Every photographer sometimes struggles with inspiration. Maybe you just feel that you are taking the same photos over and over, or maybe you are stuck in a routine.
It can be difficult to break out if you only look at your own photos, but with the help of the world’s most famous photographers to guide you, you can quickly find a whole new way of seeing.
These are the top ten famous photographers who have inspired me in my career as a photographer and photo educator at lapseoftheshutter.com.
There are some names that you will recognize, and hopefully some that are new to you. This isn’t a definitive list by any means, but if you’re in need of inspiration to get those creative juices flowing again, I hope this helps.
- Ansel Adams
Probably the most famous photographer of all, Ansel Adams is largely responsible for the birth of landscape photography, with his large format black and white images of the American South-West.
In addition to his commercial photography work to pay the bills, he spent his free time in the wilds of California, becoming synonymous with Yosemite National Park. He used his photos to champion keeping wild spaces wild, and was at the vanguard of the conservation movement in the US.
Not only did he help preserve these wild places, but he also had a significant impact on the development of photography with his invention of the zone system, to ensure that his photos were properly exposed and developed – a crucial tool in the days of film photography.
His three photography books – The Camera, The Negative and The Print – were influential in the photographic development of many photographers that came after Adams, and are still an excellent resource for those who want inspiration today.
- Annie Leibovitz
Out of the modern day commercial photographers, one name stands out from all others – Annie Leibovitz. She has worked as a concert photographer, famously recording the Rolling Stones’ 1975 tour, but is best known for her outstanding portraiture.
She has photographed pretty much every well-known person of the last few decades, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono just hours before Lennon’s assassination, with her photos gracing many museums and galleries.
Her consistent style of subtle lighting and use of props helped propel her to the top of her profession, and have made her probably the most famous living photographer of today.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson
Known for his ability to capture the decisive moment, Henri Cartier-Bresson was a modern master of photography.
He was one of the first photojournalists to switch to 35mm film, which gave him the ability to travel light, quickly taking photos as he saw fit, rather than worrying about the time-consuming large format setup process.
He founded the Magnum photo agency, originally using his street photography for which he was best known. The agency then expanded to become one of the premier photo agencies of today.
- Galen Rowell
Galen Rowell was a nature and landscape photographer who tried to use his work to benefit those in need, particularly those living in Tibet. He had a strong connection to National Geographic, with his photos consistently published until his early death, with his famous view of the rainbow over the Potala Palace thought by many to be one of his best.
He started out with 35mm Nikon cameras in 1972, which was something of a rarity at the time for landscape photographers, who generally preferred large format cameras, but this allowed him to develop a career that spanned decades.
His nature photos remain very special, with a certain something that many modern photographers cannot replicate.
- Dorothea Lange
As someone who shaped the modern genre of documentary photography, Dorothea Lange was a very important influence on how many of us take photos today.
Her work in the farming communities of the US during the great depression of the 1930s really drove home the humanity of those affected to the relatively more affluent coastal city dwellers, and helped immeasurably to record the realities of life during that decade for future generations.
- Margaret Bourke-White
In a time when photojournalism was largely dominated by men, Margaret Bourke-White entered the mix, becoming a photographer for Life magazine, and capturing many fantastic images, including the last known photo of Gandhi, at his spinning wheel.
She became the first female photojournalist to enter a warzone, and closely followed the Allied push into Europe towards the end of the Second World War, capturing images of newly liberated concentration camp survivors.
She wasn’t interested in sugar-coating life, presenting unfiltered reality to those who couldn’t be there to witness events firsthand.
- Vivian Maier
Vivian Maier was something of an enigma as a photographer. She spent her life taking photos, with many self-portraits and street scenes found in her archives, but she apparently did not show these to anyone in her lifetime.
Her images only came to light after the contents of her storage unit were auctioned off, following her death after a lifetime of working as a nanny.
The greatest bulk of her work concerned the 1950s and 60s in Chicago and New York, with Maier able to capture a changing world from the perspective of a regular person who lived and worked there.
Her images are much more raw than those of her more famous contemporaries, but this gives them a unique edge that others could not achieve.
In particular, you really get the sense that Maier walked the streets that she photographed everyday, and thus managed to capture the reality of life in a way that someone flying in and out could not.
- Steve McCurry
Steve McCurry is probably the most famous living photojournalist, with his photo of the green-eyed Afghan girl giving him a profile that has persisted to the present day.
He has been published in National Geographic throughout his career, with photos taken during wide-ranging international travel. He’s spent time in warzones and on the streets, capturing daily life particularly well across Asia.
Of anyone in this list, McCurry is the one that would be most well-known purely from his pictures, given the sheer volume of publications there have been that have featured his work.
- Irving Penn
Beginning as an illustrator for Harper’s Bazaar while still a student, Irving Penn came to photography after a range of successful artistic jobs, such as being the art director for Saks in New York.
He had a career that did not rely solely on his photography, but is probably still best known for his fashion, still life and nude photography, with the latter pushing boundaries in a way that meant a good chunk of this work was not published until several decades later.
Penn’s work is exceptional, showing that he really had an eye for simple, sparse compositions, finding a creative spark in areas that others would not have been able to comprehend.
- Fan Ho
As one of the few famous Chinese photographers who is also well-known in the West, Fan Ho was someone who was clearly fascinated with the minutiae of urban living, with many of his best photos containing a single figure interacting with the city.
He was largely self-taught, able to see lines and shapes in shadows and light and the edges of buildings, transforming his native Hong Kong almost into an abstract form.
He became very popular in the US and the UK in the 1950s and 60s, as his work became more widely known internationally, with a renaissance then following in the early 2000s. In the period in-between, Fan Ho transitioned to a film camera, creating a wide range of clever independent movies.
