Growing up my dad was always such a camera guy and of course I wanted to be just like him, so I don’t think I’ve ever not had a camera. The one he always used was an old aluminum canon warhorse that could probably withstand several hundred feet of drop, and later a newer one, with the warhorse being passed to yours truly. Now I wish I’d listened more about the fstops and apeture and whatnot but I guess thats why I’m at school for art. I’m not supposing he knew an enormous amount about photographers but the one he always talked about was Ansel Adams; now, I know now he’s more popular than I ever imagined, but all through childhood, I idolized the man. My shelves at home are stuffed with biographies and photobooks and I completely fell in love with the B&W medium. For a few years as a young teenager I refused to put anything else in my old Canon and shot everything I saw burning my summer work money like wildfire.
Now, looking back I really am glad that I did all that. I suppose I was an artist, I didn’t think of myself as one, heck, I wouldn’t have been able to define art if you would’ve asked me. I probably still couldn’t actually. But now when I look at Adam’s work, I get so much more out of it than just the beautiful scenery and perfect composition, I see a man who was so absolutely in love with his camera that he knew every possible thing about it, so as to make the perfect shot, with the perfect focus, perfect everything. There are few contemporary photographers that I get that same feeling from, that immense passion that bleeds all over the image. But, as the title suggests, I have a few:
Sam Jones for one, he doesn’t do landscapes, and he’s a pretty high profile photographer, which some people hate, but it doesn’t bother me much. His photographs really speak for themselves, as they are just portraits, but portraits in a way that you can really see the person that the actor/muscian/athlete is, not just who they are on stage or on screen. I couldn’t use any of his images sorry, but I did link to his site.
Amy Stein is another photographer I’ve been really into lately. Her photos have this very ethereal, narrative quality, that always calls for a second look, and that’s something I really love. I especially love her “Stranded” series, it really has this very emotional punch that you just wonder about these people and what they’re thinking. Also, you owe it to yourself to check out her blog.
One more photographer I’ve been telling all my friends about is Corey Arnold. This guy is really what it means to be a photographer in my eyes. In his bio he talks about how he’s a fisherman and photographer and how they correllate, but I’ll let you read all that for yourself. At any rate, His photos are pretty amazing, and it was really hard to pick just 2 to put on here. I really love his “People Animals” series and his “Fishscapes Finmark” series, they’re really moving I think.
