This list of Famous American Photographers is short. There have been a vast number of Americans that have contributed to the world if photography. This list of biographies is just a glimpses of the many talented artist that have and still are producing some great works of art for our enjoyment.
Abbott, Berenice 1888-1991, Best know for her portrait studies of artist in the 1920’s and her comprehensive documentation of New york City in the 1930’s.
Adams, Ansel 1902-1984. Best known for his printed images of dramatic landscapes and organic forms of the American West. Adams is one of the most recognized famous American Photographer around the world.
Arbus, Diane 1923-1971. Although she practiced as a fashion photographer for 20 years, Arbus is best known for her later work which examined the fringes of American society; the misfits, the eccentrics, and the bizarre.
Avedon, Richard 1923-2004. A fashion photographer with Harper’s Bazaar magazine in New York from the mid-1940”s, he moved t Vogue 1965, he later became the highest paid fashion and advertising photographer in the world.
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Bourke-White, Margaret, 1906-1971. Margaret Bourke-White was one of the most famous and successful photographers of her time. Her combination of intelligence, talent, ambition, and flexibility made her an ideal contributor to the new group journalism that developed during the thirties.
Callahan, Harry 1912– For thirty years Callahan has photographed his wife and child, the streets of the cities in which he has lived, and details of the pastoral landscapes into which he has periodically escaped.
Cunningham, Imogen, 1883-1976, Her early photographs were romantic but she gradually rejected pictorialism, producing clear and detailed plant studies. She was a founding member of the F/64 group.
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Evans, Walker, 1903-1975. Best known for his documentary photographs of people in rural American Sought during the Great Depression.
Frank, Robert, 1924. U.S. photographer born in Switzerland, best known for his informal and un-romanticized pictures of American life.
Goldin, Nan, 1953. Goldin is know for capturing a world of sexuality, violence and addiction, which reflects the everyday life of her friends. Godin is one of the most famous contemporary artist and her work can be seen in many collections around the world.
Hind, Lewis 1874-1940, U.S. sociologist and photographer. his dramatic photographs of child labour conditions in US factories at the beginning of the 20th century led to changes in state and local labour laws.
Horst, Horst P., 1906-1999. Known for capturing an era of European and American glamour on film. He shot black and white portraits of many of the 20th century icons. His contribution figures as one of the most artistically and long lasting. Spanning sixty years, his photographs were know for being creations of elegance, style and glamour.
Johnston, Frances Benjamin 1864-1952. Francis Johnston was a drill sergeant among photographers. In her photographs no head or hand moves during the long exposures; no undisciplined individualist clowns for the camera; no property, no matter how interesting in itself, is allowed to violate the taut, flat planes of her compositions.
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Kruger, Barbara, 1954. Studied art and design with Diane Arbus at Parsons School of Design in New York. Kruger is known for layering photographs found from existing sources with aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control that her captions speak to. She is an internationally renowned artist.
Lange, Dorothea 1895-1965. US photographer hired by the federal Farm Security Administration to document the westward migration of the farm families for the Dust Bowl of the southern central USA.
Leibovitz, Annie 1950. US photographer whose elaborately staged portraits of American celebrities appeared first in Rolling Stone magazine and liter in Vanity Fair.
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Mann, Sally, 1951. This famous American photographer is known for producing controversial works. Many of her works involve her children posed nude in some situations. Her award winning photos promote thought and discussion.
Mapplethorpe Robert 1946-1989. Art photographer known for his use of racial and home-erotic imagery in chiefly fine platinum prints.
Mark, Mary Ellen, 1940. Known for photographing what she calls “people on the edges.” People who have not had the best breaks in society are her focus.
McCartney, Linda 1941-1998. Became a famous American photographer by photographing the Rolling Stones in New York. Those images helped launch her career as a rock photographer. In 1967, she got the chance to work with the most adorned rock bands of the era, the Beatles. In 1969, she and Paul McCartney were married. Linda McCartney’s legacy continues on through her art and charitable efforts.
Newman, Arnold 1918-2006. Newman known for using ancient virtues of the classic stand camera , enforced deliberation, precise framing, exact description, to help him make environmental portraits that might suggest, by their graphics and their symbolic allusions, who the person in the picture might really be, or at least what he might be famous for.
Parks, Gordan 1912-2006. His many talents include, famous American photographer, film director and author. He started out in fashion photography. He also worked for the FSA. First African American hired by Life magazine in 1948, he became know for his portrayals of life in the ghetto as well as the civil right movement.
Penn, Irving 1917-2009. Famous his for work in fashion, advertising, portrait, editorial, and
fine art photography. He was associated for many years with Vogue magazine USA.
Ray, Man 1890-1976. Known for his photograms in which the image was never precisely predictable; unexpected gradation in tone created imaginary vistas that were surprising and delightful. For famous American photographer, to whom art was a sublime kind of play, the technique was perfect.
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Sherman, Cindy 1954. This famous American photographer is best known for appropriating numerous visual genres. She is present in many of her photographs, and yet not really there. She appropriates the space on both sides of the lens. Sherman’s reputation was established early on with her Untitled Film Stills, a series of black and white photography in which the artist depicted herself dressed in the guises of cliched B-movie heroines.
Siskind, Aaron, 1903-1991, art photographer who began as documentary photographer and in 1940 made a radical change towards a poetic exploration of forms and planes
Smith, W. Eugene 1918-1978. Photographed magazine essays and tried to make the magazine photo story meet the standards of coherence, intensity and personal accountability that one expects of a work of art.
Steichen, Edward 1887-1973, US photographer in both world wars, and also an innovative fashion and portrait photographer.
Stieglitz, Alfred 1864-1946, After forming the Photo Secession group in 1903, he started up the magazine Camera Work. He help to establish photography as an art form, through exhibitions at his gallery ‘291’ in New York.
Strand, Paul 1890-1976. Photographer and filmmaker, studied with Lewis Hine and was encouraged by Alfred Stieglitz. Early years were abstract studies of N.Y. His later photography was predominantly rural subjects which celebrate human dignity in a clear and straightforward manner.
Sturges, Jock, 1947. Known for his distinctive brand of nude fine art photography. His work has been condemned by critics as “thinly disguised under age pornography hiding behind the mantle of fine art. Sturges travels to photograph, lecture and teach through out the world.
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Uelsmann, Jerry, 1934. This famous American photographer, is known for assembling pictures from a number of different parts that seemed the product of machine, but was not. He did this way before digital photography came into being. In the 1960’s the work of Uelsmann convinced many younger photographers that the preference for pure photography was merely another superstition of the elderly.
Van Der Zee, James 1886-1983. Van Der Zee is known for capturing the portraits of of well dressed African American celebrities that passed through Harlem as well as, working out of his commercial studio shooting weddings, family groups, teams and such. Van Der Zee added pictorial touches with by air brushing or double-printing the images. This famous American photographer was able to capture many legendary African American celebrities.
Weems, Carrie Mae, 1953. Award winning contemporary famous American photographer is known for investigating family relationships, gender roles. the histories of racism and sexism, class and various political systems. Weems uses storytelling in here work to best express the human condition. She is a socially engaged artist and continues to explore these subjects.
Weston, Edward 1886-1958, Weston had been a skillful and successful photographer for more than a decade when in the early twenties his own unique vision began to reveal itself. By 1930, at age 45, he had produced a body of work that would come to identify him as a major artist.
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