Photos of famous photographers. The most famous photographs of the 20th century

The image can speak all languages. And their language is understood not only by photographers, but also by photography lovers, just grateful viewers. Photography has witnessed the evolution of cameras, from the traditional camera obscura to the modern digital one. All of them were used to obtain an excellent image. When you think about some of the most famous photographers from the past and present, photography is an art and not just “freezing” the moment.

When William Henry Fox Talbot invented the negative/positive photographic process, he probably had no idea how popular his invention would be. Today, photography, and therefore the specialty of photographers, is divided into different categories that range from fashion, wildlife, interiors, portraits, travel, food to… The list is endless. Let's take a look at some of the most famous photographers in the most popular photography categories. See also examples of their work.

Fashion

Irving Penn
This American photographer is known for his chic and elegant shots, especially from the post-World War II era. Since 1938, he has collaborated with Vogue magazine and actively uses the technique of white and gray backgrounds. It is the use of this technique that makes him the greatest photographer of the time. Penn's photography has always been one step ahead of its time. A series of nude shots made a lot of noise.

Terence Donovan
This British photographer was known for his photographs of the fashion world in the 60s. His indefatigable thirst for adventure was reflected in his work, and in order to obtain beautiful images, the models performed rather daring stunts. Approximately 3,000 advertising images, this man was a member of the richest people in London and was a popular celebrity photographer.

Richard Avedon
It was he who moved away from the traditional understanding of models. Born in New York and set up his own studio in 1946. Richard Avedon showed models in natural light, and many of his works have been published in the pages of Vogue and Life magazines. As a photographer, he received many awards in his time and the images he created were recognized all over the world.

Nature and Wildlife

Ansel Adams
Born in the city of San Francisco. He made a huge contribution to the development of black and white photography. He was interested in questions related to nature. Ansel Adams is the author of several epic photographic frescoes. Received three Guggenheim Fellowships.

Frans Lanting
Frans was born in Rotterdam. His work could be seen on the pages of such magazines as National Geographic, Life, Outdoor Photographer. Frans traveled a lot and his photographs clearly express his love for the flora and fauna of the rainforests.

Galen Rowell
For many years, Galen conveyed the relationship between man and the desert. His photographs, like nothing else, conveyed the fascinating and magnetic beauty of these sultry places. 1984 award winner. Collaborated with many well-known publications of the time. Rowell's work was distinguished by its depth and coverage of everything new in the displayed topic.

Photojournalism

Henri Cartier-Bresson ( Henri CartierBresson)
French photographer who influenced the development of photojournalism for many years. Received international recognition for his coverage of Gandhi's funeral in India in 1948. He traveled extensively around the world and firmly believed that the art of a photojournalist was to capture the "right" moment. Some call him the father of the photo essay.

Eddie Adams
Pulitzer Prize winner and winner of more than 500 prizes. His photographs depicting the Vietnam War from the inside shocked the whole world. Adams also took portraits of celebrities, politicians and military leaders of the time. He believed that the photographer should be able to manipulate the scene in order to reflect the truth.

Felice Beato
Famous "war photographer". His penchant for travel has allowed him to capture many moods and moments in different corners of the earth. Traveled to India, Japan, China. It was Felice who captured the Indian uprising of 1857 and the events of the second Opium War. His powerful and immortal work is still a source of inspiration for photojournalists.

Portrait photography

Ueno Hikoma
Born in Nagasaki. Fame brought portrait work and landscape photography. He started with his own commercial studio, where he gained tremendous experience in portrait photography. The author of portraits of many famous and famous people of that time. In 1891 he made a portrait of the Russian heir to the throne.

Philippe Halsman
Although Halsman suffered some early setbacks in his personal life, this did not stop him from becoming a great portrait painter of his day. His photographs were somewhat sharp and dark and differed significantly from the portraits of the time. Portraits were published in many magazines of that time, including Vogue. After meeting the surrealist artist Salvador Dali, he decides to make a surreal portrait of Dali, a skull and seven nudes. Three hours were spent on the implementation of the planned work. It was he who developed the philosophy of displaying a person in motion, in a jump. He believed that this was the only way to show a “real” person from the inside. At the peak of his career, he took portraits of celebrities such as Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, Judy Garland and Pablo Picasso.

