12-03-2018, 22:59
We present to your attention a selection of amazing works, after viewing which you will definitely think about the shooting process and realism. A photographer named Mikhail Zagornatsky first picked up his own camera in 2011. I studied the process of learning photography on my own. The main directions are conceptual and fine art photography. The latest projects have absolutely no Photoshop elements.
The master loves to create his creations in real time, without piecemeal additives. Before a new project, it takes a lot of time to prepare the necessary props and draw up a creative plan. The camera lens only shows true beauty.
7-03-2018, 20:14
If you are ever in Gloucestershire, be sure to visit the picturesque village called Bybury. The famous artist and singer named William Morris called this place the most amazing English village. Many tourists agree with this opinion to this day. Landscapes of the village can be seen on the inside cover of the British passport.
The total population of the village is about six hundred people. For many centuries, an authentic atmosphere has been maintained, even despite the frequent visits of tourists. Bibury is a typical English village. Now the population is about 600 people. The Koln River flows through the territory of the village.
5-01-2018, 18:25
Today we want to present the work of a talented female photographer named Anne Guyer. Recently, she presented her original series of photographs. The main source of inspiration was pets and charming autumn leaves.
Anne began to be interested in the art of photography as a child. The girl watched her father, a photographer, who created interesting works. But the final passion began about seven years ago. The primary source of inspiration was Cindy's first dog. You can see more amazing photos thanks to our article today.
15-12-2017, 22:16
Today we will introduce you to the works of a young, but very talented photographer named Craig Burrows. He photographs various flowers and plants using modern UVIVF technology. All the subtleties of the process of creating new works are not known for sure. The artist creates a fluorescent glow in his works using UV light. During shooting, ultraviolet radiation is blocked in the lens.
At the moment, Barrows has in his arsenal only individual flowers and plants, but in the near future he plans to work with entire gardens. For large projects, 100-watt floodlights will be used. Detailed Photos look in today's materials!
15-12-2017, 22:16
Today's selection of photographs will tell you all the secrets of Patty Waymire's journey to the island called Barter. This area is located off the coast of distant Alaska. The main goal was to photograph wonderful polar bears in a snowy area. But after arriving at the site, Patty did not find the expected snow, and sea ice had not even begun to form. The conceived ideas for photographs had to be put aside, and the local owners of the sea ice floes lay serenely on the sandy shore. Such a sad picture should serve for each of us a clear example human impact on the surrounding atmosphere. More photos look in the materials of our article today.
23-06-2017, 12:45
Our material today will tell you about the work of a self-taught photographer named Daniel Rzezhikha. In his works he uses the techniques of minimalism and classic black and white photography. It is in these shades that all the subtleties of photography are conveyed. Daniel comes from small town Krupke, which is located near Teplice. Throughout his childhood he loved traveling and surrounding nature. His first passion for photography began precisely during various travels, in which the boy took pictures with a point-and-shoot camera.
The first thought about taking up photography professionally came in 2006, after which I bought a Pentax camera. Since then, Zhezhikha has been completely immersed in the world of filming!
22-06-2017, 12:18
A professional photographer named Elena Chernyshova works in the documentary genre. Originally from Moscow, but currently lives and works in France. Initially, Elena graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, but after working in her specialty for a couple of years, she decided to do something else. The idea of becoming a photographer appeared after traveling on a bicycle from Tula to Vladivostok; she covered such a huge distance in 1004 days.
Many of Cheshnyshova’s works can be seen in famous world publishing houses. She dedicated her new series called “Winter” to the chic beauty of the Russian winter. Each of the works very subtly conveys the entire atmosphere of this wonderful time of year.
21-06-2017, 10:14
A clear starry sky is becoming a rare phenomenon for residents of modern megapoles, and the night starry sky has always been a great mystery for man, and man has always wanted to find out what is above the sky, in the universe strewn with myriads of stars. Finnish photographer Oskar Keserci is interested in photographing the starry sky. Most of the year it is cold in Finland. At night the temperature drops to 30 degrees below zero.
The blue shades of the photographs successfully convey the feeling of frosty Finnish nights, Oscar believes. It is on a starry night that you can experience special sensations that will immerse you in a world of fantasy. A series of photographs of the master is presented in our review!
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Nowadays, there is only one way to get rich, become famous and go down in history as a photographer - by doing anything but photography. A hundred years ago you could easily become a great photographer, since there were two key prerequisites:
A. photography was a complex, troublesome and little-known craft;
b. Technologies gradually emerged and were introduced that made it possible to reproduce photographs in newspapers and (a little later) in color magazines.
That is, the glorious moment came when, having pressed the shutter button, you already understood that this frame would be seen by millions. But these millions did not yet know that they could do the same thing, since there were no digital point-and-shoot cameras, full automation and photo dumps on the Internet. Well, and talent, of course. You have no competition!
