Great Photographers of the Digital/Internet Era

Some example pictures by a few of the photographers nominated by TOP readers as standouts of the current digital/internet era, in response to the "Dare I Ask?" post. In no particular order. The reader who mentioned them in parentheses (unless there were many, or none).

Hedi Slimane [male, French], from Fashion Diary (Eddi)

Angela Bacon-Kidwell [female, from the U.S.] ("...Even though she's guilty of placing angel wings on a human, which was a ubiquitous trangression in the early days of digital and one that I thought I could never forgive." —latent_image [hey, even Koudelka's done that...sort of. —MJ])

UPDATE: Angela Bacon-Kidwell responds: "Just for the record the images of mine that you refer to having 'angel wings' are not digitally altered. They were actually there. I have a new image with 'paper angel wings.' I wonder if it might resonate with you. :-) Thanks for the shout out and intro to your site."

Loretta Lux [female, German]

Christian Coigny [male, Swiss] (Eric Kellerman)

Tommy (Toshihiro) Oshima [male, Japanese] (Bob Blakely). This is Solo Sniper: Daido Moriyama in the streets of Soho, London.

Jason Eskenazi [male, from the U.S.] (Rory Challands). Note that Wonderland is back in print, and can be ordered directly from Jason at his website for only $32. Cool. Much better than paying $73 to $900(!) at Amazon. —MJ.

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[To be continued...]

Comments

[Richard Tugwell]

I'd like to applaud this first small selection - it neatly separates six distinct genres / approaches in as many images, and shows that photography is still a rich source of diversity. (I'll even admit Loretta Lux, despite a longstanding doubt about the photographic relevance of her work)

[Steve Mason]

May I throw in Mark Citret
http://www.mcitret.com/
Michael Kenna
http://www.michaelkenna.net/
Both well known, both slowly looking at newer technology.

[Richard Skoonberg]

Mike,
With so many great photographers populating the internet and from all over the world, how is it possible to identify "the great photographers?" When we were young, maybe this was before your time, Time/Life Books identified the great photographers for us or maybe it was John Szarkowski at MOMA, or maybe we would see a book published by Aperture at the library... but it has all changed and for FOREVER.

There are so many brilliant photographers on Flickr alone... and many more on places like 500px, Wonderful Machine, and many others. The internet is endless. Many are accomplished artists, great commercial photographers, and others, inspired amateurs. It doesn't matter, because it is all so wonderful. Vivien Meyers is certainly a favorite, but there are many thousands of undiscovered photographers! The impact of the internet on photography is certainly greater than the impact of digital cameras on photography. It gave everyone a gallery to show their work in.

The world is just too big.

[Philippe Reichert]

I love Tommy Oshima, but is he a digital photographer? I thought he was mainly using film, but I might be wrong...

[Richard Tugwell]

It's not 100% clear from the theme - "Greatest photographers of the Digital / Internet age" - but I guess it doesn't mean photographers working exclusively in digital. (Christian Coigny also works predominantly with film)

[D. Hufford.]

Some good photographers here, a few I haven't heard of. I have been following Tommy Oshima on Flickr for quite a while and have always enjoyed his photography. I also like the interview at DigitalRev with him and his comments on boke:

"I also don't consider any kind of Bokeh photo to be equal to a good photo. I can say I even hate the "Bokeh" photo without any necessity behind it."

Simple, should be obvious, and absolutely true 'cause I agree. His comments on film vs digital pretty much nail it too, I believe.

And imagine the fact that he is on the often disparaged flicker---as are a number of excellent photographers.

[cgw]

Gregory Crewdson's massive, manipulated tableaux are spellbinding.

Find Loretta Lux's taxidermic, bobble-headed kids cited above to be just plain horrid.