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Joseph Niepce
Joseph Niepce was a french inventor who is know for being one of the founders of photography. He was not known for being artistic, so he found a way to capture images through a printing technique. He used pewter and different sources of light as an attempt to capture a photograph. He called this new technique "heliography". Through these methods, he was able to captured the first photograph. -
Louis Daguerre
Louis Dagurrer was a french artist and photographer who discovered and invented the process of photography. The idea came to him when he made a one of a kind image on a polished silver plated piece of copper. He became one of the founding fathers of photography. His invention didn’t catch on right away, it wasn’t until 1838 was Dagurrer comfortable showing his examples to other artists. From that moment on, Dagurrers scientific discovery helped birthed the process of photography. -
Matthew Brady
Matthew Brady is known for being the father of journalism. He is well known for taking pictures of the Civil War. His photographs of the war had a tremendous impact on society during the war, and continues to have a significant impact to this day. He has produced over one thousand photos of the war. -
Edward Muybridge
Edward Muybridge was an English American photographer. Muybridged immigrated to the US as a young man but wasn’t noticed until 1868 when his iconic photographs of Yosemite valley was seen world wide. He soon became world famous. He became well known for his work in photographic studies of motion along with motion picture production, which is still progressing even now. -
Lewis Hines
Lewis Hines was an American photographer who used his photography to bring social problems to the public's attention. The first photo series he presented to the public was called “child labor in the carolinas and Day labors before their time.”These photos showed children as young as 8 working in very dangerous conditions. His most known photographs are the ones he took in WW1 as a photographer for the Red Cross, along with the construction photos of the empire state building being first built. -
Edward Weston
Edward Weston was a 20th century American photographer. Weston had a very interesting approach to composition, form changing and mediums, he has been called “one of the most innovative and influential american photographers.” His interest in photography started at the age of 16 by his father. He opened his own studio in 1909, he worked there for the next 20 years. Weston was best known for his carefully composed, sharp focused images of natural forms and landscapes. -
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea lange was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist. Her best known work is her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration. (FSA was an agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great depression). Her photography of farmers during the great depression greatly influenced later documentary and journalistic photography. -
Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret White graduated highschool in 1927, she pursued photography soon after. She was sent to the sovet Union where she was the first forign person to take pictures of the soviet union. She was the only western photographer to witness the German invasion of Moscow in 1941, as well as being the first woman to accompany Air corpse crews on bombing missions in 1942. Mrs. Margaret's photography and photojournalism demonstrated her ability to show the world the intensity of world events. -
Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams was a photographer and environmentalist. Ansel had a very harsh upbringing, his father and aunt tortured quite often as he grew up. As a result of his childhood, he turned to nature. He then turned to photography and began to take beautiful nature shots. Adams soon rose as a successful photographer in the American west. He used his work to promote conservation of wilderness areas -
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier lived a very long life. He was a French humanist photographer who became known as a master of candid photography. Cartier understood the importance of people's expressions and emotions in one moment so he began to take candid photos of people in the streets which set in motion and started the genre of street photography. Henri Cartier is also one of the founding members of Magnum Photos (international photographic cooperative) which began in 1947. -
Yousef Karsh
Yousef Karsh has been described as being one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century. His most known portraits are of important and famous men and women of politics and Hollywood. most of his photographs were taken in black and white with dramatic lighting. His breakthrough in photojournalism was in 1936. He always believed that the art of photography was a combination of art and intuition. -
Arnold Newman
Arnold Newman was an American photographer, he became a contributor to many publications such as the New York Times, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and countless others. Newman is most known for popularizing the environmental portrait, as well as his carefully composed abstract still lifes. He had a talent for capturing the personality of his subjects. His methods are common as of today, although his techniques was unheard of in the 1930s when he first started shooting his portraits. -
Diane Arbus
Diana Arbus was an American photographer best known for her unique black and white portraits. In her adult years she opened up a commercial photography venue with her husband. This venue contributed to big companies like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Diana’s photography broke political norms and was far from being socially acceptable at the time. A lot of her subjects were transgender, mentally ill, gay and circus performers. Her photography can be found all around in countless museums and exhibits -
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American fashion and portrait photographer. Avedons love for photography started at the young age of 12 when he joined the YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Association). Avedon had a knack of catching the attitude of his subjects in his photographs and he was well known for his work and contribution to the fashion world along with his minimalist portraits. Richard Avedons photographs helped shaped Americans views on style, culture and beauty throughout the 50’s and 60’s. -
Jerry Uelsmann
Jerry Uelsmann is an American photographer as well as an early contributor to photomontage in the 20th century. He is best known for his work using the photomontage technique. Uelsmann uses multiple exposures and enlargers to achieve his unique images. His most known photographs are Apocalypse 1 and Journey into self. He taught photography at the University of Florida for nearly four decades. -
Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer widely known for her engaging and dramatic celebrity portraits. She began working as a commercial photographer at “Rolling Stone magazine” and became the first woman named chief photographer. She began working at vanity fair where she developed her unique style of staged and brightly lit portraits. She became the first woman ever to have a solo exhibit of her work at the national portrait gallery in Washington DC in 2008.