The golden era of photography, perhaps, should be recognized as the middle of the last century. However, many of the artists listed on our list belong to other distant and modern eras.
Helmut Newton, Germany, 1920–2004
A little more than a great and famous fashion photographer with a very, very independent understanding of what eroticism is. He was fiercely in demand by almost all glossy magazines, Vogue, Elle and Playboy in the first place. Died at 84 after crashing his car into concrete wall at full speed.
Richard Avedon, USA, 1923–2004
The god of black and white portraits, also interesting because delving into his galleries, you will find anyone. The photographs of this brilliant New York Jew have absolutely everything. They say that Richard took his first photograph at the age of nine, when the little boy accidentally caught Sergei Rachmaninoff in his lens.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, France, 1908–2004
An outstanding photorealist, one of the patriarchs of photo reporting, and at the same time an invisible man: he had a delicately developed gift for being able to remain noticeable to those he photographed. At first he studied to be an artist, where he developed a craving for light surrealism, which was then tangibly imprinted in his photographs.
Sebastian Salgado, Brazil, 1944
Creator of almost fantastic images, actually taken from real world. Salgado was a photojournalist who was especially drawn to anomalies, misfortunes, poverty and environmental disasters- but even such stories of his fascinate with their beauty. In 2014, director Wim Wenders made a film about him called “The Salt of the Earth” (special prize at the Cannes Film Festival).
William Eugene Smith, USA, 1918–1978
A photojournalist, perhaps famous for everything a photojournalist can become famous for - from canonical war photographs to expressive and touching portraits of great and ordinary people. Below is an example of footage from a session with Charlie Chaplin for Life magazine.
Guy Bourdin, France, 1928–1991
One of the most copied and imitated photographers in the world. Erotic, surreal. Now - a quarter of a century after his death - it is increasingly relevant and modern.
Weegee (Arthur Fellig), USA, 1899–1968
Emigrant from of Eastern Europe, now a great classic of street and crime photography. The man managed to arrive at any incident in New York - be it a fire, murder or a banal massacre - faster than other paparazzi and, often, the police. However, besides all kinds of emergencies, his photographs show almost all aspects of life in the poorest neighborhoods of the metropolis. The noir film Naked City (1945) was based on his photo, Stanley Kubrick studied on his photos, and Weegee himself is mentioned at the beginning of the comic film Watchmen (2009).
Alexander Rodchenko, USSR, 1891–1956
A pioneer of Soviet design and advertising, Rodchenko is, at the same time, a pioneer of constructivism. Expelled from the Union of Artists for departing from the ideals and style of socialist realism, but, fortunately, it did not come to the camps - he died a natural death at the dawn of Khrushchev’s “thaw”.
Irving Penn, USA, 1917–2009
Master of portrait and fashion genre. He is famous for his abundance of his signature tricks - for example, photographing people in the corner of a room or against all sorts of gray, ascetic backgrounds. He is famous for the catchphrase: “Shooting a cake can also be art.”
Anton Corbijn, Netherlands, 1955
The world's most prominent rock photographer, whose rise began with iconic photographs and video clips for Depeche Mode and U2. His style is easily recognizable - strong defocus and atmospheric noise. Corbijn also directed several films: Control (biography of the Joy Division frontman), The American (with George Clooney) and The Most a dangerous person"(based on the novel by Le Carré). If you search for famous photos of Nirvana, Metallica or Tom Waits on Google, there is almost a 100% chance that Corbijn's will come up first.
Steven Meisel, USA, 1954
One of the most successful fashion photographers in the world, who became especially popular in 1992 after the release of Madonna’s photo book “Sex”. Considered the discoverer of many catwalk superstars such as Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista or Amber Valletta.
Diane Arbus, USA, 1923–1971
Her real name is Diana Nemerova, and she found her niche in photography by working with the most unsightly people - freaks, dwarfs, transvestites, the weak-minded... best case scenario- with nudists. In 2006, the biographical film Fur was released, in which Nicole Kidman played the role of Diana.
David LaChapelle, USA, 1963
A master of pop photography (“pop” in the good sense of the word), LaChapelle, in particular, shot videos for Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera, so you will understand his style not only from photographs.
Marc Riboud, France, (1923-2016)
The author of at least a dozen “epoch prints”: you’ve probably seen a million times a hippie girl bringing a daisy to the barrel of a rifle. Riboud has traveled all over the world and is most revered for his portfolio of filming in China and Vietnam, although you can also find his scenes from the life of the Soviet Union. Died at the age of 93.
Elliott Erwitt, France, 1928
A Frenchman with Russian roots, famous for his ironic and absurd view of our troubled world, which is very moving in his still photographs. Not long ago, he also began exhibiting in galleries under the name André S. Solidor, which in abbreviation reads “ass.”
Patrick Demarchelier, France/USA, 1943
Still a living classic of fashion photography, he has enriched this genre with a particularly complex sophistication. And at the same time, he reduced the prohibitive degree of glamorous overdress, which was the norm before him.
