Photobloggers have come out in force to deliver their tributes to photographers doing significant work. These sprawling congrats are congealing into a tasty list of practitioners who exhibit cunning, skill, bravado and novelty in their approach and product.
Colin Pantall began all these shenanigans fresh from a summer of non-blogging and sipping fines teas. He says these photographers are leading us toward “a brave new world.”
Joerg has listed the names put forward so far:
Stan Banos: Aaron Huey, Taryn Simon, Eva Leitolf, Matt Black, Brenda Ann Keneally, James Baalog, Edward Burtynsky, Bruce Haley, Daniel Shea
Harvey Benge: Paul Graham, Jason Evans, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Jens Sundheim & Bernhard Reuss, Collier Schorr, Antoine d’Agata, Martha Rosler
Bryan Formhals: Asger Carlsen, Jessica Eaton, Kate Steciw, Alec Soth, Paul Kwiatkowski, Vivian Maier
Julie Grahame: Michael Massaia
Tom Griggs: Bryan Graf, Amy Elkins, Paul Graham, Abelardo Morell, Jessica Eaton
Mark Page: Mishka Henner, Philippe Spigolon, Craig Atkinson, Stuart Griffiths, TomRS
Colin Pantall: Mishka Henner, Lauren Simonutti, Stephen Gill, Tony Fouhse, Paul Graham, Claus Stolz, Olivier Jobard and others
Christopher Paquette: Zoe Strauss, Alec Soth
Heidi Romano: Taryn Simon, Myoung Ho Lee
Joerg Colberg: Thomas Ruff, Katy Grannan, Erik Kessels, Geert van Kesteren, Christian Patterson
Some superb photographer and photomanipulators. I wholeheartedly agree with choices Broomberg & Chanarin and Geert van Kesteren who have cleverly worked with archives and cell phone wartime images respectively.
I’ve got six on my list.
1.
I’ll be another to name Mishka Henner. I think his time has come. Bound to wind a few folk up, he at least steps forward to defend his use of satellite, GSV and Google Earth images. He’s forcing everyone past the unnecessary reverence we have for images as single art objects and imaginatively pointing out the visual cultures all around us.
Henner does not lazily appropriate and his next series (which I’ve seen snippets of on his iPhone) is a robust political critique of humans’ abuse of the environment. And then there is Photographers, a 10 minute montage looking at photographers on the silver screen. Surprising, fun, entertaining.
2.
It might seem strange to add a well established photographer like Jim Goldberg to this list but I’m interested in his reissue of Rich and Poor with TBW Books in Oakland, CA.
I also saw Rich and Poor at Pier24 recently and was left angered and energised; the best possible reaction to art.
Jim talked about his reasons for revisiting old work including the legendary Raised By Wolves with TIME’s Lightbox this week:
“The children in Raised by Wolves were living hard lives—lives that were leading to nowhere. So now, when I reheard a recording that Brandon the intern had found in some box, and I heard the voice of, lets say, Tweeky Dave, well that added something that would extend to the viewers experience of the project.”
It’s pretty ballsy to hand over the reigns to the intern! But great product.
3.
Alyse Emdur‘s name on the list reflects my interest in prisons, but I was impressed by her Photograph A Recruiter before she got neck deep in the visual culture of incarceration. Emdur’s correspondence with hundreds of prisoners and their donated prints reveal a specific, a widespread, but a little seen genre of vernacular American photography.
Her book is just around the corner! My interview with Alyse.
4.
Alixandra Fazzina is one of the least self-promoting documentary photographers I know. Her work about Somali refugees A Million Shillings – Escape From Somalia is one of the best pieces of social reportage from Africa in this century and the last. And the book is beautiful.
5.
The Instagramer. I’m being contrary with the inclusion of Peter DiCampo on this list, but he is young, using Instagram, and less well known than other famous photographers such as Kashi, Stanmeyer and Pinkhassov making images with their phones.
No need to argue anymore; cell phones allow us to share images instantly and there is an inherent worth to that. Peter DiCampo represents that seismic shift we’ve yet to get to grips with. See his Everyday Africa project.
A woman hangs laundry in Takira, Uganda on May 29, 2012. © Peter DiCampo.
6.
Another recent discovery, Tomoko Sawada is a self portrait specialist. I spent ten minutes in front of Recruit/Grey knowing that they were all images of her but still unwilling to accept it. She’s a grand manipulator in the quietest way; a refreshing tonic to Cindy Sherman.
Prison Photography 
10 comments
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September 25, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Stan B.
