Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz, considered one of America's best portrait photographers, developed her trademark use of bold colors and poses while at Rolling Stone.Photographer Annie Leibovitz was born October 2, 1949, in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1970 she took a job at Rolling Stone magazine. In 1983 she began working for the entertainment magazine Vanity Fair. From the 1990s to the present, she has been publishing and exhibiting her work.While with Rolling Stone, Leibovitz developed her trademark technique, which involved the use of bold primary colors and surprising poses. 
Annie Leibovitz has always been one of my favorite photographers. I love how her colors are so vibrant and even with color her photographs always have this soft feeling to them. The way she uses light wether natural or artificial is amazing.

jerry uelsmann

Uelsmann is a master printer, producing composite photographs with multiple negatives and extensive darkroom work. He uses up to a dozen enlargers at a time to produce his final images, and has a large archive of negatives that he has shot over the years. When beginning to create one of his photomontages, he has a strong intuitive sense of what he's looking for, some strategy for how to find it, and an understanding that mistakes inevitable and are part of the creative process. After he shoots he returns to his work station in his home and covers a large drafting table with hundreds of proof sheets. He folds and overlaps various contact prints, explores the visual possibilities, then brings the options into his darkroom. He then sets his selected pieces into the large number of enlargers that he owns in his darkroom, and moves the photo paper progressively down the line, building up an image. 

It's amazing to see how he has an amazing eye to see what two images will work great together. The amount of detail and process that goes into each shot is amazing. He has other work that is just as spectacular  check out his website, http://www.uelsmann.net 

Sandy Skoglund

Sandy Skoglund (born September 11, 1946) is an American photographer and installation artist. Skoglund creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets or tableaux, furnishing them with carefully selected colored furniture and other objects, a process of which takes her months to complete. Finally, she photographs the set, complete with actors. The works are characterized by an overwhelming amount of one object and either bright, contrasting colors or a monochromatic color scheme.

I enjoy the color selections she makes for her images the colors always compliment each other. It's very amazing that she creates all of her set ups that can take up to months before she an finally photograph her models in them. I like that the way she sets up her materials leads you through the image like the green cat image below leads you all around the image because the placement of all the cats gives it movement.

http://www.sandyskoglund.com

Laurie Simmons

Laurie Simmons (born October 3, 1949) is an american artist, photographer and filmmaker currently working in New York and Northwestern Connecticut. Since the mid-1970s, Simmons has staged scenes for her camera with dolls, ventriloquist dummies, objects on legs, and people, to create photographs that reference domestic scenes. After exploring dolls on a life size scale, Simmons discovered a type of Japanese costume play called Kigurumi in which participants become doll-like characters by dressing in masks and bodysuits. Simmons presents this transformative social experience and relates it to our relationship with social media.
The Kigurumi, Dollers and how we see was one that was very interesting to me. It was very interesting to see al her models dressed like dolls and she then prints them big enough to give it that life like feeling. It reminded me of marion peck paintings. It's a bit creepy visually but very interesting.

Robert Frank

Robert Frank is a photographer and filmmaker from Zurich, Switzerland. He is well known for the book The Americans which is about his outside viewpoints on american society from his nationwide journey. Along with his numerous apreciations for this book, Frank created films that also brought attention to the public. His most famous film Cocksucker Blues documented The Rolling Stones and their experiences on tour. Most interesting about Frank's work was how he combined photography and film to create his ideas and stories. Below is a link to find out more information about Robert Frank. http://www.danzigergallery.com/artists/robert-frank/2

Richard Avendon

American born Richard Avendon was a fashion and portrait photographer known 

to capture "the tragic beauties" in his work. At the age of 12, Avendon was already involved socially via Young Men’s Hebrew Association Camera Club and one of his first inspirations to create work was found in his younger sister later diagnosed with schizophrenia. In his career, he had been featured in magazines like Vougue, Life and was working at Harper's Magazine for a few years. Later in his career, I felt he showed more personal reasons to photograph people far from the fashion side. His later work included portraits of people during the civil rights movement, Vietnam protestors, the before & after the Berlin Wall and more. Below are a few photos by Richard Avedon I'm hoping you'd like.  http://www.avedonfoundation.org/

Kelli Connell

Kelli Connell is a photographer who lives in Chicago.  Connell's images are created from scanning and manipulating two or more negatives in Adobe Photoshop. She uses the computer to create "believable" situations and to create stories. Because her images are altered, Connell uses the same model in one setting, therefore the self is "exposed as not a solidified being in reality, but as a representation of social and interior investigations that happen within the mind." Many of Connell's images reconstruct private relationships she has had, witnessed in public, or watched on television. Connell's work also represents a questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships. I enjoy how Connell is able to represent interior dilemmas through photography. I also like that Connell creates her work to say something about the viewer's identities based on their reactions to the images.

http://kelliconnell.com/

Post #15 - Sarah Jarad

Stefan Exler

Stefan Exler was born in 1968 and lives and works in Hamburg and Berlin. Exler has taken a stand on the ongoing debate of the authenticity of photography; the boundary line between fact and fiction. He takes subjectivism to an extreme. Exler's photographs have a bird's eye view of the room, usually apartments or cellars. Exler creates the scenes for all of his photographs, selecting and arranging props very carefully. I enjoy Exler's point of view. I feel like it's different from most photographs I have seen. It offers a new perspective on a scene and the telling of a story.

http://deutsche-boerse.com/dbg/dispatch/en/kir/dbg_nav/corporate_responsibility/33_Art_Collection/40_artists/01_A-E/22_exler

Post #14 - Sarah Jarad

Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijkstra was born in 1959 in the Netherlands. She now lives and works in Amsterdam. Dijkstra concentrates on single portraits. Her subjects include teenagers, new mothers, and soldiers. Her subjects are usually standing facing the camera with minimalist backgrounds. One of her most popular projects, Beach Portraits (1992-94), shows young adolescents in front of oceans in the United States, Poland, Britain, Ukraine, and Croatia. These portraits are full length and almost life size. I love the color and lighting in Dijkstra's portraits. The focus is entirely on the subject, which is the purpose of a portrait, but also has a beautiful background while maintaing that focus.

http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/rineke-dijkstra/

Post #13 - Sarah Jarad 

Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt - born May 2 1904, in Hamburg German. Brandt moved to England right before world war 1 and his father was detained in a internment camp because he was born in Germany. Brandt later denounced his german background and told everyone he was from south London. He moved to London in 1933 and that is where his photography begin. He used black and white dark images to show the struggles of the poor in London during world war II. Later was praised for his photo skills and was given a job as a photojournalist. 

Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry- Born in Philadelphia Penn. He attended Penn state university originally studying filmmaking ended up getting a theater art degree. 1974 is when he picked up a camera and began his career. He is most known for dressing in native garbs and crossing the border of Pakistan into Afghanistan before Russian invasion and snuck back over the border with rolls of film sewn into his clothes. I respect this person for not being scared to put himself into harms way to do what he had to do.

Pete Thorne

Pete Thorne - Hold a bachelor in fine arts with a  major in photography from Nova Scotia College of art and design. Currently lives in Toronto Canada. Most known for his project "old faithful". these images are of very old dogs from shelters or rescues. It has a lot to do with surviving this old as a dog.