Annie Leibovitz, USA, 1949
A master of fairy-tale plots with a very powerful charge of wit, understandable even to simpletons who are far from hyper-glamour. Which is not surprising, since lesbian Annie started out as a staff photographer for Rolling Stone magazine.
Everyone has seen these pictures: a selection of the most famous and most impressive photographs that have repeatedly flown around the world.
"The most famous photograph“that no one saw,” is how Associated Press photographer Richard Drew calls his photograph of one of the victims of the World War II shopping center, who jumped out of the window towards own death 11 September
Malcolm Brown, a 30-year-old photographer from New York, followed an anonymous tip to photograph the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, which became a sign of protest against repression of Buddhists.
The 21-week fetus, which was due to be born last December, was in the womb before spinal surgery began. At this age, the child can still be legally aborted.
The death of the Al-Dura boy, filmed by a television station reporter as he is shot by Israeli soldiers while in the arms of his father.
Photographer Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph "Famine in Sudan," taken in early spring 1993. On this day, Carter specially flew to Sudan to film scenes of famine in a small village.
A Jewish settler confronts Israeli police as they enforce a Supreme Court decision to dismantle nine houses at the outpost of Amona settlement, West Bank, February 1, 2006.
A 12-year-old Afghan girl is a famous photograph taken by Steve McCurry in a refugee camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
July 22, 1975, Boston. A girl and a woman fall trying to escape a fire. Photo by Stanley Forman/Boston Herald, USA.
"Unknown Rebel" in Tiananmen Square. This famous photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widene, shows a protester who single-handedly held off a tank column for half an hour.
The girl Teresa, who grew up in a concentration camp, draws a "house" on the board. 1948, Poland. Author - David Seymour.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were a series of coordinated suicide terrorist attacks that occurred in the United States. By official version The Islamist terrorist organization al-Qaeda is responsible for these attacks.
Frozen Niagara Falls. Photo from 1911.
April 1980, UK. Karamoja region, Uganda. Hungry boy and missionary. Photo by Mike Wells.
White and Colored, photograph by Elliott Erwitt, 1950.
Young Lebanese men drive through a devastated area of Beirut on August 15, 2006. Photo by Spencer Platt.
The photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head not only won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also changed the way Americans think about what happened in Vietnam.
Lynching, 1930. This photo was taken as a mob of 10,000 whites hanged two black men for raping a white woman and murdering her boyfriend. Author: Lawrence Beitler.
At the end of April 2004, the CBS program 60 Minutes II aired a story about the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by a group of American soldiers. This became the biggest scandal surrounding the American presence in Iraq.
Burial of an unknown child. On December 3, 1984, the Indian city of Bhopal suffered from the largest man-made disaster in human history: a giant toxic cloud released into the atmosphere by an American pesticide plant killed more than 18 thousand people.
Photographer and scientist Lennart Nilsson gained international fame in 1965 when LIFE magazine published 16 pages of photographs of a human embryo.
Photo of the Loch Ness monster, 1934. Author: Ian Wetherell.
Riveters. The photo was taken on September 29, 1932, on the 69th floor of Rockefeller Center during the final months of construction.
Surgeon Jay Vacanti from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1997 managed to grow a human ear on the back of a mouse using cartilage cells.
Freezing rain can form a thick layer of ice on any object, even destroying giant power poles. The photo shows the consequences of freezing rain in Switzerland.
A man tries to alleviate the difficult conditions for his son in a prison for prisoners of war. March 31, 2003. An Najaf, Iraq.
Dolly is a female sheep, the first mammal successfully cloned from the cell of another adult creature. The experiment was carried out in Great Britain, where she was born on July 5, 1996.
The Patterson-Gimlin film's 1967 documentary film of a female Bigfoot, the American Bigfoot, is still the only clear photographic evidence of the existence of living relict hominids on earth.
Republican soldier Federico Borel García is depicted facing death. The photo caused a huge shock in society. The author of the photo is Robert Capa.
The photo, taken by reporter Alberto Korda at a rally in 1960, claims to be the most circulated photo in the history of photography.
The photograph showing the hoisting of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag spread throughout the world. 1945 Author - Evgeny Khaldey.
Death of a Nazi functionary and his family. The father of the family killed his wife and children, then shot himself. 1945, Vienna.
For millions of Americans, this photograph, which photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt called “Unconditional Surrender,” symbolized the end of World War II.
The assassination of the thirty-fifth President of the United States, John Kennedy, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 local time.
On December 30, 2006, ex-president Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. The Supreme Court has sentenced the former Iraqi leader to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out at 6 a.m. in a suburb of Baghdad.
American soldiers drag the body of a Viet Cong (South Vietnamese rebel) soldier on a leash. February 24, 1966, Tan Binh, South Vietnam.
