Favorite Photographers

Although I'd hesitate to cite a specific photographer as my inspiration, I do admire the works of several eminent artists including Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, and Ansel Adams. I'm also impressed by the works of many lesser known modern-day working photographers whose work I constantly review--for stylistic and technical inspiration.

Dorthea Lange

One of my favorite photographs is Migrant Mother captured in 1936 by Dorothea Lange on her visit to a migrant worker's campsite. My admiration for Lange as a photographer is based on the compelling aesthetic quality of her work but also, and more importantly, on the fact that her photography helped the public better understand the plight of the desperately poor and almost forgotten migrant farmer during the days of the Great Depression.

"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see."


          - Dorothea Lange
 
 
 
 

Richard Avedon

The reason why I admire the work of Richard Avedon is primarily based on his technical and artistic expertise as a portraitist. I feel Avedon's greatest strength lies in his ability to capture expressive portraits using consistent lighting and framing in generally simplistic settings. In Avedon's images, because of his photographic style, his images consistently leap to life. His portraits are so much more than a captured moment in time; they are raw emotion.

"I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the "yes." I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us."


          - Richard Avedon  
 
 
 

Ansel Adams

Although it may be trite for me to cite Ansel Adams as a personal favorite, there is no denying that Adams was the photographers' photographer. Adams' groundbreaking work in the darkroom, in the business of photography, as well as his advanced working in defining photography technique is legendary. And after my many visits to the Yosemite Valley, the Grand Canyon, and other locations photographed by Adams, I've come to have a deeper and closer appreciation for the works of this grand master of photography. My favorite Ansel Adams photograph is Clearing Winter Storm taken in Yosemite National Park c. 1942. I first saw an authentic photographic print of this scene in 2006 at the Autry National Center (formerly the Autry Museum of Western Heritage). The print was being displayed in their exhibition titled Yosemite: Art of an American Icon. When I turned a corner and saw the photographic print for the first time, the impact of his images was so great that tears came to my eyes. When faced with the actual product of his life's work, I was humbled as a photographer.

"Some photographers take reality...and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation."


          - Ansel Adams