My Top Ten Favourite (with a u) Portrait Photographers Part 1
In my youth I used to go out drinking (a lot), and one of my mates would always start up a debate by saying Top 10 Films, Actors, Actresses, Women (both contemporary and all time), Comedies etc etc you get the script. However he always had the final say, it was case of your entitled to your opinion but your wrong, if you came out with a suggestion he disagreed with you would get the expected response of "dismissed"!
Since I have got back into photography I have got to admire the work of a number of photographers, and they inspire me to be one day as good as them, so I thought I would start to compile a list of my top ten Portrait Photographers, with the reassurance that Smithy (my mate) can't dismiss them as he is not into photography!!!
I spend hours and hours on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavbc and http://500px.com/gavfoto and I've come to love the work of hundreds of photographers, so my list may not include all the well known "celebrity" photographers, it does include a couple. but they are the guys I love and inspire me! So dismiss them if you want..... I'm not listening!!!
These are in no particular order as I admire all their work often for different reasons, as a lot of them are quite different, and maybe this holds me back as I'm quite eclectic (is that how you spell it?) and I like a lot of different styles of photography.
#1 CHARLES HILDRETH www.charleshildreth.com
Charles is a portrait and wedding photographer in Los Angeles, and I first came upon his work on Flickr, and was instantly drawn to his images, and especially the tones, and the fact that his subjects eyes draw you into his images, for me they are just perfect. I even found myself buying a Nikon user magazine here in the UK as I saw one a couple of Charle's Images were being used, (I'm a Canon user). Charles also runs tutorials on how he processes his images <a href=”http://charleshildreth.com/tutorials/”>Tutorials</a> I'm meaning to sign up for these, as I try and try to replicate them and get no where near, so charles if you are listening help!!!!!!!
#2 Jaime Lazzaro (LOKOTRIPPER) http://www.flickr.com/photos/lokotripper/
In his own words this guy is "muthaf*ckin" inspiration!! I came back to photography about 4 years ago, and initially I took landscapes and then took a lot of HDR photography (because it's easy and you get dramatic results), but I then started to explore Flickr and found this fella www.flickr.com/photos/lokotripperand a couple of others Michael Herb and Matthew Coughlin who were doing 365 projects, but were not photographers, but were proudly "Strobists", what the f*ck does that mean i asked myself, so I looked into it and became hooked quickly, and bought strobe after strobe off eBay trying to emulate these fellas.
What I like about Lokotripper is that his images are raw, sorry RAW, as he likes to pint out that's how he shoots!!! Living in a quiet coastal town in Lancashire in the UK, it's great to see excellent images shot in a completely alien environment such as Tijuana, Mexico. Lokotripper always gives advice and shows his strobist set ups, so all I can say is thank you for being an inspiration, and if you and your bearded crew ever want to come over to the UK and cause some muthaf*ckin mayhem, especially in the Lake District look me up, respect and thank you!!
#3 DEAN BRADSHAW http://www.deanbradshaw.com.au/
Dean is a professional photographer who does not fall into the "Flickr category", I just saw one of his images on the internet and thought, wow that's amazing! he is originally from Australia but is making a living in the US of A and good luck to him because his work is awesome!!! This is the image that originally drew Dean to my attention.
Dean does a lot of composite work which I love as he does it a lot better than a lot of other photographers out there, but he also does just amazing portrait work:
Again "dismiss" if you dare but i love his work!!!
#4 LEVY MOROSHAN www.levymoroshan.com
Levy was another Flickr find! This guy produces the most amazing headshots, the detail and lighting is awesome, he's in the US somewhere and produces amazing headshots for actors which I love
Levy crops the shots tightly, which I love, but my Mum would say "he's cut part of their head off"!!
This is part one of my blog, I would add more of more inspirations but the Macbook says 6% battery I shall finish my top ten soon, and if anyone wants to "dismiss" my selection, feel free.....I'm not listening!!!!!