A young boy looks out of a bus loaded with refugees who fled the epicenter of the war between Chechen separatists and Russians, near Shali, Chechnya. The bus returns to Grozny. May 1995. Chechnya
Terry the cat and Thomson the dog are dividing who will be the first to start eating Jim the hamster. The owner of the animals and the author of this wonderful photograph, American Mark Andrew, claims that no one was hurt during the photo shoot.
French photographer Henry Cartier Bresson, who is considered one of the founders of the genre of photo reporting and photojournalism, took this shot in Beijing in the winter of 1948. The photograph shows children queuing for rice.
Photographer Bert Stern became the last person to photograph Marilyn Monroe. A few weeks after the photo shoot, the actress passed away.
There were times when alcohol was sold to children - all the parent had to do was write a note. In this shot, the boy proudly walks home, carrying two bottles of wine to his father.
The English Rugby Championship final in 1975 gave rise to the so-called streaking, when naked people run onto the field in the middle of a sporting event. A fun hobby, and nothing more.
In 1950, at the height of time Korean War, General MacArthur, when the Chinese launched a counteroffensive, realized that he had overestimated the capabilities of his troops. It was then that he uttered his most famous phrase: “We retreat! For we are moving in the wrong direction!”
This photograph of Winston Churchill was taken on January 27, 1941 in a photographic studio in Downing Street. Churchill wanted to show the world the resilience and determination of the British during World War II.
This photograph was made into a postcard and was for a long time the most popular postcard in America. The photograph shows three girls with dolls arguing furiously about something in an alley in Sevilla (Spain).
Two boys collect the fragments of a mirror, which they themselves had previously broken. And life is still in full swing around.
David Barnett has been a photojournalist for 40 years. His camera doesn't hunt beautiful landscapes and cats - it is aimed at important events that become symbols of the era. David's photographs allow you to look at the world from the outside. His works are a living history textbook, which, instead of dry facts, demonstrates the bright events of our time.
I like David. While other pros are shopping, he's carrying around an ancient Speed Graphic video camera that's 60 years old. Of course, he has expensive professional equipment. But, apparently, he understands perfectly well: an expensive camera is a pleasant bonus, and not a prerequisite for a good shot. A real master can take a good shot even with a point-and-shoot camera for 30 bucks.
- A simple example: in 2000, David won the “Eyes of History” competition by taking a photo with a cheap plastic Holga camera for $30.
When Helmut was a teenager, the Gestapo arrested his father. Newton fled Germany and moved to Australia, where he served in the Australian Army until the end of World War II... This seems to be the way to write a description if you've been bitten by a Wikipedia moderator.
The biographies of talented people often look too flawless, like a VIP room in a private clinic - just as sterilely clean and far from real life. German-Australian photographer, worked for Vogue magazine, sometimes shot in the nude genre... This short retelling does not give any idea of who Newton Hellmuth was.
And he was a sincere snob without delusions of grandeur, who loved the glitz of high society. He preferred to photograph rich people and stay in luxury hotels. And he spoke honestly about this, considering himself a rather superficial, but truthful person.
Until he suffered a heart attack in 1971, Helmut smoked 50 cigarettes a day and could party for a week. But a heart attack revealed an incredible truth to the 50-year-old photographer: it turns out that a wild “youth” lifestyle can end very sadly with age.
Having been on the verge of death, Helmut quit smoking, began to lead a more measured life and promised himself to film only what was interesting to him.
Helmut Newton on the things he hates:
- I hate good taste. This is a boring phrase that suffocates all living things.
- I hate it when everything is inside out - it's cheap.
- I hate dishonesty in photography: pictures taken in the name of some artistic principle are fuzzy and grainy.
Yuri Arcurs is one of the most successful stock photographers in the world. Instead of photographing sunrises and fog in a city park, he photographs what is for sale: happy families and pills, money and students. And on special sites called photo stocks, all this is sold and bought. And in this area, Arcurs became a real guru, who showed by personal example how you can earn money, achieve heights and even have fun doing commercial stock photography.
Yuri was born and raised in Denmark. He started earning money from photo stocks during his student years to pay for his studies. At the time, the only model he could shoot was his girlfriend. But soon additional income became the main one for Yuri: within a few years, in 2008, he was earning up to $90,000 a month from photo stocks.
Today this guy sells his work to large companies: MTV, Sony, Microsoft, Canon, Samsung and Hewlett Packard. His shooting day costs $6,000. And this whole story became a real Cinderella fairy tale for freelancers with a camera.
How realistic is it to repeat this path to success? Who knows. We can only state that today Yuri Arcurs is one of the most successful stock photographers.
Irving Penn loved photography, but did not pursue this hobby special significance. His main job was art design: Irwin designed magazine covers and even got a job as an assistant art editor at the popular Vogue magazine.
But cooperation with famous photographers of this publication did not work out. Penn was constantly dissatisfied with their work and could not explain to them what he needed. As a result, he waved his hand and took up the camera himself. And how he got it: the pictures were so successful that his superiors persuaded him to retrain as a photographer.