Hiro Kikai ( Hiroh Kikai)
The popularity of this Japanese photographer brought monochrome portraits of the inhabitants of the Asakusa district (Tokyo). In his early years, he witnessed many clashes and spent all his free time photographing visitors to Asakusa. A perfectionist by nature, he could spend several days looking for the right person - the subject of shooting.

aerial photography

Talbert Abrams
The first shots in this category were taken while serving in the US Marine Corps during World War II. Photographic images of the squadron during the period of insurgency in Haiti helped decide to continue this art.

William Garnett ( William Garnett)
Born in Chicago in 1916, he began his career as a photographer and graphic designer in 1938. Assisted the US Army in the production of training films for US troops. By 1949, he had already acquired his own aircraft and switched to aerial photography.

Underwater photography

Dustin Humphrey
A surfer and photography enthusiast who has his own photography studio in Bali. His passion for surfing helped him take some amazing photos for which he received the Sony World Photography Award in 2009. It's amazing how he managed to gather so many people and film it all without a single cut!

Everyone has seen these pictures: a selection of the most famous and most impressive photographs that have repeatedly circled the whole world.
"The most famous photograph, which no one has seen," is how Associated Press photographer Richard Drew calls his picture of one of the victims of the World shopping center who jumped out of a window to her own death on 9/11

Malcolm Brown, 30 year old photographer from New York, following an anonymous tip, filmed the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, which became a sign of protest against the repression of Buddhists.



A 21-week-old fetus that was supposed to be born in December of last year, in the womb before starting spinal surgery. At this age, a child can still be legally aborted.

The death of the Al-Dura boy, filmed by a TV station reporter, as he is shot to death by Israeli soldiers while in the arms of his father.

Photographer Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph "Famine in Sudan" taken in early spring 1993. On this day, Carter flew to Sudan specifically to shoot scenes of hunger in a small village.

A Jewish settlement confronts Israeli police as they enforce a Supreme Court decision to demolish 9 houses in the Amon settlement outpost, West Bank, February 1, 2006.

A 12-year-old Afghan girl is the famous photograph taken by Steve McCurry in a refugee camp on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

July 22, 1975, Boston. A girl and a woman fall trying to escape the fire. Photo by Stanley Forman/Boston Herald, USA.

"Unknown Rebel" on Tiananmen Square. This famous photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widene, shows a protester who single-handedly held off a tank column for half an hour.

The girl Teresa, who grew up in a concentration camp, draws a "house" on the blackboard. 1948, Poland. Author - David Seymour.

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 is a series of coordinated suicide terrorist attacks that took place in the United States. By official version the responsibility for these attacks lies with the Islamist terrorist organization al-Qaeda.

Frozen Niagara Falls. Photo taken in 1911.

April 1980, UK. Karamoja region, Uganda. Hungry boy and missionary. Photo by Mike Wells.

White and color, photograph by Elliott Erwitt, 1950.

Young Lebanese people drive through the devastated area of ​​Beirut on August 15, 2006. Photo by Spencer Platt.

The photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head not only won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also completely changed American attitudes towards what was happening in Vietnam.

Lynching, 1930 This shot was taken when a mob of 10,000 whites hanged two black men for raping a white woman and killing her boyfriend. Written by Lawrence Beitler.

At the end of April 2004, the CBS program 60 Minutes II aired a story about the torture and abuse of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison by a group of American soldiers. This became the loudest scandal around the presence of Americans in Iraq.

Burial of an unknown child. On December 3, 1984, the Indian city of Bhopal suffered from the largest man-made disaster in the history of mankind: a giant poisonous cloud thrown into the atmosphere by an American pesticide factory killed more than 18,000 people.