Congrats- it took until now for someone to realize that an Instagramer should have been named, cause it certainly aint gonna be “new” much longer (and even as is- is just a much more, way more convenient rehash of the SX-70 aesthetic).
Must say I’m a bit “perplexed” by the latest reissue of Rich And Poor- looks as if it’s the limited specialty deluxe edition with the “have mores” in mind…
September 26, 2012 at 9:32 am
John Edwin Mason
While the photographers on these lists are all worthy of praise, they’re overwhelmingly white North Americans and Europeans.
It’s worth pointing out that no one in, say, Johannesburg or Mumbai would dare to compile a list of “Best Photographers” and leave out 4/5ths of the world. The fact that most (not all) of these photo-bloggers have done just that — probably without even noticing or caring that they’ve done it — reflects the conviction that’s deeply embedded in western culture that what white people is what matters the most. Everything else is marginal.
I’m not suggesting that these photo-bloggers should know anything at all about Chinese or Indian or Brazilian or Nigerian photography. But they should at least be conscious of the narrowness of their vision. And they should acknowledge it.
Let’s call the list “The Best White North American and European Photographers (with Minor Exceptions) of the First 1/8th of the 21st Century That We Happen to Be Familiar With.”
September 26, 2012 at 10:29 am
Stan B.
Guilty as charged…
September 26, 2012 at 10:34 am
Christopher Paquette
I think it is important to look at the wording of the request by Joerg and Colin…. “To celebrate new ideas in photography, we are asking people to nominate up to five photographers who have demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, who have taken chances with their photography and have shown an unwillingness to play it safe.”
I didn’t see this as a request to nominate “the best” photographers, simply those on the cutting edge. Those two things are obviously not always the same. The fact that the nominated list is a small bubble is not surprising at all considering it was created from a micro-bubble of contemporary photo bloggers.
September 26, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Stan B.
That’s a good point Christopher, then again, some of us (many of us?) are not that familiar with what’s going on in photography in Africa, South America and Asia (I know I’m not). We should therefore be a bit more responsible in checking things out before we reach out for the usual suspects in our backyards.
September 26, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Stan B.
Talk about embarassing- I can’t believe I left out the name of Hank Willis Thomas off my own list! Damn, if anyone has been breaking new ground in new ways (and we still haven’t breeched our own backyard)…
September 26, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Christopher Paquette
Agreed ! I think this would be a very interesting project…. do this same exercise continent by continent. I know nothing about contemporary African or South American photography, let alone who is on the cutting edge from those regions.
September 26, 2012 at 12:33 pm
petebrook
Add Zanele Muholi to my list.
September 26, 2012 at 4:28 pm
dan
Rinko Kawauchi and Simryn Gill … both awesome.
September 27, 2012 at 3:34 am
colin pantall
Alejandro Chaskielberg spring to mind from South America, sort of. And many others too.
Broomberg and Chanarin are South African. .
Ai Wei Wei and Voina could kind of fit as well. And so could Pussy Riot.
It’s a good point about the lack of diversity, but then it’s not a diverse group of bloggers is it and we do share vaguely similar tastes and values.
That’s a problem in itself.
Another problem is preconceptions photographers have of photography, and the fact that it requires a certain amount of funding.
John mentions, for example, Nigerian photography. I am very ignorant of Nigerian photography. I would love to feature more but my ignorance and lack of knowledge precludes that – I also have to be engaged – so I included some vernacular Nigerian photography on the blog. More to the point, I go where I have a passion. So I’ve featured a fairly diverse range of literature from around the world, including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean on my blog – because that is where I feel there are voices that are interesting, dynamic and ground-breaking.
And in film, my tastes are quite eclectic – so Indian, Asian, African movies get a lot of referencing by me – probably too much.
So I could (and do) talk about Nigerian literature for example because I am engaged by that. Or I could (and do) talk about Somali literature (or Nuruddin Farah at least – a great interview here – http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/sep/21/nuruddin-salah-life-in-writing) because that is directly relevant to my experience and my knowledge base – and it impassions me and excites me. And that is all I can really respond to.
So I would say if it was innovative, exciting and new voices in literature we were doing, then the voices would be there from me. Photography, I’m not quite there yet.
Tom Griggs is though. Tom at Fototazo is doing a great thing looking at diverse photography communities around the world. So well done to Tom for doing something constructive and bringing new perspectives forward as well as providing funding for less-wealthy artists to create new work.
http://www.fototazo.com/p/site-links.html