Irwin was the first to shoot models against a white or gray background - there was nothing superfluous in the frame. His incredible attention to every detail earned him a reputation as one of the best portrait photographers of his time. This allowed Penn to photograph various celebrities, including Al Pacino and Hitchcock, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.
Gursky inherited his love for photography from his father: he was an advertising photographer and taught his son all the intricacies of his craft. Therefore, Andreas did not hesitate in choosing a profession: he graduated from the school of professional photographers and the State Academy of Arts.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about this because my Wiki-moderator syndrome has flared up again. It’s just that Andreas is one of the few photographers from our rating who approached this activity thoroughly, and did not start shooting by chance.
After completing his studies, Gursky began traveling around the world. By experimenting and gaining new experience, he found his own style, which is now his calling card: Andreas takes huge photographs, the dimensions of which are measured in meters. Looking at their smaller copies on a computer screen, it is difficult to appreciate the effect they produce in full size.
Regardless of whether Gursky was photographing a city panorama or a river landscape, people or factories, his photographs amaze with their scale and the peculiar monotony of the details in the photo.
Ansel Adams spent most of his life photographing nature in the western United States. He traveled extensively, photographing the wildest and most inaccessible corners of national parks. His love of nature was expressed not only in photography: Ansel was an active advocate for the conservation and protection of the environment.
But what Adams didn’t like was pictorialism, popular in the first half of the 20th century - a shooting method that made it possible to take photographs similar to painting. In contrast, Ansel and a friend founded the f/64 group, which professed the principles of so-called “direct photography”: shooting everything honestly and realistically, without any filters, post-processing and other bells and whistles.
Group f/64 was founded in 1932, at the very beginning of Ansel's career. But he was true to his convictions, so he retained his love for nature and documentary photography until the end of his life.
- You've probably seen this desktop screensaver depicting the Teton Range and the Snake River against the backdrop of the setting sun:
So, it was Adams who was the first to capture this landscape from this angle. His black-and-white photograph was included in 116 images that were recorded on the Voyager gold plate - this is a message from earthlings to unknown civilizations, sent into space 40 years ago. Now the aliens will think that we don’t have color cameras, but we do have good photographers.
I like Sebastian's biography. This is a natural evolution that happens to any idealist throughout life.
This story was told by Salgado himself in an interview when he visited Moscow in February 2016. At the age of 25, he and his wife moved from Brazil to Europe. From there they planned to go to Soviet Union and enter the Peoples' Friendship University to build a society without social inequality. But in 1970, their dreams were destroyed by a friend from Prague - the Czechs tasted plenty of communism in 1968.
So, this guy dissuaded the spouses, explaining that no one was building communism in the USSR anymore. Power does not belong to the people and if they want to fight for the happiness of ordinary people, they can stay and help immigrants. Salgado listened to his comrade and stayed in France.
He studied to be an economist, but quickly realized that it was not for him. His wife, Lelia Salgado, had a more creative profession - she was a pianist... but she was also disappointed in her occupation and decided to become an architect. It was she who bought their first camera to photograph architecture. As soon as Sebastian looked at the world through the viewfinder, he immediately realized that he had found his true passion. And after 2 years he became a professional photographer.
According to Salgado himself, his economic education gave him knowledge of history and geography, sociology and anthropology. A huge store of knowledge opened up opportunities for him that were unavailable to other photographers: understanding human society in various parts of our planet. He visited more than 100 countries, taking an incredible amount of documentary photographs.
But don’t think that Sebastian photographed exotic beaches and funny animals while vacationing on tropical islands. His travels don't go that way at all. Initially, an idea is born: “Workers”, “Terra”, “Renaissance” - these are just some of the names of his albums. Afterwards, preparations for the trip begin and the trip itself, which can take several years.
Many of his works are dedicated to human suffering: he photographed refugees in African countries, victims of famine and genocide. Some critics even began to reproach Salgada for presenting poverty and suffering as something aesthetic. Sebastian himself is sure that the matter is different: according to him, he has never photographed those who look pathetic. Those he photographed were in distress, but they had dignity.
And it would be completely wrong to think that Salgado was “promoting himself” on someone else’s grief. On the contrary, he drew the attention of mankind to those troubles that many did not notice. The situation is indicative when Sebastian completed the work “Exodus” in the 1990s: he photographed people who escaped genocide. After the trip, he admitted that he was disappointed in people and no longer believed that humanity could survive. He returned to Brazil and took some time off to recover.
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending: the old idealist regained his faith in beauty, and is now busy with another project, photographing the untouched corners of our planet.
If you start typing in a search engine , then Google will display a drop-down window with the option "Steve McCurry Afghan Girl". This is quite strange, because McCurry is too mustachioed for a girl, even an Afghan one.