Photographer and scientist Lennart Nilsson became internationally famous in 1965 when LIFE magazine published 16 pages of photographs of a human embryo.

Photograph of the Loch Ness Monster, 1934. Author - Ian Wetherell.

Riveters. The picture was taken on September 29, 1932 on the 69th floor of Rockefeller Center during the final months of construction.

Surgeon Jay Vacanti from main hospital Massachusetts in Boston in 1997, he managed to grow a human ear on the back of a mouse using cartilage cells.

Freezing rain can form a thick crust of ice on any object, destroying even giant power lines. In the photo - the consequences of freezing rain in Switzerland.

A man tries to alleviate the difficult conditions for his son in a POW prison. March 31, 2003. An Najaf, Iraq.

Dolly is a female sheep, the first mammal successfully cloned from the cell of another adult creature. The experiment was set up in the UK, where she was born on July 5, 1996.

The 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film documentary of a female Bigfoot, the American Bigfoot, is still the only clear photographic evidence of the existence of living relic hominids on earth.

Republican soldier Federico Borel Garcia is depicted in the face of death. The picture caused a huge uproar in society. Photographed by Robert Capa.

A photograph taken by reporter Alberto Korda at a rally in 1960 claims to be the most publicized photograph in history.

The photo, which depicted the hoisting of the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag, spread around the world. 1945 Author - Evgeny Khaldei.

The death of a Nazi functionary and his family. The father of the family killed his wife and children, then shot himself. 1945, Vienna.

For millions of Americans, this photograph, which photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt called "Unconditional Surrender", has become a symbol of the end of World War II.

The assassination of the thirty-fifth US President John F. Kennedy was committed on Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas (Texas) at 12:30 local time.

On December 30, 2006, former President Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. The Supreme Court sentenced the former Iraqi leader to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out at 6 am in the suburbs of Baghdad.

The US military is dragging the body of a Viet Cong (South Vietnamese rebel) soldier on a leash. February 24, 1966, Tan Binh, South Vietnam.

A young boy looks out from a bus loaded with refugees who have fled the epicenter of a war between Chechen separatists and Russians near Shali, Chechnya. The bus returns to Grozny. May 1995 Chechnya

Terry the cat and Thomson the dog share who will be the first to eat Jim the hamster for dinner. The owner of the animals and the author of this wonderful photo, American Mark Andrew, claims that no one was hurt during the photo shoot.

French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, who is credited with the founders of the genre of photo essay and photojournalism, took this shot in Beijing in the winter of 1948. The photograph shows children queuing for rice.

Photographer Bert Stern was the last person to photograph Marilyn Monroe. A few weeks after the photo shoot, the actress died.

There were times when alcohol was sold to children - it was enough for a parent to write a note. In this frame, the boy proudly walks home, carrying two bottles of wine to his father.

The final of the English rugby championship in 1975 gave rise to the so-called "striking" - this is when naked people run onto the field in the midst of a sporting event. A fun hobby, nothing more.

In 1950, at the height of the Korean War, General MacArthur, when the Chinese launched a counteroffensive, realized that he had overestimated the capabilities of his troops. It was then that he uttered his most famous phrase: "Retreat! For we are moving in the wrong direction!"

This photograph of Winston Churchill was taken on 27 January 1941 at a photography studio in Downing Street. Churchill wanted to show the world the resilience and determination of the British during World War II.

This photo was remade into a postcard and for a long time was the most popular postcard in America. The photo shows how three girls with dolls are arguing furiously about something on the alley of Sevilla (Spain).

Two boys are collecting fragments of a mirror, which they themselves broke before. And there is still life all around.

The first cameras were invented in the middle of the 19th century. A lot of time has passed since then, and today photography has become a real art.

Indeed, not everyone succeeds in doing good shots, which could fully convey the peculiarity of the event, the accuracy of the phenomenon or the depth.

In this article, we will talk about the best photographers in the world which have firmly entered the history of this art form.

