James Cooper

I found Cooper on Tinyvices and can't find much info on him. I know he lives in Bermuda, which makes sense given that all of his photos are taken underwater. These images are just eye candy for me, with the saturated colors and the weird hand-crafted props. I'm pretty sure there's some serious dopamine surges goin on in my brain whenever I see them...the first one is kind of magical.

Gill Inoea

I'm expanding on Christina's post here, focusing mostly on his decision to include information usually cropped out of fashion photos like the general set, hands fixing models up, stuff like that, which I think is an awesome look at the hidden world of the all-too-perfect fashion photos we usually see in magazines. In the photos where hands are included in the frame fixing up the models' makeup or clothing, the models almost read as objects--way cool. 

Grec Stimac

This artist attached a sheet of plexiglass to the front of his car and drove around with it, collecting debris such as insects, dust, rain drops, etc.. After the drive, he removed the plexiglass and scanned it and this is the result: 

 

 

A little novel, but I think it's interesting nonetheless. I like that they kind of look like stars during warp speed from the cockpit of the Enterprise...

His other work is a little more interesting, it's kind of gritty and all-American. Here's a series of diptychs entitled "America Ideologies" most of which are centered around guns, lawnmowers, and campfires.

 

 

He also does some pretty cool film work which you can view on his website. 

Martin Hyers and William Mebane

I couldn't find much info about either of these guys, I just know that Mebane is a Brooklyn-based photographer with an MFA from the San Fransisco Art Institute and the two work together on fine art photography. I love their use of flash and deadpan portraits of suburban houses, it makes them seem unreal and kind of imposing. The flash also allows them to freeze the movement of things like snow or flags on the houses, making them seem even more unreal. The way they crop their subjects is also something I find really appealing, as well of the lack of people in their work.  On their website (here) they have almost comically simple category names for all of their work, like "cars," "houses," etc. which is refreshing. They're super minimal and they're not trying to hide it or make it seem like they're saying more.

 

 

  

Gil Inoue

Gil Inoue's work is gesturally gorgeous. His photos are high-contrast, dark, dynamic, and grainless. He maintains pure blacks in each of his photos. From the looks of it, he excels at fashion photography. Some of his work does stray from this theme, but across the board his work ties together with the same beautiful quality.

Tony Cox

Tony Cox's portraits are interesting to me. None of them are typical portraits (not a single subject is looking at the camera), but rather much more real looks at the subject being photographed. All of his work is black and white, and they each draw upon a certain ethereal quality. They are each strung together, not only by technical similarities, but by their unconventional approach to portraiture. 

Reza Nader

Reza Nader's work features a lot of gritty street life as well as club photos. I appreciate the warm filters she uses on several of her street photos, creating a juxtaposition with the dark settings. She also has a a lot of diptychs, and each image relates to the other conceptually, although they each draw a different parallel. Overall, her work is very real not watered down.

Benoit Paillé

From his series Alternative Landscapes, Benoit Paillé explains:

“This is a photography of light installation (real light, real square 1×1 meter) i set in nature or where during the night you have usually no lightning, I try to redefine the space/landscape for my own purpose: create a poetic space/time moment. And questioning the reality of what is a landscape”

This series is fantastic. I love how he combines site specific art with photography (and isn't that sort of what photography is anyway?). He makes these fantastic landscapes that you otherwise would not see illuminated in such a way to give them new context. This looks like an amazing photoshopping job, but what's even more amazing is that they're real.

Check out more of his awesome work here.

Diana Scherer

Diana Scherer did this series of photos called Women in 2004. I love how she flipped the photos on the side of make it look like these women were flying and hit into the tree, instead of hanging off it. I also think she used a really lovely muted color palette.

Check out more of her work here.

Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijstra did a series called Beach Portraits from 1992-2002 where she photographed young people posing on the beach. These photos were meant to be awkward, catching the subjects in an in between state between youth and adulthood, knowing and unknowing, etc.

I think her portraits do what I'm trying to do in my photography, which is photographing people who are prepared to take one photo and having the final product be another.

Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer who promoted modern art and spent his life making photography an accepted art form in the art world. Other than photography  he ran many galleries in New York in the early 20th century, where he introduced the work of avant-garde European artists to the public.

C'mon, who could resist that 'stache?

In 1916, Stieglitz was shown a portfolio of drawings by Georgia O'Keeffe. He loved her work so much  that without meeting O'Keeffe or even getting her permission to show her work, he exhibited her work at his gallery 291. O'Keeffe finally met Stieglitz after going to 291 scolded him for showing her work without her permission. He was immediately attracted to her both physically and artistically and began a vendetta to win her over and make her his wife. He did succeed in both goals and married her, after divorcing his previous wife who he didn't love and was arranged to marry, in 1924.

^ These photographs are of Georgia O'Keeffe! v

He has such an interesting life, like falling intellectually in love with another woman and having six heart attacks in an eight year period! When he died in 1946, he was cremated and O'Keeffe spread his ashes but didn't tell anyone where, saying she spread them "where he could hear the water".

Here's a link to The Met's Timeline of Art History about him

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was an American photographer who has influenced numerous modern and contemporary photographers. He photographed for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and documented the effects of the Great Depression. In 1945, he was a staff writer for Time magazine and an editor for Fortune magazine until 1965.
He mainly used an 8x10-inch camera and said that his goal as a photographer was to make pictures that are "literate, authoritative, transcendent".

Many of his works are in the permanent collections of countless museums such as The Met and the Getty Museum.
Here's a link to him in The Met's Timeline of Art History

Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand was an American street photographer who photographed the American life in the 1960s. His photographs are known to depict social issues and how media shaped the attitudes during the time. During his lifetime he took a crazy amount of pictures. When he died in 1984, 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film were discovered. He was highly influenced by Walker Evans and his book American Photographs

He doesn't have an exclusive website, but here's a big selection of his photographs
and a little biography about him