In fact, the “Afghan Girl” is Steve’s most famous photograph, appearing on the cover of National Geographic magazine. Even the Wikipedia article about this guy starts with this story:
- “Steve is the mustachioed American photojournalist who photographed the Afghan girl.”. (Wikipedia)
Most articles about this photographer begin with a similar phrase, including our story about him. One gets the impression that he is an actor of one role, like Daniel Radcliffe or Macaulay Culkin. But it is not so.
Steve's career as a professional photographer began during the war in Afghanistan. He did not drive around the country in a Hummer, hiding behind the backs of the military, but stayed among ordinary people: he got local clothes, sewed rolls of film into them and traveled around the country like an ordinary Afghan. Or like an ordinary American spy disguised as an Afghan - someone could consider this option. So Steve took a risk, but thanks to him, the world saw the first photographs of that conflict.
Since then, McCurry has not changed his approach to work: he wandered around the world, photographing different people. Steve has captured many military conflicts and has become a true master of street photography. Although in fact McCurry is a photojournalist, he managed to blur the line between documentary and artistic photography. His photographs are bright and attractive, like a postcard, but at the same time truthful. They do not require any explanations or comments - everything is clear without words. To create such photos, you need a rare flair.
Annie Leibovitz is a real expert when it comes to photographing stars. Her photographs graced the covers of the most popular magazines, causing strong emotions and discussions. Who else would have thought of photographing a grimacing Whoopi Goldberg in a milk bath? Or a naked John Lennon cuddling up to Yoko Ono in a fetal position? By the way, this was the last photograph in his life, taken a few hours before Chapman’s fatal shot.
Annie's biography looks quite smooth: after studying at the Art Institute in San Francisco, Leibovitz got a job at Rolling Stone magazine. She collaborated with him for more than 10 years. During this time, Annie has earned a reputation as a person who is able to photograph any celebrity in an interesting and creative way. And this is quite enough to achieve success in modern show business.
Having gained some fame, Annie moves to New York, where she opens her own photography studio. In 1983, she began working with Vanity Fair magazine, which sponsored her subsequent shocking photographs of stars. Shoot Demi Moore naked on last stage pregnancy or covered with clay and exhibited in the middle of the desert by Sting - this is quite in the spirit of Leibovitz. Like forcing Cate Blanchett to ride a bike or forcing a goose to take pictures with DiCaprio. No wonder her work is popular!
Who else can boast that they photographed the Queen of England, Michael Jackson, Barack Obama and many, many other celebrities? And, mind you, he was not filming as a papparazi, hiding behind a bush, but was organizing a full-fledged photo shoot? This is why Annie Leibovitz is considered, if not the best, then the most successful modern photographer. Although somewhat pop.
1. Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri got his passion for art from his uncle: he was an artist and got his nephew interested in painting. This slippery slope eventually led him to a passion for photography. What did Henri do that distinguished him from hundreds and thousands of other photographers?
He realized a simple truth: everything must be done honestly and truly. That's why he refused staged photos and never asked anyone to act out a certain situation. Instead, he closely observed what was happening around him.
In order to remain invisible during the shooting, Henri covered the shiny metal parts on the camera with black electrical tape. He became a real “invisible man,” which allowed him to capture the most sincere feelings of people. And to do this, it’s not enough not to attract attention - you need to be able to determine the decisive moment for the photo. It was Henri who introduced this term, “the decisive moment,” and even wrote a book with that title.
To summarize: Cartier-Bresson's photographs are distinguished by living realism. For such work, some professional skills are not enough. It is necessary to sensitively understand human nature, to capture his emotions and mood. All this was inherent in Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was honest in his work.
Don't be a snob... Repost!
The profession of photographer today is one of the most widespread. Perhaps it would be easier here to become the best of the best at the beginning or middle of the 20th century. Today, when every second or third photographer, well, at least considers himself one, the criteria for good photography, at first glance, are blurred. But this is only at first, superficial glance. Quality standards and focus on talent have not gone away. You always need to keep before your eyes a kind of standard, an example that you can follow. We have prepared for you a list of the 20 best photographers in the world, which will become an excellent tuning fork...
Alexander Rodchenko
Revolutionary photographer. Rodchenko means as much to photography as Eisenstein does to cinema. He worked at the intersection of avant-garde, propaganda, design and advertising.
All these hypostases formed an inextricable unity in his work.
By rethinking all the genres that existed before him, he made a kind of great turning point in the art of photography and set the course for everything new and progressive. The famous photographs of Lily Brik and Mayakovsky belong to his lens.
- He is also the author of the famous phrase “Work for life, not for palaces, temples, cemeteries and museums.”
Henri-Cartier Bresson
A classic of street photography. Native of Chanteloupe, Seine-et-Marne department in France. He started out as an artist painting in the “surrealism” genre, but his achievements did not end there. In the early 30s, when the famous Leica fell into his hands, he fell in love with photography forever.
Already in 1933, an exhibition of his works was held at Julien Levy, a gallery in New York. He worked with director Jean Renoir. Bresson's street reports are especially appreciated.
