 01:55:34 pm
James Nachtwey, for his respectful yet unstoppable approach to his work.

Cartier-Bresson for his vision in giving a name to that which at one time or another has captured many a shooter's imagination (that would be the Decisive Moment)

Adams for providing us with one benchmark for what b/w should look like, and, maybe more important, a process for achieving it.

Salgado for his inspiring relatively late entry into the photography world, and his deeply moving images.

Many of the modern shooters whose names I don't know, whose work I couldn't name, but whose images in the media catch my eye and make me pause long enough to consider, "How'd they do that?"
Title: Name your influences
Post by: DarkPenguin on December 31, 2005, 05:12:51 pm
Jim Brandenburg and Craig Blacklock.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Bobtrips on December 31, 2005, 07:00:08 pm
Quote
I used to use the stock answer: Ansel. Then, this image changed everything for me...

(http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images20/sweeping1301-thumb.jpg)

Thank you Michael!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=54676\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have a short list of images that I wish I had taken.  This one is firmly on my list.

As for influences, Galen Rowell showed me that one could photograph the light that I had already seen in the high mountains, especially in the Himalayas.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: collum on December 31, 2005, 11:45:12 pm
Richard Misrach ( http://www.edelmangallery.com/misrach.htm (http://www.edelmangallery.com/misrach.htm) )

Paul Caponigro ( http://www.artincontext.org/artist/c/paul_...igro/images.htm (http://www.artincontext.org/artist/c/paul_caponigro/images.htm)  )

Brett Weston  ( http://www.brettwestonarchive.com/ (http://www.brettwestonarchive.com/) )

Aaron Siskand ( http://www.robertkleingallery.com/gallery/siskind (http://www.robertkleingallery.com/gallery/siskind) )
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on January 01, 2006, 11:05:55 am
Galen Rowell & Charlie Waite for color landscapes

for B&W, Bill Schwab (who I just discovered last year) and some of the film work of Jean Cocteau

Lisa
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Paul Sumi on January 01, 2006, 04:14:24 pm
I'm all over the map.  Among others:

Group f/64 (Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Brett Weston, Edward Weston, et al) for obvious reasons

Jerry Uelsmann as a master of darkroom manipulation and post visualization

Henri Cartier-Bresson for the decisive moment

Galen Rowell for his active landscapes

Robert Frank for The Americans

Minor White for Aperture

Garry Winogrand for his street photography

Eliot Porter for pioneering color in landscape photography
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on January 01, 2006, 09:30:19 pm
Quote
I'm all over the map.  Among others:

Group f/64 (Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Brett Weston, Edward Weston, et al) for obvious reasons

Jerry Uelsmann as a master of darkroom manipulation and post visualization

Henri Cartier-Bresson for the decisive moment

Galen Rowell for his active landscapes

Robert Frank for The Americans

Minor White for Aperture

Garry Winogrand for his street photography

Eliot Porter for pioneering color in landscape photography
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=54951\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thanks, Paul. You have named almost all the ones I consider of major importance. My list includes:

Minor White (I studied with him)

Ansel Adams (for technical, business, and artistic merit)

Edward Weston

Paul Caponigro (I studied with him, too)

Jerry Uelsmann (for doing before Photoshop so much imaginative stuff that is now so much easier in PS)

Michael Reichman (yup)

Plus all of the others you named, and a number of others also.

Eric
Title: Name your influences
Post by: tsjanik on January 03, 2006, 08:58:09 pm
All of the above, but for me two in particular who have not been mentioned are Ernst Haas and Harald Sund.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: bob mccarthy on January 04, 2006, 09:51:17 am
I think there's a subtopic that may be interesting to many. That is who is your most influencial "teacher" of photography.

The art side of my experience was begun by attending workshops in the late 60's early 70's. They include AA/Alan Ross & John Sexton. I am an unabashed Weston fan.

But my favorite teacher of "technique" was the late Fred Picker. The cool thing about Fred was if he found a nuisance problem, he had a device invented to solve the problem. dry down, just dial in 3-5%(paper dependent). Cool light head output varing with voltage, build a stabilizer. My whole darkroom is populated with Zone VI equipment. Some really bright guy (I think from MIT?) worked with him to solve darkroom issues. He was one hell of a printer.

I am fortunate to live 15 minutes from the Amon Carter Museum, one of the more photo-centric museums in the country. My kids grew up, being in tow being exposed to the great American photographers. The Porter permanent collection is located there. The Avedon exibit, the American west, is there now. Impactful.

In some ways, Michael is the current Picker, in that his greatest influence is the imparting of information to many.

bob
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on January 04, 2006, 10:58:09 am
Quote
I think there's a subtopic that may be interesting to many. That is who is your most influencial "teacher" of photography.

The art side of my experience was begun by attending workshops in the late 60's early 70's. They include AA/Alan Ross & John Sexton. I am an unabashed Weston fan.

