Masters and history of photography
We're not trying to create an exhaustive list of photographers here, rather point at ones that we have found the most inspiring. It is quite difficult to find photographs online for most authors, for copyright reasons. The links presented in this section try to give a taste of the photographers' work.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Difficult to start by anyone else. We would like to encourage everyone to visit the website of
the Henri Cartier-Bresson foundation, but also to visit the foundation itself, a beautiful
space with new exhibitions three times a year.
Robert Doisneau
We're still looking for a website that would pay tribute to this patient photographer. For now, the best thing to do is to point to RAPHO the agency that represented him.
Edouard Boubat
In Boubat, we're particularly attracted to his inclusion of frames, his passion for windows, the way his photographs both have a solid structure and delicate movement.
Mario Giacomelli
Mario Giacomelli's photographs are a combination of previsualisation, decisive moment and post-processing, impossible to realise what they look like from a web version... And even then, it is difficult to fully apprehend his work from reproductions. For photographers, Mario Giacomelli's work is an invitation to push the boundaries further, to process the print in whatever way creation requires, to ignore the limits of the commonly accepted both in terms of technique and in terms of subject.
A book with many reproductions by Enzo Carli : Giacomelli (la forma dentro / Fotografie 1952-1995) ISBN 88-8158-036-5
Frank Horvat
We knew Frank Horvat for his excellent book
"Entre vues"
("Between views") and have realised that the contents are actually online on his site... An
absolute must-read, this book is a collection of interviews of very famous photographers by a
quite renowned one. His website works as a retrospective and the amount of photographs on
display there is fantastic: we wish to see more such sites!
A History of Photography - from its beginnings till the 1920s
Robert Leggat MA M.Ed Ph.D. FRPS FRSA, presents here an impressive reference on the key players of the early days of photography. A reference that comes handy more often than one would expect.
Photographers
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
It would have been tempting to put Yann Arthus Bertrand in the masters, but he would probably not have liked it. However much commercial use of his photographs has been made, his work is an inspiration and an exemple. An inspiration in the way he takes on subjects or viewpoints and makes them look new, forces us to change our vision. An exemple in how to be succesful and to stick to one's credo. Yann, chapeau!
One thing worth noting is the Earth from the Air experienced by Blind people part of his famous exhibition. Touching these panels while looking at the images has given us the strangest feeling of almost understanding what finger-reading is like. Almost. Yann, encore chapeau!
A book (in french) for us, photographers, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand: "Etre photographe" ISBN 2-7324-2799-3
Yann Layma
Yann Layma has been travelling China extensively and has thousands of pictures of this country over the last 25 years. He mentions that while in occident one writes with light, in China one captures shadows!
Jean-Christian Bourcart
We discovered the work of Jean-Christian Bourcart during the exhibition of his series "Traffic". His way of grabbing pictures, stealing them in a way, leads us to unlikely visions of the forbidden or the trivial.
Xavier Zimbardo
Our first contact with the world of Xavier Zimbardo was in an article he wrote for photographie.com, "Qu'est-ce qu'une photo d'Art?" (What is an Art photograph?). His work testifies that what he writes isn't just ideas but the way he leaves his creation: he won't hesitate to litteraly use a hammer on his negatives before printing (with good results)!
Heli Huhtala LRPS
Heli's photography oscillates between the calm, the intimate, the shy and the the sad, the violent, the mad. The results are sometimes charming, sometimes disturbing and best of all both types can be side by side.
Blue Planet Images
Robert Sanger presents a vast stock of photographs taken during his numerous journeys
around the globe, his beloved blue planet. This doesn't just contain splendid pictures, it also
gives interesting advice for the traveller wishing to follow similar tracks. Robert helped Jérôme
Muffat-Méridol plan his round the world trip and it made quite a
difference.
Alan Skyrme
Alan is a photographer, a traveller, a wine lover and simply a friendly person. He's been a key participants in starting up the 3D RTW disposable camera project.
Lindsey Stock
Lindsey Stock loves gardens, flowers and plants. She has a way with objects that is very inspiring too. She's got this neat little website to let us glimpse into her work.
Peter Paterson ARPS AFIAP DPAGB
Peter Paterson has got a terrific collection of landscape pictures, and doesn't stop there: we particularly like his Chilli Peppers!