Happy reading!

David Barnett

American David Barnett (born 1946) devoted most of his life to photojournalism. Many experts say that it is easy to study from his pictures.

An interesting fact is that the photographer, unlike most of his colleagues, prefers to work with an old Speed ​​Graphic video camera, which is already over 60 years old.

This once again proves that a good photograph does not always depend on high-quality equipment.

Newton Hellmuth

When the German photographer Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was still a teenager, his father was arrested by the Gestapo, but he himself managed to escape to.

Having joined the Australian army, he successfully fought against the Nazis until the end.

After that, he decided to take photography seriously. It is interesting that he filmed exclusively famous and rich people, which he never hesitated to speak openly about.

There are many black and white photographs in his collection, which, according to the master, best reflect the character of a person.

He himself once admitted that he hates "dishonest photography." According to him, pictures taken for the sake of any artistic principles are always "fuzzy and grainy."

Yuri Arkurs

Danish Yuri Arkurs (born 1979) is a commercial photographer. He shoots everything that can be profitably sold. Today, this type of shooting is called stock photography.

He began to earn money on photo stocks at a young age, as he was in dire need of the funds necessary to pay for tuition. At that point in time, he was actively filming his best friend.

Initially, Arkurs referred to photography as to, but soon Additional income became his main. A few years later, thanks to photo shoots, he was able to earn up to $ 100 thousand a month.

Today he successfully sells his best photographs to various large companies. An interesting fact is that the customer needs to pay $6,000 for one shooting day with Yuri.

Irving Penn

Early in his career, American Irving Penn (1917-2009) worked as an art designer. He designed covers for various publications, and for some time worked as an assistant art editor at the famous Vogue magazine.

However, he often criticized the shots of the best photographers of the time, who did not understand what Penn wanted from them.

When his patience ran out, he took the camera himself and took up professional photography. Soon he managed to create many real masterpieces.

For example, Irwin was the first to shoot people against a white or gray background, getting rid of everything superfluous in the frame. He masterfully conveyed the emotions of his models, and soon became one of the best portrait photographers.

Penn has worked with such famous personalities as Al Pacino, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Hitchcock and Salvador Dali (see).

Andreas Gursky

German photographer Andreas Gursky (born 1955) followed in the footsteps of his father, who worked in advertising. Even as a child, Gursky gained a lot of experience watching his father in the process of taking pictures.

After that he graduated from high school professional photographers and the State Academy of Arts.

Its peculiarity is that it takes incredibly large photographs, measured in meters. According to Anders, it is the overall shooting that allows you to fully convey the key details of the photo.

During his career, he shot many city panoramas, landscapes, people and even industrial enterprises. His photos are amazing not only for their scale, but also for their detail.

Ansel Adams

Throughout his life, the American Ansel Adams (1902-1984) filmed wildlife in the West . He constantly traveled in search of the best landscapes. He loved so much and that he became one of the most active environmentalists.

An interesting fact is that Ansel hated the so-called pictorialism - a way of shooting that allows you to create pictures that look like a painting.

On the contrary, he promoted the principle of “direct photography”, in which everything looks as realistic as possible in the photo. Adams also did not like to process pictures and use any filters.

In 1932, he created the Group f / 64 association, the main idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich was the desire for an absolutely clear focal image.

Many personal computers have standard photo wallpapers that show the Teton Range and the Snake River against the backdrop of the setting sun. So these are the works of one of the best photographers in the world - Ansel Adams.

Sebastian Salgado

When the Brazilian Sebastian Salgad (born in 1944) turned 25, he and his wife moved from Brazil to Europe. Initially, he wanted to live in because he liked the ideas of communism.

However, for a number of reasons, his outlook changed over time. As a result, Salgado and his wife settled in France.

After some time, his wife gave him the first camera, with which he never parted again. After 2 years he became one of the best photographers in France.