But my favorite teacher of "technique" was the late Fred Picker. The cool thing about Fred was if he found a nuisance problem, he had a device invented to solve the problem. dry down, just dial in 3-5%(paper dependent). Cool light head output varing with voltage, build a stabilizer. My whole darkroom is populated with Zone VI equipment. Some really bright guy (I think from MIT?) worked with him to solve darkroom issues. He was one hell of a printer.

I am fortunate to live 15 minutes from the Amon Carter Museum, one of the more photo-centric museums in the country. My kids grew up, being in tow being exposed to the great American photographers. The Porter permanent collection is located there. The Avedon exibit, the American west, is there now. Impactful.

In some ways, Michael is the current Picker, in that his greatest influence is the imparting of information to many.

bob
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=55182\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Good points, Bob. My own darkroom and film setups were heavily influenced by Picker, too. Zone VI view camera, cold-light enlarger head, viewing filters, etc., etc. Minor White really got me to try to see things (two workshops with him in the 60s), but later on, Fred Picker's newsletter and equipment helped out a lot.

Ah, the good old days! One of these days soon I hope to go back into my darkroom and see if I can still make a decent wet print.  
My one remaining film camera is a Mamiya 6 RF (6x6).

Around Boston in recent years at the Museum of Fine Arts there have been several truly great Weston exhibits and one great Adams exhibit (just closing bout now).

Eric
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Digiteyesed on January 04, 2006, 01:24:24 pm
Quote
I think there's a subtopic that may be interesting to many. That is who is your most influencial "teacher" of photography.

If I had to name my most influential teacher, it would be Larrie Thomson (http://www.nightphotographer.com/). Larrie was kind enough to take me on some road trips and teach me his light painting technique, which I adapted to digital (http://www.digiteyesed.com/clippings/f2_lp_article.pdf). While he's nearly 100% nocturnal, his biggest influence on me was not to make me fall in love with light painting (which I am), but to make me fall in love with rural photography. I get heart palpitations whenever I find an abandoned barn, a lone tree in the prairies, or a dead car lying in some farmer's field. I blame Larrie for this.

[Edited for typos, dammit.]
Title: Name your influences
Post by: mozart1957 on January 04, 2006, 03:46:23 pm
Edward Sheriff Curtiss' portraits of Native Americans (especially of the Southwest) and Galen Rowell's landscapes have always inspired me.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: BlasR on January 05, 2006, 05:41:13 pm
 no one pic me? that is so sad
BlasR
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on January 06, 2006, 12:02:11 am
Quote
no one pic me? that is so sad
BlasR
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=55314\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Actually, from Blasr I have learned that he gets his LLVJ long before I do!  
Title: Name your influences
Post by: raven4ns on April 08, 2006, 05:25:55 pm
Robert Bateman, not for the main subjects necessarily but for the exquisite detail work and Freeman Patterson. While I prefer shooting B & W, these 2 gentlemen had a wonderfully profound impact on my appreciation for shooting nature.

Tim
Title: Name your influences
Post by: situgrrl on April 11, 2006, 03:46:48 pm
In no particular order

Don McCullin
James Nachewey
Annie Lebovitz
Bob Carlos Clarke
Henri Cartier Bresson
Boogie www.artcoup.com
Troy Pavia www.lostamerica.com

Teachers?  He's called Malcolm and he used to lecture in photography.  (UWIC cut the course so he's now a technician type person.)  Despite never having been a student at the university he teaches at, he allows me to go into the darkrooms, rinse the chemicals and will quite happily spend hours critiquing my pictures and advising on technique.  Guess I owe him a drink then!
Title: Name your influences
Post by: fromeo76 on May 17, 2006, 12:29:42 am
Larry Fink (for Social Graces)
Larry Clark (for Tulsa and Tulsa only)
Jim Goldberg
Harry Callahan (especially his portraits of Eleanor)
Rineke Dijkstra
Diane Arbus
Allen Frame (studied with him)
Dorothea Lange
Immogen Cunningham
Daido Moriyama
James Nachtwey
Pep Bonet
Sylvia Plachy.... to name a few.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: BernardLanguillier on May 17, 2006, 06:50:52 pm
Painters:

Vermeer, Rik Wouters, Magritte, Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera,...

Photographers:

Yasutaka Tanji, Philippe Plisson, Galen Rowell, Jack Dykinga, Eliot Porter, Ansel Adams, Pierre Tairraz, Doisneau, HCB, Steve Mc Curry, Veronique Vial, Anton Corbijn, Josef Sudek, Sebastiao Salgado, Katsuhiko Tokunaga,...

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Paul Sumi on May 17, 2006, 09:08:39 pm
Quote
Painters:

Vermeer, Rik Wouters, Magritte, Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera,...

[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=65841\")

If we're talking about painting/painters, then the mid-19th century [a href=\"http://http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/hudson.html]Hudson River school[/url] in America seems to inform a lot of landscape photography.

Paul
Title: Name your influences
Post by: BernardLanguillier on May 17, 2006, 09:30:46 pm
Quote
If we're talking about painting/painters, then the mid-19th century Hudson River school (http://http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/hudson.html) in America seems to inform a lot of landscape photography.