Eddie Maes LRPS
Eddie's photography takes the approach of presenting only a "photographic record". This site is part in dutch, part in english, follow "Tentoonstellingen" on his website for his galleries. Eddie also has built the cameras for the 3D RTW disposable camera project.
Gerry Walden LRPS
His street photography is testimony of the admiration he has for the Cartier-Bresson generation of photographers.
David Bebbington ABIPP ARPS
The work we've seen from David Bebbington is an invitation to thoughts and meditation. As he puts it himself, he strives to capture "reflections of the subconscious". Only a small fraction of his work is on his site, unfortunately.
Paul Hardy-Carter
Paul Hardy-Carter makes his projects sound simple and his methods straightforward, his approach is very deep and human and this simplicity is the strength of his language. Beautiful photography and great webdesign!
Vincent Lowe ARPS
Some magnificent mountainscapes on Vincent Lowe's website, lots and lots of pictures and then more.
Fotoopa
At the border between science and art, we first discovered this site because of the experiments with ink and loudspeakers, in the "high speed photography" section. Don't get scared off by all this text in dutch and follow the pictures.
Glen Irven LRPS
Based in Guernsey, Glen is having a lot of success with his exhibitions and contests. A photographer worth keeping an eye on...
Paula Davies
Likes to call herself a butterfly-photographer going from subject to subject. We like her work on stone textures very much.
Kurt Jones
One of Kurt Jones' pictures is particularly famous on the internet, the one where a shark can be seen inside a wave with a surfer approaching. The story's worth reading... The rest of his work is worth seeing, too. Shame people passing pictures around on the internet wouldn't give credit...
Norman E. Riley
Superb mono!
Helge Fahrnberger
Found while browsing the web... Travel souvenirs in random order, some stunning shots in the middle of "family pictures"... Well worth a visit.
Organisations
The Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society aims at nothing less than to "promote excellence in the art and science of photography"! Of interest, their collection (hosted at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television), their prints and slide exhibition and their awarding of the coveted LRPS, ARPS and FRPS distinctions. There are members of the RPS all over the globe and while it is a British organisation it feels very much worldwide. The forum, http://www.rpsforum.org, is a very friendly place.
Nikon Owner's Club International
NOCI is a group of people who share a passion for this brand of equipement. Here also, although the group started off in the UK, quite an international crowd can be met. The forum is both relaxed and very well informed. To be noted, the little get-together that happens every couple of month in London and starts to happen elsewhere too, where photographers meet quite informally and share their latest findings and creations.
Photographie.com
This site is in french and is a wonderful resource on what happens in the photography world in France. Sometimes we would wish for some articles to be available in English too as to share the views which are often very interesting.
Technology & technique websites
The Luminous Landscape
Michael Reichmann's site is a mine of information on the most varied subjects. The tutorials, reviews and other essays found there all have in common the high degree of precision and seriousness that makes this site so useful.
Rob Galbraith
Rob Galbraith's site's main feature is the memory card database, where he maintains a cross reference of cards and camera showing how much of a difference they make or don't. The forums are less wild than dpreview's, probably because the site is mainly geared towards professionals.
Thom Hogan
Thom Hogan's writings are enjoyable to read, he's a very opinionated person who likes to check his facts. He has written many books on the Nikon system and his site is a useful reference.
Digital Photography Review
Phil Askey's site is probably the main place to go when looking for information on a digital camera as the site reviews so many of them in a consistent format with photo samples to download. The forums are very busy and the signal-to-noise ratio is really low. They are very useful, though, when trying to see if others have the same problems and how to resolve them.
The GigaPixel project
Using the best in film, scanning, and large format photography, this group has endeavoured to produce "ultra-high-resolution" photographs. No stitching involved!
The 2.5 GigaPixels image
Using a D1x and a computer controlled pan-tilt unit, the creation of another "ultra-high-resolution" image, with sticthing involved this time.
Friends of Hypernavigate
Tenshu's art
Tenshu's work is the sort that people would rather not be first to admit they like. I find it provocative, disturbing and questioning; all this in a good way.
No's den
The fact that he chose NO as a pseudo probably tells as much as there is to know about this character. You can never know what will come next from his side, a mix of images, equations or ravings...
Jon Torrens
From being a stand up comedian to modelling while designing video games, Jon's talents are multiple.
Musa machina
We have enjoyed so much the experience that we want to share it with all our visitors. Where we use photography, they use music and it's well worthyour click!
