Your favourite photographers

My favorite photographers were local from my years at a pro lab running a Kodak Q-LAB. Too many to mention but I highly admired their talent and skill. Absolutely fantastic work from around my area and for huge clients such as BMW, Komatsu, The Biltmore House, Ford Modeling Agency, Apple, several movies and travel books.

My boss at the lab taught me a lot. He has been a photographer since he was a kid in Louisiana. Wonderful documentary work, mostly in religious themes. His images have been shown nationwide.

Ralf Burns

The link's not working bloke

There's a web site for Ralph Burns, with many good photos.

www.ralphburnsphotography.com/israel

Okay, I went through the archive of this person, and I have to ask. What do people see in these shots? To me, they are mostly over-contrasty B&W shots mostly of nothing (some have subjects), some of them poorly framed and with bad rotation. There's exactly one HCB shot I like and zero from BW (that I saw). But people must like these shots and I'm curious as to why they do. What am I missing? Or is this one of those, "if you don't get it, I can't explain it to you" situations?

Common adjectives describing BW's work are bold and lyrical, with inspiring use of negative space.
It would help if you could share which photographers inspire you.

Edit: It may be hard to explain BW's work if you cannot see art in photography.

I don't think you can say that about "Holland Canal". Do you think it deserves that kind of shade thrown on it?

www.artsy.net/artwork/brett-weston-holland-canal

Which one?

I'm not trying to "throw shade" except, perhaps, at myself.

This picture at least has a subject, kind of. But there's nothing special about it. What's special about canals and trees? I have dozens of those right near my house.

The one with the kids on the spiral stairs.

What does "lyrical" mean? "Bold" could me what I called "over contrasty".

Photographs don't usually "inspire" me unless they photographs of the universe. Blue marble, Earthrise, the HST shot of the Sombrerro galaxy, the flame nebula, that sort of thing.

What a thread to NOT post pictures in.

Larry Clark used to be my guy, but now, I can't keep up with anyone, and with everyone cheating their butts of with AI, I don't really respect a lot of photographers, even if I like their images. Anyone shooting film has my respect.

The photograph "Children on a spiral staircase" was apparently not taken by HCB but by his wife. It certainly does not look like an HCB photograph to me.
www.hatiandskoll.com/2013/12/26/henri-cartier-bresson-children-on-a-spiral-staircase-favorite-photographs-2103-5/

Agree. That shot looks posed.

What's so special about graveyards, and mountains, and moonrises? Don't you consider Holland Canal to be artfully constructed?

Well, to me that seems like a fairly arbitrary factor, but to each their own I guess…

I can‘t claim to have any fixed metric by which I judge the work of others, but I‘m often impressed by photographers who have managed to create their own unique look or coherent series of ideas. That being said I can easily be convinced by great skill in terms of composition and feeling for a scene or subject. In rare cases even by pure photographic craftsmanship in terms of technique.

Maybe that's why I like it.

The things I mentioned are special, and none of them were graveyards, mountains or moonrise.

No, Holland Canal is not artfully constructed. There are several distracting elements with the composition. It's unbalanced left to right and the vertical elements are not either parallel or enough out of parallel to demonstrate that they are showing perspective on purpose. If I had taken that shot today, I would have probably noticed my mistakes on the back of the camera and tried to remedy them in the next shot. He didn't have that advantage but, to me, that's not a great shot.

You missed the reference to a famous photograph that includes graveyards, and mountains, and moonrises.