My top 10 all-time favorite photographers (modern-day and oldskool)
To get better at photography, you have to study the greats. The best to have ever done it and the best who are out there right now. These are the best classic legends and the modern-day heroes of photography who I adore, study, and fanboy over:
My Top 10 Favorite Photographers
There are of course many legendary photographers that I admire and that deserve all the praise, but this top 10 is to whom I truly look up and can only hope to become 1/5th as good as them.
Maybe a cliche in the photography world to have Steve McCurry as your number-one inspiration, but I don’t care. Steve is a beast. Steve is the man. Steve is the GOAT.
His body of work throughout the decades is just stupendous. Whenever I need some inspiration, I go to his portfolio and gawk in awe. The colors, the subjects, the compositions, the magical moments… it’s just sooooooooo good.
If I can be 1/10th as good as Steve, and travel as much as he did, I would die a very content man.
(The headerphoto of this blog and the photo above of the man with the red turban is from Steve McCurry)
The body of work, the subjects, the quality of these shots… Michael’s work just makes me turn into a worshipper. I need to become like him, travel like him, shoot like him, work like him...
Mr Yamashita has my full admiration, as you can tell.
Next to shooting the very best landscape photographs in the whole wide world, I also admire how Master Photographer Peter Lik has built an extremely successful business from his photographs. His fine art prints are sold worldwide for jackpot prices!
He even sold a photograph for the highest price ever: 6.5 million dollars for Phantom!
If you want to make solid money from your art, be sure to study how Peter Lik does it.
The way Billy Dinh uses Lightroom to create other-worldly photographs blows my mind. But it’s not only his elite editing but also his absurd timing and his fantastic compositions that make every shot just unreal. It’s just crazy good!
This new talent will be one of the greatest to have ever done it.
If you sell photos for millions of dollars, you have my attention. Then someone’s photos are so damn good, that it’s considered art. And if art collectors start paying millions, then something must be extremely right about that photo. Gurky’s work is just that.
Gosse is the most talented photographer from The Netherlands. No discussion possible ;)
I’ve traveled as a native Dutchie all across Holland, and shot some decent photos there, but wow… It doesn’t come close to what Gosse has composed. The atmosphere and the melancholy in his photos make me want to move back to my home country and get up at 04.00 am every day.
What a time that must have been for Fan Ho to travel through 1950s/1960s Hong Kong. And it shows how magical that time was through his many photographs. His use of black and white, how he composed the shots, and how he used light to his advantage,… is just mesmerizing.
I mean, do I really have to explain? Jimmy’s work is just stupendous. Go gawk for a couple of hours at his body of work. It will shock you, humble you, and inspire you!
The way Demas uses social media and high-quality photography keeps surprising me. Those reels are some of the best I’ve seen on Instagram. His creativity is just mindblowing. And just so damn good. Take note(s) ya’ll!
I’ve lived in Bali for more than a year, and I have shot some really good photographs there…, but my shots sure don’t look as atmospherical as Michael Dean Morgan’s. This super-talented photographer finds shots that are extremely rare to find.
The result is a body of work that does Bali justice. It’s truly one of the most magical places in the world and Michael shows that with his fantastic photographs.
Top 25?
Big shout out to many other extremely talented photographers who are in my top 25 for sure (and very worthy of studying them to get better at your craft!). Follow these legends and thank me later:
In no particular order; Pat Kay, Vivian Maier, Faizal Westcott, Jonathan Jasberg, Jord Hammond, Ernest Haas, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Saul Leiter, Albert Dros, Yousuf Karsh, Phil Penman, Pie Aerts, Eren Saringul, Ansel Adams, and Sebastian Salgado.
These guys are pretty good huh? :)
I hope one day I will join these legends on someone else’s list…
p.s.; give me a follow on Instagram and on X where I share more of my journey as a photographer and world traveler. Thanks!
