50 Photographers You May Want to Know

April 17, 2009 9:28 AM

Fifty photographers you should know from Hongkiat, range from the abstract underwater marine life of Nicholas Samaras, to the heavily finished concert scenes of David Lindsey Wade, to the horrific Birds of Lyndon Wayne, to the staged Hollywood scenes of Alex Prager, to the 100 meter picture "We're All Gonna Die", plus a lot of interesting fashion and commercial art. Be warned, lots of portfolios use flash, with UIs ranging from interesting to the annoying.
posted by blahblahblah (18 comments total)

Everything immediately linked-to in the post should be safe for work viewing.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:32 AM on April 17, 2009

what is up with photographers and their web sites? is it so terrible to have a web site that is easy to navigate? is it impossible to have a site that could load a photo in less than a minute?
posted by snofoam at 9:38 AM on April 17, 2009 [5 favorites]

Wonderful images that I just don't have the patience to look at thanks to the crap-flash-tastic sites.
posted by not_the_water at 9:53 AM on April 17, 2009

50 Web Designs You May Want to Avoid.
posted by gum at 10:00 AM on April 17, 2009

Comments here in posts about photography are always so predictable. I hate flash as much as the next person, but really, no one cares about what you don't like. This site would be a lot better if people didn't feel compelled to let everyone know what they hate. For reals yo.
posted by chunking express at 10:08 AM on April 17, 2009 [3 favorites]

The Birds link is great.
posted by everichon at 10:33 AM on April 17, 2009

look, i get the flash hate.

but let's be honest: hating flash is more of a web design nerd thing. it's not that difficult to navigate a site built in flash that has simple clickable images that lead to higher resolution versions. sure, some of them are terrible and unfriendly, but that's not because they're flash. not everything has to be a css wonderland.

back on topic: this martin amis fellow... any relation to the author, or just a coincidence?
posted by shmegegge at 10:40 AM on April 17, 2009

Some interesting stuff but they should change the title to 50 Digital Illustrators and Photographers you should know.
posted by starman at 10:43 AM on April 17, 2009

aha! that's what i was just about to say, starman. i mean, granted, i've long since renounced any 'decisive moment' kind of photographic visual truth/purity of vision and accepted that all images are more or less constructions. but there is something about much of the work represented here that demonstrates the difference between an artist for whom photography is the medium v. an artist for whom photography is another tool in multimedia image creation.
posted by barrett caulk at 10:58 AM on April 17, 2009

Exactly, Starman. I was going to comment "50 Editorial and Commercial Photographers You Should Know If You're An Art Director Or Designer."

Ring flash, glistening skin, over-saturation, seamless backdrops… It's not that I don't respect the craft employed by these folks, or begrudge them making a living, but frankly, I don't really have to know any of these folks.
posted by klangklangston at 11:01 AM on April 17, 2009

The big question: What's with the couple sporting matching eye patches in "We're All Gonna Die"???
posted by VicNebulous at 11:24 AM on April 17, 2009

For the record, I was asking a serious question, albeit one phrased snarkily. I just don't really understand why it is so pervasive amongst photographers to have such unusable sites. They're almost as consistently bad as the conspiracy theory sites by tinfoil hat people, but I understand why crazy people have sites that are totally insane.

I would assume that a significant portion of photographers are normal people who use the web and have some appreciation for being able to navigate, load pages at a reasonable speed, etc. But it seems that assumption is wrong.
posted by snofoam at 11:58 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, the photos from this post are pretty great.
posted by snofoam at 12:01 PM on April 17, 2009

I think it's a fair question, snofoam. I clicked on the third link and it automatically resized my browser. I then clicked away from the website without bothering to see what remained. If you want me to enjoy your photography, then don't mess with the way I enjoy my browser.
posted by Atreides at 12:58 PM on April 17, 2009

I think photographers are paranoid about how easy it is to grab photos in straight up HTML based sites. (Not that it's super difficult using flash, but it's certainly more of a pain in the ass.)
posted by chunking express at 1:02 PM on April 17, 2009

Photographers use Flash sites because the website is their portfolio, and they may feel the need to "wow" potential clients. Anyone who has done any sort of web design knows that what "wows" the non-design-inclined is often pointless animation and whatnot, and this assumption could be behind these sites.

Also, what chunking said about discouraging image downloading.
posted by good in a vacuum at 1:05 PM on April 17, 2009

Photographer websites don't fit in a rolodex because they don't belong in a rolodex.

because the website is their portfolio

Exactly. And potential clients might look at hundreds/thousands of online portfolios, and maybe that one that sticks out in a slightly obnoxious way is more memorable.

Also, if we're complaining about websites....

Side-scrolling pages: fine, be the fad... but please can you make a script that lets my scroll wheel be operational?
posted by pokermonk at 2:44 PM on April 17, 2009

starman, barrett caulk and klangklangston: the three of you have made my comment for me. Thank you!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:14 PM on April 17, 2009