It is worth noting that Sebastian was a very educated person, which helped him take many good photos. Unlike other photographers, he was unusually sensitive to people of different ethnic groups.

During his career, he managed to visit more than 100 states, and make a huge number of documentary photographs.

He mainly photographed the consequences of war, genocide, environmental disasters and personal human tragedies.

This work seriously affected his psyche. For a while, the photographer withdrew into himself and completely stopped shooting.

Today, Sebastian Salgado photographs exotic places around the world.

Steve McCurry

most the best photo American Steve McCurry (born in 1950) is considered the so-called "Afghan girl", who once got on the cover of National Geographic. It was this shot that made McCurry world-famous.

At the beginning of his career, he worked as a military photographer in . Steve was driving his car, taking underground pictures. He carefully hid all the equipment and photographic materials so that the soldiers could not find them.

He himself always made up like an ordinary Afghan, so as not to attract too much interest to himself. Thanks to this, the whole world was able to see many photos of the tragedy of Afghanistan.

Since that time, McCurry began to travel the world, filming different people. All his photos look as realistic and truthful as possible. Looking at them, a person does not have any questions, since everything is already understood without words.

The Afghan girl mentioned earlier is called Sharbat Gula. McCurry photographed her in 1985 while in a refugee camp.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer Annie Leibovitz (born 1949) is considered to be one of the best portrait painters in the world. During her career, she managed to work with many celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Penelope Cruz, Woody Allen and others.

After studying at the Institute of the Arts, Annie Leibovitz began working for Rolling Stone. Having worked in it for more than 10 years, she has earned a reputation as the best photographer capable of capturing any person in an unusual way.

In the early 80s, she moved to, where she opened her own photo studio. There she continues to successfully shoot various artists and politicians.

Henri Cartier Bresson

French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is considered not only one of the best photographers in the world, but also the father of photojournalism.

He masterfully took photographs as early as the beginning of the 20th century. However, what did he manage to do to be considered one of the best photographers?

Throughout his career, Cartier-Bresson took the most honest photographs, refusing any productions. Moreover, he never asked his models to imitate any emotion or situation.

Instead, he watched people for a long time, waiting for the best moment to take a photo.

An interesting fact is that Henri sealed all the metal elements located on his camera with black tape so as not to attract attention to himself.

His photographs are incredibly lively realism. At the end of his life, Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote the book The Decisive Moment, in which he described in detail his vision of photography.

Well now you know why the best photographers in the world considered as such, and what they are famous for. If you liked this article, please share it. in social networks and subscribe to the site. It's always interesting with us!

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We have already talked about people's predilection for deriving all sorts of ratings and top lists, on the "best", "great", "famous", etc. We talked about and. Today we will talk about the most, in our opinion, the most influential photographers of all time. Let's talk about ten photographers who have had the greatest influence on the development of photography as an art.

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Richard Avedon

In the first position of influential photographers is an American photographer - Richard Avedon (Richard Avedon). Avedon is an American fashion and portrait photographer who defined the American style, image, beauty and culture of the second half of the 20th century with his work. Avedon was the epitome of a modern photographer - charming and elegant. He easily mixed photographic genres and created successful, commercial, iconic, memorable images. He was the first to take a wide-format portrait, against a stark white background, using two images in one shot, allowing the portrait story to be told in one shot.


Official site

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - William Eugene Smith

American photojournalist William Eugene Smith continues the list of influential photographers. Smith was obsessed with his work, he refused to make any professional compromise. He went down in history with truthful, cruel and compromising black and white photographs of the Second World War. Member of the photo agency "". During the Second World War, he worked as a military photojournalist and correspondent. The author of amazing reportage black-and-white photographs.

Official site

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Helmut Newton

On the third position, already known to us the German "seller of sex" Helmut Newton (Helmut Newton). Newton had an undeniable influence on the development of erotic photography, creating a powerful image of a woman. With his work, he defined the main canons of fashion photography. He was the first to use ring flash for fashion photography.


