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A PFM catalogue of photographers we all should know.

Rockmeister

pfm Member
I'd like to correct my ignorance re photographers and perhaps create something useful and informative for us here.
I suggest a simple list, always with a good free link to images and info please, to any photographer you like and admire.

I think we should catalogue it by subject however, so if enough of 'us' agree, I/we can post a few headings and then open a thread for each, unless there is a better way of doing this.

It will certainly give us inspiration and a good read at least:)

Tell me what you think and how you'd like it organised and we'll go from there.

Don't post any names or links yet. I'd like it to be a decent well organised archive of ideas if possible so chat this through first. I'll PM Tony and ask his advice now also.
 
Thanks for the 'likes' chaps. Does this mean that 3 people might contribute some names to the list?? :)

I'll kick this on a bit by suggesting that we catalogue the snappers suggested under their main subject matter...Maybe
Portraits; Land/cityscape; Nature and Wildlife; Action and Sport; ????? History? Abstract?
Please do chip in here :) Ta.
 
Off the top of my head and avoiding all the "great" and obvious names,

Architecture - Julius Shulman

Things - Peter Keetman

Plants Karl Blossfeldt
 
Good idea. If we're going with subject categories, can I suggest adding News / Reportage? And Music, as it is (I guess) important to all of us here - we all look at album covers and concert pictures which help to shape our view and opinion of the artists pictured.
 
Street Photography
(not my bag, but plenty do and the practice goes way back)

Performance Art (includes music but also stage and dance)

Almost forgot - Documentary (not the same as Reportage or Street really)

Incidentally- strikes me that cityscape would be better as a subset of 'Architecture', landscape part of 'Nature' and 'Wild Life' as it's own category
 
Crackin...absorbing all this.


Off the top of my head and avoiding all the "great" and obvious names,

Architecture - Julius Shulman

Things - Peter Keetman

Plants Karl Blossfeldt

It's fine. All logged away in case this aksherly appens.
 
So grouping maybe so far in no particular order:

Architecture subset Urbanscape
Documentary subs. News and Reportage
Street
Performing Arts sub. Music
The Natural World subs. Landscape and The Animal kingdom (tho each is large enough to stand alone)?
Portrait sub Glamour
Fine Art sub. Abstract
Sport and action
Fashion
Macro
Still life
War
Travel

So please add or subtract to/from this list and then, provided that there are worthy snappers to go into each, I'll start to sort it out. Then contributions and links will be great.
Tony has offered to make it a sticky and give m the keys to the box (daft bloke) so.

Keep the advice coming please, esp now on what I've missed and how to arrange it. Needs to be clear and logical as a database. No daft hunting around. You need wildlife photographers? here's a list.

I would like thoughts on whether this should be a library (silent reading only) or a pub with magazines (lot's of discussion) too please. Ta.
 
It is your thread and, of course, you must proceed as you see fit. But I wonder if dividing the photographers into categories might not make everything more complicated. Many, if not most photographers worked in different fields. Bill Brandt in "documentary," "portrait," "fashion," "landscape," deformed nudes, etc. Irving Penn did everything. So did Avedon. Keetman was an industrial photographer, but made beautiful still lifes, which is what he is famous for today. Steichen, too, did just about everything. Usually their personal style was dominant in all the fields they worked in. "Fine Art" is also a very dodgy category (I hate the term, myself, makes me think of Californians following Ansel Adams' teaching to the letter.) Also, I wonder where "abstract" begins and ends. If you look at some of Keetman's photos of the Volkswagen factory.......
Please forgive me for intruding and being critical, but I have a gut feeling that it is the heart and eye of a photographer that is the dominant factor, rather than the fields in which he/she works.
 
