Dream Team

If you were going to pick five photographers you think everyone interested in photography should be familiar with, who would they be?

I thought of this question the other night because the DJ on the jazz station on XM Radio asked his listeners who their Dream Team of jazz players might be. You could pick any players from any era and put them together. And I made myself laugh by immediately saying "Hank Jones, Ron Carter and Tony Williams."

You have to know jazz to know why that's funny.

My five would be Dorothea Lange, André Kertész, Josef Koudelka, Helen Levitt, and Elliott Erwitt. I guess that reflects my taste in photographs.

There's a book idea for me, though—I should pick "100 Photographers You Should Know" and write mini-essays about each of them.

One of the few photography jokes I've ever come up with—"I have no idea what Cindy Sherman looks like." I can't take too much credit. It just came out of my mouth.

So if you were going to pick five photographers you think everyone interested in photography should be familiar with, who would they be?

Mike

P.S. later in the day: Of course my list above leaves out Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dave Heath, Roy DeCarava, Jane Bown, and Lee Friedlander. (I think I'm just listing my heroes here....)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

hugh crawford: "My funny Cindy Sherman story is that she used to live upstairs from my friend Jamie Livingston’s loft on Fulton street. I used to run into her in the elevator from time to time and I always thought she looked really familiar but I couldn’t figure out why."

Paul Richardson: "Here goes: Kertész, Robert Frank, Ernst Haas, Saul Leiter, and—don’t laugh—Edward Hopper. I’m dead serious about Hopper. I’ve learned more about photography by looking at his evocative paintings than I have from studying the work of a hundred middling photographers. I truly think he was a photographer at heart."

Geoff Wittig: "I find it very difficult to recommend five photographers that 'everyone interested in photography should be familiar with.' The world of photography is just too broad and varied to boil it down like that. But I can name five photographers for particular subject areas. Christopher Burkett, Charles Cramer, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Elizabeth Carmel and Marc Adamus would be the five living artists I would cite providing a nice survey of what's possible in expressive color landscape photography. Black and white? David Plowden, Clyde Butcher, Don Kirby, Alan Ross and John Sexton."

Chester Williams: "Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Galen Rowell, and Sam Abell. Growing up on a tiny island, the only photography books available to me were outdated ones in our public library featuring the first three photographers. Sam Abell, who told stories in his images, which I studied in my Dad's National Geographic magazines. I was lucky to have met Galen Rowell much later on while living in California and became an immediate fan of his lifestyle and work."

Gil Maker: "Here are my five: Michael Kenna, Shoji Ueda, Masahisa Fukase, Jungjin Lee, and Wei Bi. As you can see I am really into the Asian photographers."

Steve: "August Sander, Dorothea Lange, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, William Eggleston. Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Bill Evans, Dave Holland, Elvin Jones."

Paul Parkinson: "My top five would be: Platon, Bailey/Duffy/Donovan (picking one of these is too hard), McCullin, Nick Knight, Mike King."

Stan B.: "OK, I'll bite—but I'll try and stray a tad from the oft repeated and anointed: Les Krims, Boris Mikhailov, John Davies, Seydou Keita, and Andrew Boroweic."

Marc Lankhorst: "This is so difficult...H.C.-B., Ansel Adams, the Bechers (they count as one, right?), James Nachtwey, and Martin Parr, because they all represent an entirely different approach to photography, an ethos even. But can I have another list of five? And another? And another?"

RKWallen: "My Dream team: Jacques-Henri Lartigue—seeing with a camera and having fun. Alfred Steiglitz—photography as art. Henri Cartier-Bresson—time flows but can be stopped. Ansel Adams—technical mastery as art. Fred Herzog—the sense of place."

Sharon: "Edward Weston is top on my list. He had a confidence in his work—an assurance that I admire. I have read his Daybooks many times. Gordon Parks. Margaret Bourke-White. Dorothea Lange. Minor White. I think I could name a lot more. 😃 "

John: "There are four that I think of immediately. Jeanloup Sieff—I like his 'vertical landscapes' and the way he used a 21mm lens. I've also seen a lot of his images online that were obviously scanned from prints. You can see the dodging and burning artifacts and that reminds me of how hard it was for me to find a (darkroom) printer I liked. Saul Leiter—because of the range of his work. Paolo Roversi—I love his long exposures that are not sharp at all. I think there's a lesson there that sharpness is overrated. Daido Moriyama—because I identify with the concept of being like a stray dog while doing street photography."

David Comdico: "It's impossible to only pick five so I'll start from the premise that most people know the famous heavy hitters. 1. Jason Eskenazi, Koudelka version 2.2. 2. Trish Murtha—her daughter is keeping her legacy alive. 3. Paul Graham, critical darling. Decide for yourself. 4. Mark Steinmetz, quietude that grows heavier the more you look. 5. Jeff Mermelstein. traditional street photographer who runs one of the most innovative Instagram accounts."

Ronnie A Nilsen: "Guy Tal, Bruce Barnbaum, Morten Krogvold, John Sexton, Joe Cornish."

David Lee: "I can’t believe only Carlos and me choose Ralph Gibson."

Mike replies: I can't believe no one has said Carleton Watkins.

Russell Young: "This was an essay question I used in exams in my photohistory course—I have thought about it for nearly 40 years now, so the answer comes easily. Carl Christian Heinrich Kühn, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Josef Sudek, Léon-Robert Demachy, Éduard Jean Steichen. Oh, to have been able to meet any of them...."

Peter Conway: "Quite a few mentions of Edward Weston, and certainly well deserved, but I didn’t see any for Brett Weston, his son. The breadth and depth of Brett’s vision from the age of 12 until his eighties is simply remarkable. Most people probably assume that the father was the one influencing his son, and that undoubtedly occurred. But a point was reached fairly early on where the son was at least as much of an influence on his father. Edward might make my top five—Brett absolutely."

