Influential Photographers - Richard i'Anson

If you are into travel photography, then I recommend to have a look at the work of Richard I'Anson.

Richard is a freelance travel photographer. He's been traveling the world for more than the last 30 years working on his stock photography portfolio but also on dedicated project.

His work has recently been featured in the Netflix series "Tales by Light" which shows behind the scenes how Richard is taking his images.

In order to get an impression of his work visit the image galleries at: https://richardianson.com/slide-show-home-page/

Richards images are well capturing the light and color of life around the globe. Part of his style is to be right in the middle where life happens. This gives the audience the feeling of being part of the scene and not only watching from far outside.

Such for example the praying women at Chinese New Year.

And at the market in Tunis. Where tea is right being served.

Many of these images give inspiration for my upcoming trips to interesting destinations. And as seen from the documentary at Netflix. Equipment wise the most touching images were taken out of the moment with very simple camera setup.

Influential Photographers - Darren Jew

Daren Jew is one of the most innovative underwater photographers. In his portfolio he shares some iconic pictures of whales taken using available light only, as well as some underwater longtime exposures using light painting.

Applying the latter technique to underwater photography is not so easy. The camera in underwater housing mounted on a tripod which needs to be fixed in one way or the other in the reef. This is a lot of gear to take under water. And currents might make the whole setup unstable.

The most impressive of these images is the one from Raboul in Papua New Guniea. It shows an airplane wreck - airplane "Pete" - which sunk in world war II.

The image has been taken using an exposure of several minutes and a torch to light paint the wreck of the plane at night. Using this technique gives the scenery a mystic look.

Influential Photographers: Scott Rinckenberger

Watch this portrait of Scott Rinckenberger. - Scott is an amazing landscape and adventure photographer. As an advocate for mirrorless Olympus OM-D - a camera well suited for mountaineering - he shows how famous adventure pictures are taken.

Some of his landscape shots are truly unique. Scott has a special sense for unique light conditions. Check out some of his fine art panorama shots in his portfolio: link

It's not only the landscape but also the exposure he finds.

Many of his landscape images are back lit. Such as these snowy mountain scenery with the trees and the sun hitting them from the back.

Or te image on the left. A mysterious landscape somewhere around Meteorite Peak in Alaska.

Influential Photographers - Pauline Dupont

Watch this short documentary on how Pauline Dupont thinks on film photography.
View the results at: link

Influential Photographers - Gregory Basco

Gregory Basco is a well known nature photographer living in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a paradise for nature photographers.

Visit Greg's website for good documentation on his work, his services, initiatives, and his philosophy.

One philosophy Greg promotes actively is the concept of RAW perfection.

This is the goal of taking a shot entirely in camera.

"To me, a fully successful nature image is one that requires no cropping whatsoever (that is, it was captured full-frame in-camera), does not have any cloning applied (either taking things away or especially adding things, including added canvas), and has only a minimum of post-processing adjustments applied (I consider this to mean normal adjustments in saturation, tones, exposure, recovery, noise reduction and of course sharpening)."

Influential Photographers - Thomas Marent

Thomas Marent from Switzerland is a nature photographer specialised on tropical rain forests.

His photographic career started at age 16 when he took his first SLR camera out to the local Flachsee in central Switzerland to shoot his first nature images in local wetlands.

In 2006 he released his first book with an international editor which allowed him for the first time to make a living out of photography.

On his website - http://www.thomasmarent.com - he features a series of amazing nature photographs. His portfolio is endless with a very strong focus to image composition and detail.

The job of the nature photographer is heavily driven by the ability of being patient. To get the one perfect shot in nature and wildlife it can take days and weeks of patients, adaptation to the environment, and building the right setup.

To be close to animals can be dangerous, but also extremely rewarding in terms of images and experience.

To get these impressive close shots, such as the gorilla drinking in the river (see below) one needs a whole lot of experience. Experience, not only as a photographer but mainly as somebody who understands nature and wildlife and who can read the behaviour and reaction of wild animals.

Get some stunning poster prints at: all posters.ch

Influential Photographers - Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is most famous for her portrait photography of celebrities.

She started her career as staff photographer at the music magazine Rolling Stone.
One of the most famous images is the portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono which was a cover image of the magazine.










Another iconic portrait is the one of of Leonardo di Caprio right after release of Titanic. It shows Leonardo holding a white swan.




Impressive among Annie Leibovitz' work is the fact that he is able to come up with celebrities in unique and unusual poses. Obviously she has the ability of winning trust of her subjects and generating an atmosphere which allows to shoot these exceptional portrait pictures.

Another example is ski sports star Lindsey Vonn standing in downhill racing pose on top of a coffee table in a boutique living room dressed in a haut couture silk dress.

The image transports a surreal atmosphere. The contradiction between athletic action and static fashion beauty. The downhill racing dynamics of fluttering dress by blowing wind from the front.

This is what Annie is famous about. Unique portraits in intimate location with elaborate setups and requisite.

Another famous picture is the one of family Obama. Barak and Michelle Obama with their two daughters in relaxed family atmosphere.