I can see this point exactly, but for someone entirely new to photography and looking for inspiration, it might be better, if one is going out to take landscapes and wanted Inspiration, just to look for photographers under landscape?
Do you think it would work then if those Multi disciplined photographers simply appear in multiple fields. I can easily add their names in with the links under each heading. Provided of course that we agree to do the work when we suggest a link? I mean that when one suggests a photographer to go here, one also adds a list of all the categories where that name should appear. That will save me a huge amount of work researching and deciding, And it adds the option for the photographer to be suggested with multiple links that maybe highlight their work in different areas. I suspect that there are catalogues that are already divided up in this way, available somewhere on the Internet?

My general feeling, is that it is better to start by looking at the subjects and not the photographer themselves. I prefer to work that way when starting out on research. I will certainly be interested in the photographer themselves, but litre. For me the photograph comes first, so I think that headings are useful in that case. You Paul, are obviously very knowledgeable about this subject and I can see that you would want to look at this from the other angle. Anyway where are the two points of view. I wonder what everybody else will think?
 
Yes, I understand what you are saying and that someone setting out to make, say, still lifes would want to see what others have done before. I hadn't thought of it that way. In fact, thinking in terms of a category, a field, will stimulate the ageing memory cells to think of names. When you are ready I'll be very happy to help. As to links, I have no idea. But have found that using Google > Images with a a name, or a type of photography, turns up a lot of great stuff.
 
I think what I hope will happen is that we will keep this alive here, with an eventual decision over content etc and Tony will allow mw to open a sticky page that I agree to curate. People will post their suggestions here, with a link and comments re where they see their exhibit being in the exhibition (which room, as the list above) and it'll be my job to check the link and then transfer it to the 'museum'.

Does that sound about OK?
 
I think what I hope will happen is that we will keep this alive here, with an eventual decision over content etc and Tony will allow mw to open a sticky page that I agree to curate. People will post their suggestions here, with a link and comments re where they see their exhibit being in the exhibition (which room, as the list above) and it'll be my job to check the link and then transfer it to the 'museum'.

Does that sound about OK?

I think it sounds good.
 
My first suggestion is the Brazilian Mario Cravo Neto (file under Fine Art/Conceptual Portrait?)

https://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/mario-cravo-neto

Turtle-600x600.jpg
 
While I fully appreciate the usefulness of dividing into categories, I also wonder if this might not become an obstacle to the whole process. Unless Rockmeister is really "dictatorial," when necessary arbitrary, in deciding in which categories a name should be present. Too many categories would, I fear, also be confusing. In the case of the photo above, for instance, I wonder where "fine art" begins and ends, and what does it mean? As for "Conceptual Portrait," when is, or isn't, a portrait "Conceptual?"
Having said that, there might be a division between film photography and digital photography, and between contemporary photographers and photographers over the past 200 years. But I suppose this too could be an added complication and in practice unwieldy.
What if we put together a list, alphabetical, of all the names that everyone suggests, and make it available on the website so one can run through it and take a name that arouses interest to Google. Perhaps after each name there could be a description, in 10 words or less, of what that photographer did or does and when active.

An example:

Horst P. Horst - 1930 -1960, Fashion, Glamour, Still Life.

Julius Shulman - 1920 - 1970, Architecture.

Irving Penn - 1930 - 1975, Fashion, Portrait, Still Life.

What I feel is certain is that whatever system is adopted, Rockmeister, as curator, will have to have supreme authority and rule with a rod of iron!
 
Sorry I though this was clear.

The idea is that YOU, not I will suggest which category the photographer will be placed under. If your photographer should appear in several categories, then say so on submission.

I am not going to question anyone's choices. I don't have the skill and frankly, since this was supposed to be just fun and helpful, I don't feel it is in the spirit of the submission. This is not an academic exercise and we are not the British Library:)

Please remember we have not started yet. I am waiting for more opinions and suggestions. If there are none then really I doubt the project has much point, so let's see what happens. As to categories yes or no, at present it's a YES, because i want them :) If ten people turn up in this discussion and 7 say NO, then NO it will be.


Bring on the opinions.
 


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