Some Of My Favorite Photographers; The Ones Who Have Given Me Inspiration In The Past

19th Century Log Cabin, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee (click to enlarge)
This cabin may no longer exist due to the extensive fires from last Autumn.  I'll have to check next time I travel that way.
Fujifilm X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 44.1mm; 1/1 seconds @ f/11; ISO 200

Each of us, as photographers, has been influenced by other photographers, both past and present.  I became a photographer because I was inspired by others in how they captured various aspects of life, the landscape in black and white as well as color.  Here are some of my favorite photographers and how they influenced me over the years.  I think you may be a little surprised at my choices as I'm primarily a nature, landscape and travel photographer.

Ansel Adams   The first time I saw his dramatic landscapes of Yosemite National Park and the American west with black skies and high contrast, I was blown away.  His photographs were the first I remember seeing that made me realize a photo can be more than a snapshot, advertisement or a record of a family event.  Photographs could be art!  Who knew?  Seeing his photographs sent me on my 47 year journey through photography.  I remember the first actual enlargement (a real photographic print!) I saw of his at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk Virginia and it was even more astounding than what I had seen in books.  I have to give credit to Adams for whetting my thirst for photography.

W. Eugene Smith  Wow, can he tell a story photographically!  We always had a subscription to Life magazine in our home.  I looked and read it weekly.  I remember seeing Smith's work and, unknown to me at the time, but looking at his "Country Doctor," "Albert Schweitzer," "Midwife," and "Minimata" stories would have a profound effect on me.  For the first time in my experience, the images were more descriptive and held more power than the text that accompanied them.  But at the time, they didn't connect with something I could ever do so they were more of a learning experience than photography.

Helen Levitt, for me, captured life in NY like no other.  I was captivated by her images on he streets of New York.  She captured life in its everyday form.

Saul Leiter   His book, "Early Color," with its 1950s Kodachrome color rendition of urban environments just pulls at me.  I could look at that color over and over and never tire of it.  You just can't make color images like that today.  With digital, everything is too literal and too perfect.  I've tried to replicate the feeling of his color with a little success, but there seems to be no substitute for original Kodachrome.

Cartier-Bresson, of course, his "decisive moments" grabbed me and I found his work amazing in how he had the ability to see life around him in a way no one else did and how he recorded it at precisely the moment when everything came together perfectly.  I have a copy of the original "The Decisive Moment" in its only original English language printing from 1952.  A real treasure.

David Plowden photographed American infrastructure, capturing the culture in America by recording those man-made items, such as old iron bridges, the railroads and railroad infrastructure, urban and rural buildings and structures, that are quickly vanishing from the American landscape.  He captured much of the industrial history of the 20th Century in the U.S. through his photography.

William Albert Allard/David Alan Harvey, both their abilities to tell stories in such glorious warm, muted color with deep shadows and mystery pulled me into their photographs.  I found both of them through National Geographic Magazine.  I especially like Allard's work in Minnesota, the Hutterites, his Jazz series and my favorite, the iconic Cowboys.  I was so intrigued with his work that I actually wrote to him to ask him some questions.  He and I engaged in a long distance written conversation over several months many years ago.  I always appreciated the fact that, as busy as he was and as much as he traveled the world, he took time to respond to me.  Nice guy.

Vivian Maier, the woman whose vision and talent was only discovered after her death.  It is a shame we missed out on interviews, documentaries and other visual opportunities to quiz her about her life, vision and intent.  Lovely, lovely photographs by an individual with no training, no pretense of creating an extraordinary body of work, just a wonderful desire to record life coupled with an extraordinary eye.  I'm really sorry she wasn't discovered before her death.  Although seemingly unpretentious, she deserved the attention in her life time that she is now getting.

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) Photographers as a group; captured the people of America during the worst of times—the greatest depression experienced in this country and the dust bowl, the great westward migration of families as well as capturing ordinary people of little means just trying to eek out a living and keep their families fed.  Powerful stuff.  Look up some of the images of any of those I've listed below and you will see why I included them.

(Jack Delano, Walker Evans, John Vachon, Gordon Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Roy Stryker, Ben Shawn, Edwin RossKam, Sheldon Dick, Majory Collins, John Collier, Jr., Esther Bubley)

Sebastiao Salgado for his graphic photographs of people engaged in terribly hard manual labor throughout the world.

Larry Burrows, I believe, was the best photographer of the Vietnam War—and done mostly in color.  Incredibly powerful images that influenced me at a time when I could have been in Vietnam fighting.  I didn't get an opportunity to serve as the war ended about 6 months before I graduated from college, but nonetheless, the Vietnam War was the dominant news story every night and topic for discussion everyday during my most formative years.

O. Winston Link was a long time NY commercial photographer but is really better known for his railroad photography.  He worked with the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the late 1950s, at that time the last of the Class 1 (meaning largest) railroads that still operated mainline steam locomotives, to photograph that vanishing part of American culture and business.  What makes his photographs remarkable is that he worked at night, stringing huge and complex apparatus containing dozens of flash bulbs (yes, flash bulbs), fully wired together (sometimes over hundreds of feet) to photograph scenes in the countryside as trains pulled by steam locomotives passed by.  He used large format film cameras and, when a locomotive passed, he had once chance at getting it right.  It is truly a remarkable body of work and I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Link at one of his early exhibits and engaging in some letter writing with him years ago.  The O. Winston Link Museum is located next to the Norfolk Southern mainline tracks in downtown Roanoke Virginia and is well worth a visit if you are in the area.

For portraits, I admire Yousef Karsh.  I love the black and white portraits, made with continuous light, for their high contrast and dramatic lighting.  One of his most notable portraits was of Winston Churchill.  If you saw it you would know it.  I had the pleasure of meeting Karsh once.  We had a pleasant conversation and he signed his book of portraits that I brought with me to the museum exhibit.  Very interesting man.

Last but not least, my good friend Jack Jeffers.  Jack's work is special to me as he spent decades photographing the people and culture of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.  He captured his subjects with respect but also showing them and the places they lived in a manner that captured their essence, warts and all.  Jack has a remarkable eye and a way with people because the "mountain people" let him into their homes and lives and allowed him to capture them living their daily lives.  As far as I know, no other photographer has been able to do that.  He has a couple of books published and if you would be interested in one, I can put you in touch with Jack.

There are many others, of course.  Harold Mante, Bruce Davidson, etc.  All for differing reasons.  I learned photography primarily by looking at other photographers photographs and trying to understand what, indeed, constitutes a good photograph.  Also, I used my very limited discretionary money to buy and buy and buy all of the books I could afford to learn photography.  I asked millions of questions and experimented over and over again until I understood what I was doing.  I still practice photography.  I'll never have the attitude that I've mastered the craft.

Even though I seem to mostly photograph landscapes, nature, wildlife and travel, it is obvious by my choices of favorite photographers, that I think documentary photography in its many forms is the most important type of photography for me.  It is obvious that culture, history and people are important to me, what I want to learn and understand about the past by studying them and how they lived.  So why don't I practice it?  I don't know.   Not enough gumption?  Too hard?  Not enough time?  Probably all of those and more.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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