David Boyce: "Hiroshi Sugimoto, just because. Laurence Aberhart (a New Zealand photographer who should be world famous). Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Alhazen [Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham —Ed.], the Arab scientist who in the 11th Century developed the principles which underpin photography as we know it."

Mark W: "Rennie Ellis, David Moore, Roger Scott, Harold Cazneaux, Frank Hurley."

Mike replies: Go Aussies!

s.wolters: "Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, Dorothea Lange, Dana Lixenberg, Rinko Kawauchi."

Mike replies: Go females!

Comments

[Isaac]

Eugene Tan
Brassai
Carla Coulson
Josef Koudelka
Rennie Ellis

Also Max and Rex Dupain, Helmut Newton, Gina Lollobrigida...

[Howard]

Pete Turner
Jay Maisel
Arnold Newman
Co Rentmeester
Monty Zucker - He made portrait / wedding photography what it is today.

[Andrew Holman]

For me it is the photographers I go back to for creative inspiration:

Edward Weston
Ernst Haas
George Zimbel
Vivian Maier
Clarence John Laughlin

[Walter Foreman]

Having read through the posts so far, many of which feel indecisive about their top five (to the extent, like mine, of trying to squeeze in extras or alternates), I'm wondering about a negative form of Mike's question: who would you never consider for the top five, despite their importance in the history of photography? I wonder whether I'd learn more about myself (as a photographer or as a person) from my list of photographers "everyone interested in photography should be familiar with" or from the fact that I prefer Fan Ho's photographs to Henri Cartier-Bresson's or Brett Weston's to his father's?

[Hans Muus]

Is it an ‘other side of the pond’ thing that no-one seems to mention Willy Ronis ?

[sebastian]

just some names ..
Nobuyoshi Araki
Tina Modotti
Man Ray
August Sander
Herbert List

the others coming to my mind have been mentioned already, most of them several times.

[Chris]

Cartier Bresson because he changed photography forever, Edouard Boubat for his sensuality, Willie Ronis for his humanity and Pentti Sammallahti because no-one photographs like him. My sixth would be Jane Bown. Notice that they all used black and white film.

[Will Furniss]

1.Toughness - Frank Hurley. Shackleton's photographer on the Endurance
2.Dream life - J-H.Lartigue, the Saint Exupery of photography
3.Mastery - Albert Watson, Cyclops and Maroc are the best photo books
4.Mastery - Sally Mann - the battlefields
5.Mastery - Abelardo Morell - He lives in a wonderful Universe Next Door

Beyond talent if it were not for Lartigue on the list I would say hard work is the secret to photographic success but it seems plain luck is also a part of it.

[Sumit Basu]

Lee Friedlander ceratinly, Garry Winogard, HCB,Ralp Gibson and Trent Parke to make the five.

[Chris Bertram]

Andre Kertesz
Saul Leiter
Julia Margaret Cameron
Harry Gruyaert
E. Chambré Hardman

(and HCB goes without saying).

[Tony Roberts]

Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino...oh wait a minute...we're doing photographers. Sorry, what a screwup!

[me.yahoo.com/a/BpNafyNjzpPtO7Um4dE.LxxObL1NsA--]

Bill Brandt*
Edward Weston
Ansel Adams
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Don McCullin

* Why has no-one else mentioned Brandt? He was a true artist and was held in high esteem by Ansel Adams among others. The Museum of Modern Art has 90 of his images online (click to see larger; click again to see even larger). Just look at the photos at Barbary Castle, or of the Policeman in Bermondsey (yes, I know that there are claims that it was a set-up, but the same has been said of HCB), or those at Top Withens with the grass flattened horizontal by the wind (the territory of Heathcliff's cottage, from Wuthering Heights, as this is the area where the Brontës grew up), or Stonehenge under snow, or Halifax, or the coal-searcher in Jarrow during the Great Depression, or the terrifying image of the Sitwells, or the portrait of Harold Pinter. There are very many missing from this collection, such as the portraits of Francis Bacon and of Robert Graves,and most especially René Magritte, together with photos of London taken by moonlight during the Blitz, when the blackout was in force; the advisability of a German scrambling over bomb-produced rubble in order to take photographs of the UK capital when no distractions were present was, well, questionable. I know that he considered himself to be British, but with these sort of activities, the authorities might question that.

You might like Bill Brandt's work, or you might despise it, but please don't ignore it, and please express your views (after you have trawled the web for more of his photos)*. Thank you.

*Mike: Sorry. I'm usurping your editorial role in requesting comments, and for that I apologise.

[John]

We should do this again, but in another post, with the stipulation that all choices must be current and or contemporary. (Since there were so many comments to that effect and because it was so much fun.)

My first nomination would be Marina Sersale:

[KelvinR]

I've only discovered this blog today but feel compelled to give my opinion! My five, probably in the order I discovered them and thus the order I've been influenced/inspired by their work:
1. Jane Bown (I read the Observer from an early age)
2. John Blakemore(BBC TV series on photography in the late 70s)
3. Bill Brandt (same BBC series)
4. Man Ray (Ilford calendar c.1980)
5. Ansel Adams (and Weston too...thanks to Leo Stable - anyone else remember the original staircase gallery at Southampton University, pre-John Hansard Gallery, and the evening photography classes?)

I have another five, from more recent times but they'll have to wait.

[nextSibling]

I'd buy your "100 photographers" book.

[Steve Rosenbach]

+ Ansel Adams
+ Alfred Eisenstadt
+ Henri Cartier-Bresson
+ Andreas Feininger
+ David Beckerman