Inspiration Sheets

Tony Sweet (born 1949) is an American photographer, known for his widely published nature photography. He is also a jazz musician, workshop instructor, and author. He is possibly my favourite photographer, and one of my biggest creative inspirations. He is particularly interested in nature photography, such as flowers. His work is beautiful and unique due to his use of  different shutter speeds and apertures to usual, creating different effects. Some of his work, in my opinion, look almost like paintings and are very good at displaying the softness and original beauty of the plants which he chooses as photographic subjects. 

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist best known for his black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West. Ansel Adams is an inspiration to me due to his use of monochrome. Although the majority of his images do not use colour, they are still able to convey mood and atmosphere through depth, highlight and shadow. Within his work, he focuses primarily landscapes and nature, yet he still manages to capture emotion such as the first image on my inspiration sheet showing a longing or perhaps hope and the last one expressing passion.

Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt, 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983), was a German-British photographer and photojournalist. Although born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his high-contrast images of British society, his distorted nudes and landscapes, and is widely considered to be one of the most important British photographers of the 20th century. In some respects, Bill Brandt's work can be seen as quite similar to that of Ansel Adams, but he also uses humans to almost create new landscapes and also contrast between the two. His work is particularly inspiring to me as it looks at the human body in a different light, more as a subject to admire than to relate to, something I would like to try within my own work. Another of his trademarks is that of distorting depth and size.

Eve Arnold, OBE, Hon. FRPS (née Cohen; April 21, 1912 – January 4, 2012) was an American photojournalist. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957. Arnold is an inspiration to me due to the fact that she has photographed so many famous people, including Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm X, and Joan Crawford, which obviously and admirable quality yet she is quoted as saying "I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary, I see them simply as people in front of my lens." showing that her work means more to her than the fact she is around famous people.  Her images really give the look and feel of the time as well as the place in which they were taken , allowing the viewer to really get inside the image and view the subjects as real people, in complete contrast with those of Brandt's work.

Florencia Mazza Ramsey is a fashion and commercial photographer hailing from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a less well known photographer but her work is still beautiful and inspirational to me. She works mostly again with models as her subjects and finds a way to show emotion extremely well, such as the anger in the second picture to the left on my inspiration sheet. She is also very talented at creating sultry or sexy images without the use of nudity. The skin of her models is beautifully highlighted. 

Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England. He is a member of Magnum Photos. His work is inspirational to me because of the extremely bright colours he is able to produce in his photography. his work is bright and bold and easily recognisable. He makes a statement not only with the colour pallete of his images but also with the subject matter and unusual framing, such as the bottom left image on my inspiration sheet.