Paul
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=65848\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Paul,

It might have been off topic, but I have personnally been influenced just as much by painters as I have by photographers.

Since composition and light and the very essence of photography, I feel that valuable information can be gained from those painters who decide to commit a whole month on a composition rather than 1/250th sec...  They MUST be thinking more about the content of their images...

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Name your influences
Post by: tsjanik on May 17, 2006, 10:06:42 pm
Not an individual, but a series of books.  This may appear simplistic now that the Time –Life has declined to infomercials (sp?), but my serious interest in photography was fueled by the Time-Life series (16 books, I believe), which I read and re-read in the 1970’s.  Nothing in great detail or depth, but an incredible overview of the work of some remarkable photographers.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: schaefej on May 20, 2006, 04:15:16 am
Not obviously visual, but important to me:  "The Poetics of Space," by Gaston Bachelard:
"In its countless alveoli, space contains compressed time.  That is what space is for."

jim schaefer
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Dan Sroka on May 22, 2006, 03:05:20 pm
One photographer I wish I was:  Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison (http://www.parkeharrison.com/). Their work surprises, inspires, and stuns me into silence.

As for others, I'd have to say the authors Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, and Haruki Murakami have had a great influence on how I see and observe the world.

Dan
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Jack Varney on June 12, 2006, 10:32:04 pm
George Skadding for his patience with me during the short time I had the good fortune to work at his side. His years at the AP and Life Mag convinced him that pictures were made not taken and that if you captured "mood, feeling and action" you had made the photograph.

Ansel Adams for his vision and the zone system.

Fritz Henle also had fine technique and his books demonstrated his mastery of the square format.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: neoprinter on July 08, 2006, 04:35:05 pm
I'm surprised so many posters here are going so far back in time for their influences.  For me, I'd have to say William Eggleston, and there are many other practitioners of color realism who are friends and influences as well, including William Christenberry, Birnie Imes, William Greiner, David Leonard, Christian Patterson etc.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 09, 2006, 12:09:27 am
Quote
I'm surprised so many posters here are going so far back in time for their influences.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70095\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Perhaps you underestimate the ages of some of us.  

Why, just the other day Al Stieglitz and I were chuckling at how much technology has changed without improving photographic vision . . .    

Eric
Title: Name your influences
Post by: Bill in WV on July 11, 2006, 02:01:16 pm
I've been following this thread with some interest and just wanted to add a couple of thoughts . . .

I recently made the trip to Toronto to see Michael's showing of his China / Antartica photographs and it makes you stop and think, while it is sometimes subtle, the difference in seeing the real print up close and personal was actually exciting. (I had the additional benefit that Michael met my wife and me, along with fellow forum acquaintance, Tim Gray and gave us the personal tour.)

But then I started reading this thread and thought first about whose work I wanted most to eventually emulate, or whose work was the greatest influence on me. So here is my short list:
Ansel Adams
Walker Evans
Margret Bourke White
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Alfred Eisenstadt
Eddie Adams
Steve McCurry
Michael Reichmann
David Hume Kennerly (first author photographer I almost wrote to about his book, "Shooter." His time as President Ford's photographer and what he produced was, in my mind, amazing. I still might do it.)
(and now, thanks to Michael) Clyde Butcher.

And to combine someone else's idea, if it were possible to sit down for an evening, I'll do the steaks on the grill, and have each of these folks bring their 10 favorite prints or even fewer, and we talk and share. What an evening that would be. Oh, there are still others, but this would be a great start.

Bill in WV
Title: Name your influences
Post by: barryfitzgerald on July 11, 2006, 07:20:07 pm
This may be an odd thing to say, but in honesty I have no influeces at all! Well almost, I like the work of Joseph Holmes very much...wonderful photographer..but my style if there is any..is not like his.

I respect Bresson a lot, and agree with many things he says..but whilst I like some of his work, I dont like a fair few also.

I dont like Ansel Adams! sorry guys...just not my thing..again respect him though. I do look at lots of peoples work though, well known or not. I enjoy looking, but have never felt the desire to emulate anyone. Of course there is always something to learn from others. I find lots of landscapers are very similar in their shots, its very very hard to be different in this game.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: wilburdl on October 01, 2006, 08:56:18 pm
I'll go with Caravaggio and Rembrant... really, I'm influenced by the dramatic shadows in Baroque paintings and the subtle tonality. Photographically speaking, Mario Testino, Mark Seliger, Annie Liebowitz, Gordon Parks, Russell James, Troy House, Mark Tucker, Jim Fiscus and Sacha Waldman.
Title: Name your influences
Post by: wolfnowl on October 03, 2006, 01:13:37 am
I would list Freeman Patterson as well (loved the 'Photography and the Art of Seeing' books), and also Tim Fitzharris.  Elizabeth Carmel would make the list too...

Mike.

(and MR, of course!!!)