Contemporaries especially noted his talent for remaining invisible to the person being photographed.
Therefore, the unstaged, authentic nature of his photographs is striking. Like a true genius, he left a galaxy of talented followers.
Anton Corbijn
Perhaps, for fans of Western rock music, this name is not an empty phrase. In general, one of the most famous photographers in the world.
The most original and extraordinary photographs of such groups as: Depeche Mode, U2, Nirvana, Joy Division and others were taken by Anton. He is also the designer of U2 albums. Plus he shot videos for a number of teams and performers, including: Coldplay, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, country legend Johnny Cash, thrash metal mastodons Metallica, and singers Roxette.
Critics note the originality of Corbijn's style, which, however, has countless imitators.
Mick Rock
There are paparazzi photographers who intrude into the personal lives of stars without permission and are mercilessly thrown out of there. And then there are people like Mick Rock.
What does it mean? Well, how can I tell you? Remember David Bowie? Here is Mick - the only person with a lens at the ready who was able to enter the personal space of the discoverer of new musical horizons, the trickster and the Martian from rock music. Mick Rock's photographs are a kind of cardiogram of Bowie's creative period from 1972 to 1973, when Ziggy Stardust had not yet returned back to his planet.
During that period and earlier, David and his associates worked hard on the image of a real star, which as a result became a reality. In terms of budget, Mick's work is inexpensive, but impressive. “Everything was created on a very small scale with smoke and mirrors,” Mick recalled.
Georgy Pinkhasov
An original photographer of his generation, a member of the Magnum agency, a graduate of VGIKA. It was Georgy who was invited by Andrei Tarkovsky to the set of the film “Stalker” as a reporter.
During the years of Perestroika, when the nude genre was a priority among advanced photographers, Georgy was one of the first to draw attention to the importance of a reportage photograph. They say that he did this at the suggestion of Tarkovsky and Tonino Guerra.
As a result, today his photographs of that everyday life are not only masterpieces containing authenticity, but also the most important evidence of that era. One of the famous cycles of Georgy Pinkhasov is “Tbilisi Baths”. Georgy notes important role accidents in art.
Annie Leibovitz
An essential name for our list of the best photographers. Annie made immersion into the life of a model her main creative principle.
One of the most famous portraits of John Lennon was made by her, and quite spontaneously.
“At that time I didn’t yet know how to control models, ask them to do what I needed. I was just metering the exposure and asked John to look into the lens for a second. And clicked...”
The result immediately made it onto the cover of Rolling Stone. The last photo shoot in Lennon's life was also carried out by her. The same photo of a naked John curled up around Yoko Ono, dressed all in black. Who hasn't been captured by Annie Leibovitz's camera: pregnant Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg bathing in milk, Jack Nicholson playing golf in a dressing gown, Michelle Obama, Natalia Vodianova, Meryl Streep. It’s impossible to list them all.
Sarah Moon
Real name is Mariel Hadang. Born in Paris 1941, during the Vichy regime her family moved to England. Mariel started out as a model, posing for various publications, then she tried herself on the other side of the lens and got a taste for it.
One can note her sensitive work with models, since Sarah knew firsthand about their profession. Her works are distinguished by their particular sensuality; Sarah is noted for her talent for especially sensitively conveying the femininity of her models.
In the 70s, Sarah left the modeling field and turned to black and white art photography. In 1979 he made experimental films. Subsequently, she worked as a cameraman on the set of the film “Lulu,” which would receive an award at the Venice Film Festival in 1987.
Sally Man
Another female photographer. Native of Lexington, Virginia. She almost never left her native place. Since the 70s, it has essentially worked only in the South of the United States.
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He shoots only in the summer; all other seasons he develops photographs. Favorite genres: portrait, landscape, still life, architectural photography. Favorite color scheme: black and white. Sally became famous for her photographs depicting members of her family - her husband and children.
The main thing that distinguishes her work is the simplicity of the subjects and interest in everyday life. Sally and her husband belong to the hippie generation, which has become their signature style of life: living away from the city, gardening, independence from social conventions.
Sebastian Salgado
Magic realist from photography. He draws all his wonderful images from reality. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
So, Sebastian is able to discern it in anomalies, misfortunes and environmental disasters.
Wim Wenders, an outstanding director of the German New Wave, spent a quarter of a century researching Salgado's work, resulting in the film Salt of the Earth, which received a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Weegee (Arthur Fellig)
Considered a classic of the crime genre in photography. During the period of his active work, not a single urban incident - from a fight to a murder - went unnoticed by Weegee.
He was ahead of his competitors, and sometimes got to the crime scene even earlier than the police. In addition to crime topics, he specialized in reporting on the everyday life of the slums of the metropolis.
