Whilst technical resources are (of course) useful for certain things, I learn far more from other photographers’ photographs than from seeing lists of their equipment, which tend to be really rather boring. Trying to discern how other people see is far more useful: I don’t want to copy others, but as Susan Sontag pointed out, there is an element of acquisition of other people’s work involved in creating images, whether we intend it or not (we may not even be aware of it, but it is still happening).
In that sense, then, these are some of the photographers and graphic resources that I regularly turn to for inspiration. This is by no means a complete list: I find I’m adding to this all the time. Note that links to books go to Beyond Words (see below) where possible, otherwise to Amazon.
And please: if you find a broken link, please tell me about it - thank you!).
- (Lord!) Ansel Adams
- I love the vision, definition and precision in his work… and his books are just great too; I particularly find Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs really stimulating, alongside his three books on making images: The Camera, The Negative, The Print.
- Mohamed Adel
- a great Egyptian photographer.
- Nick Atkins
- stimulating landscape images - I particularly like his images involving water. Interestingly (for me), he mostly sticks with 3×2 format, which I find myself moving away from more and more, but Nick usually makes it work.
- Beyond Words
- the best photographic bookshop in Britain, and certainly amongst the best in the world… based in my home town of Edinburgh!
- Ian Cameron
- a landscape photographer who creates evocative images, many of them from Scotland; I find his philosophical reflections on how he creates his images very attractive.
- Richard Childs
- another Scottish landscape photographer; I like his intensive use of colour, which is almost always just on the right side of being ‘not-over-saturated’.
- Jim Chuchu
- absolutely stunning portraits, with a lot of African imagery (he’s from Nairobi).
- Joe Cornish
- one of the greatest contemporary landscape photographers; I have and love his book on Scotland’s Coast: A Photographer’s Journey. He publishes Great British Landscapes with Tim Parkin (see below for both of these).
- Mabel Forsyth
- gifted graphic designer and photographer.
- Kirsten Gallon
- a very diverse and stimulating collection of images.
- Great British Landscapes
- a magazine devoted to the artistic aspects of landscape photography, i.e. it doesn’t just focus on equipment. Some of it is free, and the parts that are not can be bought on short or long subscriptions. It’s a very stimulating publication, and I strongly recommend it! It’s run by Tim Parkin and Joe Cornish (both listed here too!). They even produced a wee feature about my photography as I was one of the early subscribers.
- David Langan
- a Scottish landscape photographer based in Aberdeen; I particularly like his beach/sea images.
- Rula Halawani
- deeply moving photographs from Israeli-occupied Palestine.
- Chase Jarvis
- a prolific photographer and blogger; he’s fantastically enthusiastic about everything (and he has a great sense of humour!).
- Michael Kenna
- beautifully simple, minimalist landscape photographs. An inspiration to many; I’m really looking forward to getting his new book once it’s available: Images of the Seventh Day 1974-2009.
- Macquillage of Curiosity
- along with a variety of other themes, she produces many self-portraits. Some of them are rather strange, though I find many at least interesting (and some are stunning) in their mood, composition and lighting.
- Tony Mamic
- dreamy, minimalist black and white scenes - a gorgeous collection of images (and prints are for sale).
- Max Marinucci
- gorgeous, simple images, mostly in black and white (make sure you have your sound on when you visit this!).
- Michael Marten
- this is not me! This MM started the Science Photo Library, but now creates landscape photography on various themes.
- Stan Musilek
- although much advertising photography is technically brilliant, it mostly leaves me rather cold. However, Musilek’s work is wonderful - beautiful, elegant, striking, and above all, engaging.
- Tim Parkin
- a great landscape photographer from Yorkshire in northern England. Publishes Great British Landscapes along with Joe Cornish (see above), and runs large format photography workshops.
- Bruce Percy
- an Edinburgh-based (so local for me) landscape and travel photographer extraordinaire - and he runs fantastic photography courses that I can personally recommend too! His ebook on photographic processes is fantastically helpful, as are many of his other ebooks. He is soon to be publishing a homage to Ansel Adams’ 40 photographs book.
- Fabrizio Perilli
- portraits that I think really feel as if they are penetrating into the subject’s inner life.
- Helen Pugh
- local (to me), I like her imaginative portrait work.
- Douglas Robertson
- another local: I’d heard of him, but never consciously seen his engaging photographs until one of his former models alerted me to his work.
- Ken Rockwell
- is probably known mostly for his excellent reviews of camera stuff, despite making the point repeatedly that what matters are the photographs, not the equipment. His colour saturation is way over the top for me a lot of the time, but interesting stuff nonetheless.
- Galen Rowell
- another great landscape photographer.
- Sakiarasport
- I have no idea how I first discovered this site, but once you work out how to navigate some of the Russian(?), there are some great photographs here (though I’m not even sure if they’re all by the same person!).
- Sven Seebeck
- a German landscape who lives in Finland, he captures beautiful light landscape images.
- Matthew Jordan Smith
- a portrait photography who makes everyone look beautiful!
- David Stanley
- a landscape photographer who also writes stimulating reflective articles about his work (though as of the end of 2010 his site seems somewhat dormant).
- Stills
- Scotland’s photographic resource centre: exhibition space, teaching, equipment and studio usage… a wonderful place!
- Nancy L Stockdale
- an academic working in a similar field to mine - but she is also a wonderful photographer (known online as Futurowoman).
- Chris Weeks
- some fantastic portraits.
- Lucas Zarebinski
- still life and commercial photographer, who produces beautiful art.
