Name your influences

[situgrrl]

In no particular order

Don McCullin
James Nachewey
Annie Lebovitz
Bob Carlos Clarke
Henri Cartier Bresson
Boogie www.artcoup.com
Troy Pavia www.lostamerica.com

Teachers?  He's called Malcolm and he used to lecture in photography.  (UWIC cut the course so he's now a technician type person.)  Despite never having been a student at the university he teaches at, he allows me to go into the darkrooms, rinse the chemicals and will quite happily spend hours critiquing my pictures and advising on technique.  Guess I owe him a drink then!

[fromeo76]

Larry Fink (for Social Graces)
Larry Clark (for Tulsa and Tulsa only)
Jim Goldberg
Harry Callahan (especially his portraits of Eleanor)
Rineke Dijkstra
Diane Arbus
Allen Frame (studied with him)
Dorothea Lange
Immogen Cunningham
Daido Moriyama
James Nachtwey
Pep Bonet
Sylvia Plachy.... to name a few.

[BernardLanguillier]

Painters:

Vermeer, Rik Wouters, Magritte, Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera,...

Photographers:

Yasutaka Tanji, Philippe Plisson, Galen Rowell, Jack Dykinga, Eliot Porter, Ansel Adams, Pierre Tairraz, Doisneau, HCB, Steve Mc Curry, Veronique Vial, Anton Corbijn, Josef Sudek, Sebastiao Salgado, Katsuhiko Tokunaga,...

Cheers,
Bernard

[Paul Sumi]

Painters:

Vermeer, Rik Wouters, Magritte, Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera,...

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If we're talking about painting/painters, then the mid-19th century [a href=\"http://http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/hudson.html]Hudson River school[/url] in America seems to inform a lot of landscape photography.

Paul

[BernardLanguillier]

If we're talking about painting/painters, then the mid-19th century Hudson River school in America seems to inform a lot of landscape photography.

Paul
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=65848\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Paul,

It might have been off topic, but I have personnally been influenced just as much by painters as I have by photographers.

Since composition and light and the very essence of photography, I feel that valuable information can be gained from those painters who decide to commit a whole month on a composition rather than 1/250th sec...  They MUST be thinking more about the content of their images...

Cheers,
Bernard

[tsjanik]

Not an individual, but a series of books.  This may appear simplistic now that the Time –Life has declined to infomercials (sp?), but my serious interest in photography was fueled by the Time-Life series (16 books, I believe), which I read and re-read in the 1970’s.  Nothing in great detail or depth, but an incredible overview of the work of some remarkable photographers.

[schaefej]

Not obviously visual, but important to me:  "The Poetics of Space," by Gaston Bachelard:
"In its countless alveoli, space contains compressed time.  That is what space is for."

jim schaefer

[Dan Sroka]

One photographer I wish I was:  Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. Their work surprises, inspires, and stuns me into silence.

As for others, I'd have to say the authors Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, and Haruki Murakami have had a great influence on how I see and observe the world.

Dan

[Jack Varney]

George Skadding for his patience with me during the short time I had the good fortune to work at his side. His years at the AP and Life Mag convinced him that pictures were made not taken and that if you captured "mood, feeling and action" you had made the photograph.

Ansel Adams for his vision and the zone system.

Fritz Henle also had fine technique and his books demonstrated his mastery of the square format.

[neoprinter]

I'm surprised so many posters here are going so far back in time for their influences.  For me, I'd have to say William Eggleston, and there are many other practitioners of color realism who are friends and influences as well, including William Christenberry, Birnie Imes, William Greiner, David Leonard, Christian Patterson etc.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I'm surprised so many posters here are going so far back in time for their influences.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70095\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Perhaps you underestimate the ages of some of us.  

Why, just the other day Al Stieglitz and I were chuckling at how much technology has changed without improving photographic vision . . .    

Eric

[Bill in WV]

I've been following this thread with some interest and just wanted to add a couple of thoughts . . .

I recently made the trip to Toronto to see Michael's showing of his China / Antartica photographs and it makes you stop and think, while it is sometimes subtle, the difference in seeing the real print up close and personal was actually exciting. (I had the additional benefit that Michael met my wife and me, along with fellow forum acquaintance, Tim Gray and gave us the personal tour.)

But then I started reading this thread and thought first about whose work I wanted most to eventually emulate, or whose work was the greatest influence on me. So here is my short list:
Ansel Adams
Walker Evans
Margret Bourke White
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Alfred Eisenstadt
Eddie Adams
Steve McCurry
Michael Reichmann
David Hume Kennerly (first author photographer I almost wrote to about his book, "Shooter." His time as President Ford's photographer and what he produced was, in my mind, amazing. I still might do it.)
(and now, thanks to Michael) Clyde Butcher.

And to combine someone else's idea, if it were possible to sit down for an evening, I'll do the steaks on the grill, and have each of these folks bring their 10 favorite prints or even fewer, and we talk and share. What an evening that would be. Oh, there are still others, but this would be a great start.

Bill in WV

[barryfitzgerald]

This may be an odd thing to say, but in honesty I have no influeces at all! Well almost, I like the work of Joseph Holmes very much...wonderful photographer..but my style if there is any..is not like his.

I respect Bresson a lot, and agree with many things he says..but whilst I like some of his work, I dont like a fair few also.

I dont like Ansel Adams! sorry guys...just not my thing..again respect him though. I do look at lots of peoples work though, well known or not. I enjoy looking, but have never felt the desire to emulate anyone. Of course there is always something to learn from others. I find lots of landscapers are very similar in their shots, its very very hard to be different in this game.

[wilburdl]

I'll go with Caravaggio and Rembrant... really, I'm influenced by the dramatic shadows in Baroque paintings and the subtle tonality. Photographically speaking, Mario Testino, Mark Seliger, Annie Liebowitz, Gordon Parks, Russell James, Troy House, Mark Tucker, Jim Fiscus and Sacha Waldman.

[wolfnowl]

I would list Freeman Patterson as well (loved the 'Photography and the Art of Seeing' books), and also Tim Fitzharris.  Elizabeth Carmel would make the list too...

Mike.

(and MR, of course!!!)