His photographs formed the basis of Jules Dassin's noir Naked City, and Weegee is also mentioned in Zack Snyder's Watchmen. And the famous director Stanley Kubrick studied the art of photography from him in his youth. Check out the genius's early films, they're definitely influenced by Weegee's aesthetic.
Irving Penn
Master in the portrait genre. One can note a number of his favorite techniques: from shooting models in the corner of a room to using a plain white or gray background.
Irwin also liked to photograph representatives of various working professions in their uniforms and with tools at the ready. Brother“New Hollywood” director Arthur Penn, famous for his “Bonnie and Clyde.”
Diane Arbus
Her name at birth was Diana Nemerova. Her family emigrated from Soviet Russia in 1923 and settled in one of the neighborhoods of New York.
Diana was distinguished by a desire to violate generally accepted norms and to commit extravagant acts. At the age of 13, against the wishes of her parents, she married Alan Arbus, an aspiring actor, and took his last name. After some time, Alan left the stage and took up photography, involving his wife in the business. They opened a photography studio and shared responsibilities. Creative differences led to a break in the 60s. Having defended her creative principles, Diana became a cult photographer.
As an artist, she was distinguished by her interest in freaks, dwarfs, transvestites, and the weak-minded. And also to nudity. You can learn more about Diana’s personality by watching the film “Fur,” where she was played perfectly by Nicole Kidman.
Evgeny Khaldey
A very important photographer for our list. Thanks to him, key events of the first half of the 20th century were captured. While still a teenager, he chose the path of a photojournalist.
Already at the age of 22, he was an employee of TASS Photo Chronicles. He made reports about Stakhanov, photographed the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. Worked as a war correspondent throughout the Great Patriotic War. Walking from Murmansk to Berlin with his trusty Leica camera, he took a series of photographs, thanks to which today we can at least imagine everyday life in war.
The Potsdam Conference, the hoisting of the red banner over the Reichstag, the act of surrender fell into the eye of his lens fascist Germany and others major events. In 1995, two years before his death, Evgeniy Khaldei received the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Mark Riboud
Master of the reporting genre. His first famous photograph, published in Life - “Painter on Eiffel Tower" Recognized as a photographic genius, Riboud had a modest personality.
He tried to remain invisible both to those photographed and to his admirers.
The most famous photograph is of a hippie girl holding out a flower to soldiers standing with machine guns at the ready. He also has a series of photographs from the everyday life of the USSR in the 60s and a lot of other interesting things.
Richard Kern
And a little more rock and roll, especially since this is the main theme of this photographer, along with violence and sex. Considered one of the most important photographers for the New York underground.
Captured many famous, one might say extremely famous, musicians. Among them is the absolute monster and transgressor punk musician GG Allin. Kern also collaborates with men's magazines, where he submits his erotic works.
But his approach is far from the generally glossy one. In his spare time from photography, he shoots music videos. Among the groups with which Kern collaborated are Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson.
Thomas Morkes
Do you want peace, silence, or maybe even solitude? Then this is one of the most suitable candidates. Thomas Morkes from the Czech Republic is a landscape photographer who chose the charm of autumn nature as his theme. These photographs have it all: romance, sadness, the triumph of fading.
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One of the effects of Thomas’s photographs is the desire to get away from the city noise into some such jungle and reflect on the Eternal.
Yuri Artyukhin
Counts the best photographer wild animals. He is a researcher at the laboratory of ornithology at the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Yuri passionately loves birds.
It was for his photographs of birds that he received (more than once) a variety of awards not only in Russia, but throughout the world.
Helmut Newton
What about the nude genre? An excellent, very subtle and delicate genre that has its own masters.
Helmut became famous throughout the world for his works. His unspoken motto was the expression “Sex sells,” which means “sex helps sell.”
Winner of the most prestigious competitions, including the French “Order of Arts and Letters”.
Ron Galella
Having covered various areas of photography, one cannot fail to mention the pioneer of such a dubious and at the same time important genre for understanding the modern world as paparazzi.
You probably know that this phrase comes from Federico Fellini’s film “La Dolce Vita.” Ron Garella is one of those photographers who will not ask permission to shoot, but on the contrary, will catch stars when they are not ready for this in general.
Julia Roberts, Woody Allen, Al Pacino, Sophia Loren - that's far from full list those whom Ron had willfully caught. One day, Marlon Brando got so angry with Ron that he knocked out several of his teeth on the spot.
Guy Bourdin
One of the most important photographers needed for a correct understanding of the world of fashion, its origins and aesthetics. He combines eroticism and surrealism in his works. One of the most copied and imitated photographers in the world. Erotic, surreal. Now - a quarter of a century after his death - it is increasingly relevant and modern.
He published his first photographs in the mid-50s. The photo was, to put it mildly, provocative. A girl in an elegant hat against the backdrop of calf heads looking out of the window of a butcher shop. Over the next 32 years, Bourdain regularly contributed entertaining photographs to Vogue magazine. What set him apart from many of his colleagues was that Bourdain was given complete creative freedom.