Staff and wire report

Photography like any art, should not be practiced in an echo chamber. In order to become better at your craft you need to see what other artists are doing. This is how people grow and hone their specific skill set. Trying to emulate famous photographers work is not stealing, its merely a practice of your skill. The act of creating something new and unique comes out of this practice. A link to a slideshow of inspirational photos from history's best shooters, in our staff's opinion, concludes this story.

Here’s our list of the top 10 photographers of all time:

1. Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz is a very famous photographer. She began her career shooting for Rolling Stone magazine, working there for 10 years before moving on to other ventures. She shoots for many publications but does a majority of her work for Vanity Fair. If you were to pick up a current issue of Vanity Fair magazine she would probably have shot some of the images in the magazine. Leibovitz has photographed almost every celebrity imaginable and what really sets her apart from other photographers is her lighting style. She uses a very distinct lighting setup which delivers a muted almost painterly image. Her photographs are very recognizable if you have studies her work even for a short period of time. Consistency in your photographic style is a great skill to attain because it means people can easily recognize your work and you will get hired more.

2. Gregory Crewdson
This man’s work is literally huge. Think of the most extravagant photograph that could ever be constructed and Gregory Crewdson has done it. Gregory Crewdson has become a famous photographer for this exact reason. He spends thousands and even millions of dollars to create a single photograph. Imagine the set of a major motion picture being used for one single image. Gregory began experimenting with these large-scale sets in college and just keep making them more extravagant. He utilizes everything from busted fire hydrants to manually fogging up whole sets to achieve this look. He uses a large format camera to capture all the depth that is going on in each scene and then makes huge prints. I have been told that the only way to grasp the depth and detail of his photographs is to see them in person.

3. Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was a portrait and fashion photographer from New York. He became a famous photographer by shooting for many publications and photographed an array of famous people. But the work that I want to point out is a body of photographs entitled In The American West. Richard traveled across the country photographing everyday people that he thought were interesting. He would put up a white sheet on the north side of a building for even lighting and a consistent background. His assistants would be constantly reloading his giant 8×10 camera while he interacted with the subjects. As he walked around he would snap a photo getting incredible expressions from the people standing in front of his camera. Similar to Crewdson’s work, Avedon printed these very large. The detail in each image is breathtaking.

4. Elliott Erwitt
Moving away from large format photography, Elliott Erwitt primarily shot on a 35mm camera. Erwitt was originally from France and immigrated to the United States to go to college. He worked as a photography assistant in the US army where he honed his skills. Elliott focused a lot of his attention on street photography and is one of the wittiest street photographers ever to grace the earth. His images are both deep and funny at the same time images. If you like street photography, Elliott Erwitt will blow you away.

5. Vivian Maier
Probably known as one of the most interesting photographers, Vivian Maier did not become a famous photographer until after her death. In 2007 John Maloof purchased a trunk of negatives and undeveloped film from an auction. Little did he know that the contents of this trunk would include thousands of images by a soon to be a well-known photographer named Vivian Maier. What we now know about Vivian is that she spent her life as a nanny. She mainly photographed on a twin lens 6×6 camera and brought it everywhere she went. The majority of her photographs were taken in Chicago and New York. She simply photographed everything that interested her when she walked down the streets. Although she was known to be reclusive and weird, her photographs do not depict this side of her. Vivian’s images are bold showing strangers staring right into her camera.

6. Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams is well known for his breathtaking nature photographs in the 1930’s and for 25 years to follow. Few people know that he was also a staunch environmentalist. He grew up in Northern California, and spent much of his youth at Yosemite, which became the spotlight of his work. His first notable piece was his famous image Monolith, the Face of Half Dome.

7. Steve McCurry
Another famous photographer, Steve McCurry shot one of the most famous photographs in National Geographic history. McCurry’s career took off when he snuck into Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion. He managed to sneak rolls of film out of the country by sewing them into his clothes and the images were made famous by the New York Times and Time magazine. His most famous photograph is entitled “Afghan Girl,” is a simple portrait of a young girl. It is hard to describe how incredible the photograph is but there is just something so captivating about it. It captured the worlds attention and has been one of the most famous pictures to ever grace to cover of National Geographic. He tried to replicate the photo by photographing the same girl years later but it did not have the same effect. Steve McCurry is still working as a photographer and has spent a lot of his career overseas capturing stunning portraits of common people

8. Robert Frank
Robert Frank was a Swiss-American photographer best known for his book entitles The Americans. Frank traveled across America by car in 1955 capturing the everyday lives of Americans. When his book finally got published and printed in America, it was met with criticism. Luckily for Frank, he had Jack Kerouac wright the introduction which gave the book some traction. Over the years the book became a beloved classic in the art world and most of the critics vanished. If you ever get a chance to look through The Americans, you will see how refreshing the view is from Franks camera. He gives an outsiders perspective that may not have been as powerful from a patriots point of view.

9. Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White was the first American female war photojournalist, the first woman hired by LIFE magazine in 1936. She was the first female war correspondent during WWII and traveled with General Patton at the end of the war. She is best known for her work as the very first foreign photographer allowed to take photograph the Soviet Five-Year Plan. Later, she became involved in the ongoing conflict in India, where she captured her famous portrait of Mohandas Gandhi.

10. Chris Hondors
Chris, and American born photojournalist, is most known for his war photography. He was a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. He was made famous for his work in Iraq during 2005, when he captured images of the carnage of war. Chris was killed in Libya while photographing Libyan Civil War in 2011.