What / Who influences your photography?

i just love the work of Dianne Arbus. I went to an exhibition of her photographs here in Edinburgh and was stunned. She's the biggest influence for me. There are others........Berenice Abbot comes to mind.
 
There's an Irena Ionescu exhibition opening shortly at Galerie Vraies Reves in Lyon-- with Irena herself at the vernissage on Friday. Insh'Allah Frances and I will be there.

Cheers,

R.
 
Originally Posted by jsrockit

1) So, what or who influences your photography (past and present)?
2) Why do you do it?
3) Who / what are you looking at photography wise right now (new or old

1) My children. My depression. Time on my bike. Photos I see that I think I could do better.
2) I love the processes of thinking through a photo. Holding a mechanical camera in my hands, the focus, aperture and shutter speed all my choice.
3) manray, Robert Cappa, looking for a rangefinder system with interchangeable lenses that I can buy into.
 
1) So, what or who influences your photography (past and present)?
2) Why do you do it?
3) Who / what are you looking at photography wise right now (new or old)?

1: Photographers past: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Hippolyte Bayard, Frederick Evans, Julia Margaret Cameron, F. Holland Day, Edward Steichen, Clarence White, Ruth Bernhard, August Sander, Von Gloeden, Edward Curtis.

Photographers Present: John Dugdale, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Stephen John Phillips, Reuven Afanador, Connie Imboden.

Painters: pretty much the entire Italian Renaissance, but with special attention to Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio.

2. Why do I do it? I feel a need to express myself, and the camera is the best tool to do so.

3. Who am I looking at? Lately it's been Mapplethorpe, Von Gloeden, John Dugdale, Alexander Gardner, Mathew Brady, Reuven Afanador, Tseng Kwong Chi, Carl Moon, Chas Eisenmann, J. Gurney & Sons, C.D. Fredricks.

A bunch of those names may be unfamiliar - one of my related hobbies is collecting antique photographs, mostly cartes-de-visite, and so I've been doing a bit of research on various photographers from the mid-19th century, along with buying their images.
 
1) So, what or who influences your photography (past and present)?

Some of my favourite photographers are Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, Alec Soth, Jeff Wall, Hannah Starkey, Tina Barney, Philip Lorca-diCorcia, Nan Goldin, Ernst Haas, William Eggleston, Diane Arbus, Alex Webb, Andy Sewell, Torbjørn Rødland, August Sander, Edgar Martins, William Klein, Todd Hido, Paul Graham, Nadav Kander, Taryn Simon, Walker Evans, Richard Avedon, Sally Mann, Elliot Erwitt, Irving Penn, Bill Brandt, Robert Frank... I enjoy a lot of different work, I am always looking for new photographers to study. I love photography books and thankfully our university has a decent collection, although not many recent titles. Going through photography books is probably the best study, looking at sequencing, the consistencies, the narrative, being transported into the world of the book. I also find inspiration in film, especially Kubrick and Bergman.

But inevitably, the biggest influence on my work is my own life and attitude towards the world, I think there is a bit of me in every frame.

2) Why do you do it?

I think photography is a form of poetry. I find it challenging and rewarding to find that poetry around me and to sequence it later to tell a story. I also think photographs have an incredible way to depict the human condition past and present. I hope to contribute toward that like the photographers I admire have.

3) Who / what are you looking at photography wise right now (new or old)?

See 1), always revisiting and looking at those. Also find Tumblr to be an excellent resource in discovering photographers either emerging or obscure to the mainstream. I study in London, so I try to go to every photography exhibition in town. I also like going to the library and pick a photo book at random, to sit down and delve into.
 
Influences? Well, I read a lot of Nat Geo in the early 70s and also stumbled across Ansel Adams, Andre Kertesz and Bikll Brandt. I don't know if they "influenced me" as I have no hope of ever being remotely so good - but I have always loved their work.

Why dio I do it? I want to create. My dad was a great cabinet maker and could really draw. I can neither draw nor paint well - but I have mastered the craft of photography (to a point) and I'm still trying to create a style and produce just one photo of which I can be truly proud. Most of them are just crap, though...

Will I keep at it? Yes, because one of the spin-offs is that I get to record some great places my wife and I have visited and, more worryingly, I don't know what I'd do if I gave up and sold my kit....
 
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Caspar David Friedrich, The Caravagists, Gerhard Richter Greg Toland and Russel Metty for their use of light. Elliot Erwitt, Catherine Leroy, Peter Lindbergh, Man Ray, Ralph Gibson, Hiro (underated photographer), Annie Leibovitz and Joyce Tenneson for their photographs and the later two for their use of light and some of their photographs. And last but not least Paolo Roversi and Sarah Moon two bloody geniuses who don't necesseraly care about sharpness but still produce some of the most beautiful photographs I know.
 
I was influenced at first by the beauty of the surroundings of Blacksburg (Virginia) as I was doing my postgraduate studies there. The stressful studies made me look for an outlet to unwind, and I recall that at first I would practice taking (after 10pm) photos of the traffic lights on Prices Fork Road (there were few roads there). and then I would see what I managed to capture. Then, I started exploring the outskirts of Blacksburg, all the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Shenandoah Valley. During these times. Shutterbug magazine started creating GAS for me.

I was very interested in the photography by Galen Rowell, from whom I got the taste for natural looking images. At that time, I was using only slide film, so learning about exposure and about composition was keeping me busy in the few free hours per week.

I then bought many books by some well known photographers after I got a job in Pensacola. There were no bookshops here, so I would drive to Atlanta, buy 10-20 books, have dinner, and then drive back to Pensacola.
 
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