Your favourite photographers or images

Haha, Hunter S. Thompson definitely would have!
Powerful pictures though.
 
As Paul said, powerful stuff. Thanks @Digimonkey and @Helveticum for taking the time to kickstart this thread. I had never heard of W. Eugene Smith.
 
I'm even more convinced now Iain, photography can be art.
 
For appraisal today, another Magnum agency photographer - Elliot Erwitt. He was born in Paris in 1928 to Jewish Russian parents but grew up from 10 in the United States. A freelance documentary and editorial photographer for a living. His output was vast - he's still alive at 89 - but I don't know if he is still working. What I really like about his personal work is that it is completely free of cynicism - he delights in the odd, playful and surreal. He lacks any pomposity about his work - to the extent that in 2009 - he invented a fake alter ego - one Andre S. Solidor - ASS - to take the piss out of what he saw as the pretensions of contemporary photography. He did a book and exhibition before getting rumbled. To me - a real photographer's photographer - a dedicated Leica user. See what you think -



New York 1953



North Carolina 1950






The Prado - Madrid - Goya's 'La Maja Vestido' - left - and 'La Maja Desnuda' - right.



Erwitt had a thing about photographing dogs in the street -



Cheers - I.

@Helveticum @Barry Giddens @Blademonkey
 
Nice one! Definitely seen a couple of those before too.
 
Great stuff Iain.
 

These are great,

The mother with her baby and cat on the bed is beautiful.

The separate drinking water fountains for white and clolored in North Carolina just shows how backward we were, notice how the sign is higher for the "white" and lower for the "Clolored" even now in some quarters this backward thinking is still there but hidden from view (slightly to keep on the right side of the law )

The man in Paris jumping / dancing against the wind with his umbrella is fab, he's not going to let the weather dampen his spirits!

The art gallery is very funy, it took me a little while to see what was going on but I got there in the end.

The dog related photographs I love, little & Large and bouncer at the end.........thank you I. P.
 
Blademonkey said:
The mother with her baby and cat on the bed is beautiful.
Click to expand...

That's his first born and wife. Beautifully intimate.

Blademonkey said:
The art gallery is very funy, it took me a little while to see what was going on but I got there in the end.
Click to expand...

I included this picture specifically with you in mind as I know you like to look at your pictures properly. It's funny when you get what he is seeing. He makes his point I think? I probably should have translated the titles?

Blademonkey said:
and bouncer at the end
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I laugh out loud whenever I see this picture. Is the dug on the way up or down? What's it bloody doing there - in mid-air? The fact the picture is funny for me - should not distract us from Erwitt's genius as a photographer. This is a classic example of the HCB - 'Decisive Moment.' An inch higher or an inch lower the dug would not be in the right place in the frame. It shouldn't be sharp. You'd lose the movement and indeed moment?

More of the same -





I've photographed a few dog shows over the years but I don't have anything easily to hand - owners really do look like their dugs and vice versa. Yours - I.

@Blademonkey @Helveticum @Barry Giddens
 
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I have admired his work for many years and I must confess I had totally forgotten about him.
Thank you for reminding me.

What an unbelievable photographer he is.

His images will always remain in the top of the archives IMO.

Thanks for sharing I.
 
I hope the owner of those legs does not look like her dug! P.
 
A couple of photographer's work to share today - both of whom typify the humanist and humanitarian approach to photo-journalism.

First Bert Hardy - b.1913 - d.1995. From Southwark in London. Most famous for being the lead staff photographer for Picture Post magazine- '47 to '57 - in its hey day. He had a freedom to work that few snappers would have these days. Ages to work on stories and multi-page layouts. He preserved a world that has truly gone in Britain. He was much the same as the people he photographed - there was no instinctive distrust of the press when he was working. Unlike now. An early adopter of Leica and Contax 35mm cameras - which allowed an intimacy unusual at the time - no flash. Go google what a Speed Graphic camera looks like and you will understand. Standard issue in his day for newspaper photographers -








The Gorbals - Glasgow - 1948.

This is one of his most famous pictures. A bit of a personal choice for me - as my dad - was living in the very same street and of roughly the same age when this was taken. Not that long ago they managed to track down the boys and re-stage the picture as they are now. Other than the street layout nothing is recognisible. The area was demolished - rebuilt in the 70's - demolished again and they are now on their third go at town planning.

Next - Philip Jones Griffiths -

Welsh by origin - b.1936 - d.2008. Another Magnum photographer. I think he ended up as president of the agency. Came to prominence with his book 'Vietnam Inc.' Please note the title. Along with Tim Page, David Douglas Duncan, Don McCullen, Nick Ut and others - these guys changed the world's view of the intervention in Vietnam. Stuff like this -



No less than HCB said that Griffiths' depiction of combat was the finest he had seen since Goya. High praise indeed. So - I went to find some of his earlier street stuff but I came across a project he did that I was not aware of before. He revisited Vietnam throughout his life and documented the long term effects of the war -particularly the effects of Agent Orange and other nerve and neuro toxins - the genetic damage in the long term. I'm not squeamish - but these pictures are extremely disturbing. I've picked two - among the least harrowing - if you want to see more go find them. They ought to be seen.



Baby in a specimen jar- born with non-survivable birth defects due to Agent Orange exposure to the father's sperm. Tu Da obstetrics hospital. 1980 - 2002.



Same place - but marked as being taken in 2002. A mother who gave birth to a non-viable child that lived less than 48 hours. 2002 - think about that. It's 27 years after the official end of the conflict. Makes you wonder what we are bequeathing to future generations in Afghanistan and Syria with 'depleted' uranium shells and white phosphorus?

Yours - I.

@Helveticum @Barry Giddens @Blademonkey
 
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All great photographs but I absolutely love the picture of the two boys in Glasgow looking like street erchins, covered in muck but their faces are fabulous, love it! P.
 
 
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