While you can find her images in the internet it is hard to find out what gear Annie is using.
From several images one can see that she is using all kinds of cameras. Most likely chosen by the envisaged use of the final image.

"When friends ask famed photographer Annie Leibovitz what camera they should buy, she suggests the iPhone."

Influential Photographers - Tatsuo Suzuki

Tatsuo Suzuki is a Tokyo based photographer shooting mainly black and white urban street sceneries.

A characteristics of Tatsuo's photography is wide angle portrait shots of people in the streets of Japan.

Images are taken mostly right in the moment when the main subject of the photography right notices the picture being taken. This exact timing adds a lot of feeling to the images and makes them unique.

Influential Photographers - Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton (1920 - 2004) was a German-Australian photographer. He was interested in photography early on. At age of 12 he bought his first camera. His most famous work was in fashion photography.

Some of his work can be experienced at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin.

In 1980 Newton released a series of images "Big Nudes" which are a cornerstone of erotic fine art photography in photography history.

For a collection of Helmut Newton Photographs visit: link

Influential Photographers - Peter Lik

Australian self-taught photographer Peter Lik is one of the most successful contemporary landscape photographers. - According to his website lik.com Peter Lik's comment about his most favourite image is: "I haven't taken it yet."

Peter is running a series of galleries around the US and Australia showcasing his landscape images.

One of the most famous pictures of Peter Lik is the image "Phantom" taken in Arizona's Antelope canyon which has been sold at US$6.5 Million. This is the most expensive photograph ever sold.

The picture in black and white has been bought by a private collector who acquired some other of Peter's images at exceptional price.

The Antelope canyon picture taken by Peter Lik has been the starting point for thousands of photographers hunting exceptional light conditions in this spectacular geological formation. An internet search yields an endless number of great images taken in the very same spot.


Another of his iconic images is "Inner Piece" a beautiful back lit tree captured in Oregon.

For more inspirational pictures check out the image collection on Peter Lik's website.

Influential Photographers - Paul Nicklen

Paul Nicklen, 1968 born Canadian nature photographer is working since 1995 as a full-time photojournalist.

He is famous for images from the arctic and the antarctic.

Photographing the polar regions is a serious challenge.
Paul takes images on land as well as underwater. On his website he shares some pictures showing how he deals with climatic challenges.

Paul was won the 2012 Veolia Environment wildlife photographer of the year among other awards.


Please visit Paul's website for a more closer look at his portfolio.

Some images are never seen close ups and portraits of wildlife.

Such as the little baby penguin on the right, or the sea elephant on the bottom of the page.

Influential Photographers - Tray Ratcliff

One of the todays most influential photographers is Tray Ratcliff. On his website Stuck in Customs he is sharing plenty of information around his photography work.

Tray is a travel photographer. There is to my perception virtually no place on earth where Tray has not yet been shooting. His portfolio of most impressive imagery can be found at link.

Southern Guangxi Province, China

Tray has been one of the first photographers of the digital age to make use of social media in order to promote himself as a photographer as well as promoting his work.
Be it through image processing tutorials, such as the HDR Tutorial. Or, video tutorials such as link. Gear talks about mirrorless cameras, and so forth, ...

Saint Mark's Tower From Above, Venice Italy

Influential Photographers - Michael Aw

Dolphin Dreaming - Van Gogh Edition - Michael Aw (500px)

Michael Aw is one of the most influential contemporary underwater photographers.

Recently he has been selected as one of the 40 most influential nature photographers (see link).

He has published a number of photo books on underwater photography and is the man behind the Ocean Geographic magazine featuring articles around marine conservation.

Visit his webpage at: link

Manta morning - Van Gogh Edition - Michael Aw (500px)

Michael Aw not only publishes great underwater photography work he also organises spectacular expeditions.
To places such as Socorro in Mexico, Raja Ampat in West-Papua Indonesia, or to Fakarava in French Polynesia.

Influential Photographers - Andreas Gursky

German Photographer Andreas Gursky, born in 1955, captures large, anonymous, man-made spaces creating pieces of art larger than the objects photographed.

While in earlier times Gursky was creating his impressive large scale photomontaged prints manually, his later work was created using digital post processing and manipulation techniques.

One example is the picture of the formula one race track in Bahrain. It looks as an original non altered photograph. However, no race car ever would make it around the track.

On the top of this page the formula one pit stop studies. Capturing the dynamics of the short time window of a pit stop during the race overlying frames of action which show how busy a pit crew is.

Influential Photographers - Sebastião Salgado

Sebastião Salgado was born in 1944 in Brazil. Salgado traveled around the world for photography.

Between 2004 and 2011, Salgado worked on a project named "Genesis". The goal was to capture unblemished faces of nature and humanity. 

"Genesis" is a heavy book filled with stunning photographs all in black and white.

This book is a piece of art showing images from all over the world. Images from places difficult to reach, from places difficult to live in, from places most of us would even not reach once in a lifetime.
It is one example of how impressive all black and white photography can be.

Salgado gave a TED talk in 2013 which is worth watching: link
He explains the circumstances under which his photographs have been taken as well as what drives him in taking all the burden and risk in order to capture these images to be shown to the world.

For further information on biography and art work please visit: link