Which photographers do you admire?

I really like the tack sharp focus that Ansel Adams brought to the scenes he captured.[1] I later learned that he revisited the same places over and over in search of just the right mood, etc. I used to do the same thing when I worked in Chicago.

Myself, I'm into landscapes, time-lapses, and virtual-focus/synthetic aperture photography, though it's been quite a long time since I was able to venture forth and take photos. Here's my old "Top 100" folder from those days[2]

[1] https://flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/albums/72157623...

[2] https://flickr.com/photos/---mike---/albums/7217772029640662...

Weegee and W. Eugene Smith were my primary influences back when I was shooting as a hobbyist and, later, as a professional.

The former taught me the importance of simply being there and being ready to shoot in the moment, lighting and composition be damned. The latter showed me that you could compose art -- real, emotional and meaningful art, not just cookie-cutter photos -- by thoughtfully capturing emotional moments.

Yann Arthus-Berthrand and Peter Menzel. They capture nature and human life like I've never seen before

"The earth from above": https://search.brave.com/images?q=yann+arthus-bertrand+the+w...

The Human (Musics) film is special: https://youtu.be/uog4eCZTUX4

Fascinating portraits of human lives all over the planet: https://www.menzelphoto.com/portfolio/G0000GPaxwfSZQ0Q

"What the world eats": https://time.com/8515/what-the-world-eats-hungry-planet/

Daniel Sanwald to me is one of the most innovative contemporaries. I’ve only met him once but seemed lovely too. Portraits and fashion.

Jamie Hawksworth has a keen eye and delivers warmth in his traditional process. He shoots landscape and fashion.

Nick Night and Craig Mcdean for pushing the boundaries of fashion photography.

Rankin for his work ethic. I could watch him working from my desk for about a year, he worked 12hour days 6 days a week. If he didn’t have a professional job, he always had a side project. Portraits and fashion.

Personally I find the documentary and travel genre most interesting. I think it's quite a hard genre to get right, though. When one thinks travel photography the mind immediately goes to the saturated, contrasty, increasingly dark (for some reason, what is this trend?) photos that are popular on Instagram, but the genre can be so much more interesting.

One photographer I really like is Mitchell Kanashkevich who photographs mostly people on his travels. He really has a way of developing relationships with them to allow him to take photos you don't often see.

https://www.mitchellk-photos.com/

Another fun photographer who is mostly taking aerials is George Steinmetz who photographs for National Geographic. His assignments and projects are mostly related to global problems such as feeding the world population and climate change. He has some beautiful photos, and his Instagram is also quite fun with each post being two halfs of an aerial for that panoramic feel.

https://www.georgesteinmetz.com/

Honestly, a lot of the National Geographic photographers take amazing photos.

Personally, I try to incorporate a bit of both's style in my own photography, but of course it takes years of practice. I do mostly travel, documentary and landscapes. You can check out my work below.

https://www.madscphoto.com/

Sean Tucker, Craig Whitehead (sixstreetunder), Joshua Jackson, Alan Schaller. They all mostly shoot street. Sean Tucker has a popular YouTube channel about Photography.

I used to follow Van Wong[1] because he is an engineer turned artist. But haven't seen much from him in last few years. And I follow various tags related to photography, lately underwater photography has my interest.

[1]: https://www.vonwong.com/

Peter McKinnon (lifestyle, landscape, action shots) and Sean Tucker (portraits, street photography, nature sometimes)

I'm not in product photography, but the work of Eberhard Schuy is really inspiring. He wrote some books about how he works, concealing nothing or at most a little bit of his tricks.

Sebastião Salgado… recently saw his photos of the Amazon, wow.

Mark Denney and Nick Page are two I really enjoy lately. Both do nature photography and I personally love their style and the stuff they try to teach.

I don't look for specific "photographers" - I follow various accounts/subreddits/etc for the pictures

Vivian Maier.

Andreas Gursky is doing amazing things. Go to an exhibition and look at the big pictures.

In no particular order:

Richard Avedon

Lee Friedlander

Sally Mann

Jerry Uelsmann

Ansel Adams

many many more I'm forgetting

Alan Schaller - Monochrome street photography.

sebastian segado is an all time favorite

Stephen Shore

Ken Rockwell just for the pedagogy

Manuel Alvarez Bravo