I give you Mud Cracks by Brett Weston -Death Valley, 1968
I became familiar with his work while studying photography in college. Yes, back when we used a dark room and actual contact paper. It was an awesome experience to be a photographer back then and I'm so glad I had it.
I love his work. Talented family
What about you, whose work do you admire?
shout-out to kleinbl00, elizabeth, mk, ecib, Pribnow and anyone else...
Good catch! I would suggest that it's certainly meant to emulate the grandeur of Adams' work. An easy mistake to make imo. How did you happen to catch it? Is the style that discernibly different to your eye, are you an Ansel Adams or Peter Essick afficanado or did you just happen to read the credit at the bottom of the image?
I'd agree with your suggestion, the photo definitely 'feels' like an Adams in that it's a grandeur landscape with dramatic lighting and a good spectrum of light and shadow. When I saw the thumbnail two things occurred to me: 1. The exposure isn't as technically proficient as Adams' tend to be, there's less contrast between the brightest and darkest tones and there's less 'punch' overall 2. I haven't seen this picture before I'm not hugely studied in Adams' work, it's not like I've seen or can recognize every print he's ever made, but it felt 'off' enough for me to be curious and to view the full resolution image. Without the caption I would have fully believed it to be a photo by Ansel Adams, though. I'd never heard of Peter Essick before.
I could have dug up a more professional answer, but here goes. My uncle is a jeweler who got into photography when learning how to take pictures of his jewelry to post online. He posted some stuff on facebook just now, and he's weirdly private about it so no website or anything; figured I'd just post his stuff. He ended up getting very "artistic" and now works heavily with some really creative editing, like this: At the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He lives in Armenia though, and just posted this breathtaking shot of Mt. Ararat, looking far over the Turkish border from the Khor Virap monastery. Tons of Armenian patriotism around right now because the 100th anniversary of the genocide is coming up April 24th, so it was well received. I mean, god damn, this is a strong photo.
Thanks for sharing these, they're both great images, but that first one really, really strikes a chord with me. I'd definitely hang that on my wall. I love it.
There's something about Gregory Crewdson that I love. This photo was my background for a long time, and he also did the album cover for ...and then nothing turned itself inside out by Yo La Tengo. I've also got a lot of photo friends that I admire but they won't be shared here.
Actually, no. But it's now been added to my watch list! Is there anyone else you'd recommend looking into while I'm at it?
Oooooooooh. Of course! Manufactured Landscapes is one you'll need a bit of patience with but it's incredible. Burtynsky, also a large format photographer. The doc on Erwin Olaf is great. Since we're talking about dutch guys, I'll bring in Mark Kessels, a doc called Kessel's Eye is great, he's a subversive advertising guy who collects vernacular photos. The doc on the king of war photojournalism James Nachtwey is a must watch. Those are all classic contemporary docs in my mind. There aren't as many docs on women photographers but they're out there — I liked the one on Cindy Sherman from a while back. Gosh there's so many more but those are the first that come to mind. Also, if you haven't seen the BBC photo history doc series The Genius of Photography, be sure that you do, it's great even for seasoned photographers.
Larry Clark's stuff from "Tulsa" The book starts like this: Here are some of my favorites: There are a lot more and a lot of NSFW ones and contains a lot of really fucked up shit. Google image "Larry Clark Tulsa" or click here when you aren't at work. Each tells a little piece of a story about a group of crazy drug fueled kids and the naked drug fueled, gun loving life they were living. Here's a video of the whole book too. He went on to do the movie Kids and a lot of other sick shock value shit after this that I don't like. But these I love. I think I like these because in these you can tell he is part of this group. He isn't trying to shock anyone. He's your little artsy friend who always has the camera. Most are candid or semi-posed. The camera is barely there.I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in January 1943. When I was 16 I started shooting valo. Valo was a nasel inhaler you could buy at the drugstore for a dollar with a tremendous amount of amphetamine in it.
Yeah, he's great for all the reasons you mention. I too love cadid shots where you can tell the photographer isn't even an afterthought, but he/she was able to catch a special moment. He was a big influence on Martin Scorsese. You can totally see it.
This is tagged askhubski but should be rephrased as a question or retagged as #demandofhubski. /snark
Yay! I do this for a living. Let me dig up some superstar contemporaries, I'll bring up a variety of styles. Curran Hatleberg Mark Peckmezian Taryn Simon Bobby Doherty Thomas Prior Alex Prager Nadav Kander Bryan Schutmaat I love photography, photographers... I used to interview photographers for my blog every two days, racked up over 300 of them. Then I went on to printing books, now I'm a photo editor at a big weekly mag in NYC. If anyone has any, um, requests? I'd love to dig up some more.
Oh boy, if you love Dorothea Lange, you're gonna shit your pants when you see this: It's from a recent series by Sandro Miller where he got John Malkovich to impersonate famous photographs.,_2014.jpg)
I looooooove Sally Mann. Now I can't say her work affects mine technically but what she has done by pushing the boundaries of photography is what I most admire. This album most accurately displays that. Warning! It's definitely NSFW. Besides that I think she has an interesting and unique approach to shooting projects in new areas. Take for example her Southern Landscapes project; what she did here was take water from a nearby stream for making the solvent(?) for her large format camera literally ingraining nature into her photos.
Thanks for sharing, I checked out the first link and I'm not really a fan of most of it. It seems pretty heavy handed. I can feel the photographers presence a lot and I'm not really a fan of that type of photography. I did like this shot a lot though:
And I don't blame you for not being a fan. In my photography class we spent about a week discussing Sally Mann and I was of the few who enjoyed her work; most people were outspokenly against her. But like I said it really wasn't the technicality of her photos, it was the boundary pushing that got me to really like her.
Yoshikazu Shirakawa Thing is... you can't really post a Shirakawa and have it mean much. He worked in Ektachrome up to the bitter bitter end, and shot large format stuff that was always presented large format. I own Eternal America and it's incredible. Clarence John Laughlin Works in black'n'white, double exposures and the like. He's good at making shit look haunted. Annie Liebovitz (Yes, that's Sigourney Weaver) Walter Nelson (also an occasional mentor) Andy Goldsworthy
Love me some Andy Goldsworthy. Did you every see Rivers And Tides? 90 minute doco about him.
Andy Goldsworthy is one of my favorites as well. I guess you could say he's more of a sculptor who takes pictures of his work than a photographer, but the distinction at that point is getting a bit ethereal. On the topic of mud cracks and Andy Goldsworthy, here's an installation he did (he talks about it in Rivers and Tides around the 80 minute mark) with clay. The pattern of cracks (modeled after the meanders of a river, a common theme in his work) arises due to the clay drying at different rates and the underlying thought process behind the installation is really pretty inspiring. 
Thanks for the Andy Goldsworthy introduction. I've always enjoyed Annie Liebovitz's work. She's one of those artists that even if you don't know who she is, chances are you've admired her work.