Photographer website

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Irving Penn

This is followed by an American fashion photographer, portraitist Irving Penn (Irving Penn). It is believed that every photographic portrait or symbolic still life owes something to Pen. He was the first photographer to make the most of the simplicity of black and white in photography. Considered a leading genius photographer for Vogue magazine.


Photographer website

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Guy Louis Bourdin

On the fifth position is the French photographer Guy Bourdin (GuyLouis Bourdin). No fashion photographer has been more copied by others than Bourdain. He was the first photographer to create storytelling complexity in his work. Many epithets are needed to characterize the work of a photographer. They are sensual, provocative, shocking, exotic, surreal, sometimes sinister. And Bourdain brought all this to fashion photography.


Photographer website

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Henri Cartier-Bresson

The ten influential photographers are continued by the founder of the greatest photographic agency "", a French documentary photographer, the father of documentary photography and photojournalism, in general, the greatest. One of the first who began to use 35 mm film when shooting. Creator " The Decisive Moment", the so-called "decisive moment". He believed that a real photograph cannot be subjected to any change. He worked on the creation of the "Street photography" genre, in which he defended the principles of sudden, non-staged photography. He left behind a great photographic legacy, which today is educational material for anyone who wants to become a professional documentary filmmaker and photojournalist.




10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Diane Arbus

The only female photographer on our list is an American photographer. During her short, fast-paced life, Arbus was able to say so much that her photographs are still the subject of controversy and discussion. She was the first to pay close attention to people outside the norm, per se.

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Elliott Erwitt

This is followed by French advertising photographer, documentary photographer Elliott Erwitt. Elliott is one of Henri Cartier-Breson's "decisive moment" masters. Member of the photographic agency Magnum Photos. He has an unsurpassed sense of humor with which he approaches the creation of every photograph of everyday life. Master of documentary street photography. Big dog lover.




Photographer website

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Walker Evans

On the ninth position of our influential ten is an American photographer, known for a series of works dedicated to the Great Depression - Walker Evans (Walker Evans). He is considered a chronicler of American life, who created order and beauty in the frame through composition.

10 Most Influential Photographers of All Time - Martin Parr

Rounding out the top 10 most influential photographers is British photographer and photojournalist Martin Parr. A member of the photographic agency Magnum Photos, Martine Parr had a major influence on the development of documentary photography in the late 20th century. Unlike classic black and white genre photography, Parr uses intense colors, thereby elevating the ordinary everyday shot to the level of art. Considered the leading chronicler of daily life in England.


Sometimes one photo can replace 1000 words. Talented photographers know this and know how to get into our hearts through this amazing art form. The art of photography has been exciting us for many years.

Today we have access to technologies that can even make ordinary photographs beautiful pictures. We use photo editors, buy the latest digital cameras and cool photo paper, like this www.inksystem.kz/paper-dlya-plotter , for a plotter. We get good pictures on this matte paper and we can print them on a plotter. But to become a truly talented photographer, you need something more. List of the most popular photographers of all time and their most famous photographs.

12 PHOTOS

Jay Meisel is a well-known contemporary photographer who became famous for his simple yet original shots. Even though he doesn't use complex lighting, he manages to capture vibrant and gorgeous shots.


2. Red wall and rope - Jay Meisel.

Brian Duffy was a famous British fashion photographer from the 60s and 70s. At one time he lost interest in photography and burned most of his work, but then the love of photography returned to him.



Brassai is the pseudonym of Gyula Halas, famous photographer, which became famous thanks to the shooting of ordinary people. His shots are an expression of pure feelings and emotions.



Annie Leibovitz specializes in portraits. The photographer is best known for her collaborations with Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone magazine. Her stunning celebrity photography makes her the world's most sought-after celebrity photographer.



Jerry Welsmann is famous for his collages. There is not an ounce of Photoshop in Jerry's work. All this is the result of a photo lab master.


Robert Capa is known for his war photographs. He has been in five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the Arab-Israeli War, and the First Vietnam War.