To share the exciting news that MASTERS now available on AMAZON, I wanted to share a list of lessons I’ve personally learned from all the masters of photography.
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- Akira Kurosawa: A great director must also be their own editor
- Alexander Rodchenko: Shoot pictures from dynamic angles (very high looking down, or very low angles looking up
- Alfred Stieglitz : Create a community to empower photographers
- Alec Soth: Make yourself emotionally naked before you can have your subjects uncover their soul to you
- Alex Webb: Life is complex and multi-layered, and so should our pictures
- Alexey Brodovitch: Bridge the gap between graphic design and photography
- Anders Petersen: Shoot the streets like you were a child, seeing it for the first time
- Andre Kertesz: Photograph yourself
- Ansel Adams: You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
- Araki: Stay prolific, stay young.
- Blake Andrews: Always have a camera in hand, unless you’re sleeping.
- Bruce Davidson: Don’t seek to be a fine art photographer, seek to be a fine photographer.
- Bruce Gilden: “If you can’t smell the streets, then it isn’t a good street photograph.”
- Constantine Manos: Don’t get “suckered by the exotic”.
- Daido Moriyama: Feel what you photograph.
- David Alan Harvey: Be picky about what you decide to photograph. But if you see a good scene, take 100 pictures of it.
- David Hurn: Photography is two things: Where to stand and when to hit the shutter.
- Diane Arbus: Relate with your subjects.
- Dorothea Lange: Document history
- Elliott Erwitt: Make people laugh with your pictures (best tonic for the soul)
- Eugene Atget: Document changing cities, urban landscapes, and architecture.
- Eugene Smith: Be insanely passionate about your photography and visual artistry; don’t compromise your artistic ideals.
- Fan Ho: Elegant and simple compositions are timeless
- Garry Winogrand: Shoot because you love life!
- Gordon Parks: Document and photograph social inequality and injustice; make a social change through your photography.
- Helen Levitt: Never give up or get discouraged in your photography (after 2 years of shooting a color street photography project and her negatives were stolen, she didn’t get discouraged, and started over again, with even *more* zest this time).
- Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photography is zen.
- Irving Penn: Elegance and simplicity in human form, simple and dynamic backgrounds (corners of room to photograph).
- Jacob Aue Sobol: Shoot close.
- Jeff Mermelstein: Be aggressive to make good street pictures.
- Joel Meyerowitz: A good street photographer is a combination of a boxer and a ballerina– it is all about moving your feet, and staying light on your toes.
- Joel Sternfeld: Small details make great pictures.
- Josef Koudelka / Part 2: Live life according to your own rules.
- Josh White: Photographing your loved ones is more important than photographing strangers.
- László Moholy-Nagy: All visual art is art.
- Lee Friedlander: All pictures are a self-portrait of yourself.
- Lisette Model: Photograph the spectacular.
- Magnum Contact Sheets: ‘You must milk the cow a lot to get a little bit of cheese.’ – Henri Cartier-Bresson (take a lot of pictures to get a few good ones)
- Magnum Photographers: Even Magnum photographers are human.
- Mark Cohen: ‘Decapitate’ and cut off the heads of your subjects, to focus on hand gestures and details.
- Martin Parr: Make social commentary/critique through your photography.
- Martine Franck: Build a name for yourself; don’t just live in the shadow of someone else.
- Mary Ellen Mark: Seek to make perfect compositions.
- Rene Burri: Kill your master in photography.
- Richard Avedon: All photography is dealing with your own mortality.
- Richard Kalvar: Dark humor makes good street photos.
- Robert Capa: ‘If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.’
- Robert Frank: Your pictures aren’t about your subjects; they’re about you.
- Saul Leiter: Be a painter with your camera.
- Sergio Larrain: Zen monk with camera.
- Sebastião Salgado: Cross-pollinate your interests (Salgado started off as an economist, and decided to use photography as a tool to understand the world instead).
- Shomei Tomatsu: Integrate blur into your photos.
- Stephen Shore: Even ordinary objects can be beautiful.
- The History of Street Photography: We should be grateful for the path the masters of photography have paved for us– it is our duty to add to that legacy.
- Todd Hido: Even houses have souls.
- Tony Ray-Jones: Don’t take boring pictures.
- Trent Parke: If you see something good, “shoot the shit out of it.”
- Vivian Maier: You could be a great photographer even as a side-hobby.
- Walker Evans: Stay open-minded in photography (he once hated color photography, then started to shoot color polaroids, and liked it and revised his opinion).
- Weegee: Life is a human drama.
- William Eggleston: Photograph nice colors.
- William Klein: You aren’t a street photographer; you’re a director on the streets.
- Zoe Strauss: A great photo project will take you at least 10 years.
For a beginners overview to the masters of photography, read ‘Cheat Sheet: Masters of Photography.’
Videos: Lessons From The Masters of Photography
MASTERS
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