In addition to my own list I asked some of my friends and (regular and irregular) contributors to this weblog about which photographer(s) they were most impressed with/inspired by this past year. My thanks to all of them for their responses and for their support and encouragement. Here are their responses:
Stan Banos: "1) Brian Rose - Best photo book/project of the year. Lots of really good shots and not a bad one to be found. The scope of the project (historical & geographical) also lends to its accomplishment... 2) Lee Friedlander - Still pumping out primo, innovative work- in his 70's! 3) Christian Patterson - Only like about a third of his work, but when he's spot on, he really nails the color/form time-space-continuum-- if ya know what I'm sayin'..."
Tobias Hegele: "The one photographer I have to single out for myself is Joel Sternfeld and my re-discovery of the book American Prospects. Photographers that I only became familiar with within the last year and that impressed me the most are Alec Soth and Mitch Epstein."
John Perkinson: "As for photographers that I discovered either in 2003 and this year - you've already listed one: Alec Soth. I asked for his book for my birthday this year didn't get it. I asked for his book for xmas this year too. If I don't get it - then I'm buying it for sure... I also agree about Nathalie Grenzhäuser's work - very striking. I'd kill for a print... I wasn't sure if you meant only work done this year, but there are a couple of photographer's work that I saw for the first time this year I enjoyed immensely... Michael Norton's 4x5 Havana series on the Litman site and Christoph Morlinghaus."
Jennifer Shaw: "I almost don't feel qualified to answer this question since I spent the better half of this year obsessed with politics, and haven't paid as much attention to photography as I should. That said, my favorite new find this year was Dave Anderson, which I'm pretty sure came into my life through a link on Conscientious."
Mark Tucker: "Loretta Lux. Michael Prince is commercial, but I like his work. But overall, I'd probably vote for Alec Soth, even though it's the easy thing to do. I like Danny Clinch too."
PS: I thought it was pretty cool that Conscientious was ahead of the scene in the US by one full year when showing Loretta Lux's work in 2003.
