Film Portrait Photographers - The greatest

Mahoneyd187

Mahoneyd187

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Danny
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Hey guys,

Favourite film shooting portrait photographers? Past & present have a place here :)

I'll start...

Vincent Peters - http://www.vincentpetersphotography.com/
Dave Hill (black and white portfolio) - http://www.davehillphoto.com/bw1/
David Bailey
Helmut Newton
Richard Avedon
Bob Carlos Clarke
Fred Greissing
Mike Disfarmer
Brian Duffy - http://www.duffyphotographer.com/
Dean Collins
Irving Penn
Robert Mappelthorpe
Cecil Beaton
Man Ray
Martin Schoeller
Nigel Parry
Tobias Titz
John Stoddart
Terry O'Neill
Jane Bown
Arnold Newman





Dan
 
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Well some of those old Hollywood portraits were excellent but have no idea who the photographers were.
 
I'll add them to the list at the top as I go so they're all in one place :)
 
Irving Penn
Robert Mappelthorpe
Cecil Beaton
Man Ray
 
Not sure if any of my choices still shoot on film but I love some of the work they produced using film.

Martin Schoeller
Nigel Parry
Tobias Titz
John Stoddart
Terry O'Neill.
 
Chris L said:
Not sure if any of my choices still shoot on film
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That's quite a useful distinction.. those photographers that only shoot (or shot) on film, those that have used film alongside digital.
 
TheBigYin said:
easy way to make sure - pick long dead ones :shrug:
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It's easy enough if somebody's your "favourite portrait photographer", and you're a keen portrait photographer yourself (or maybe not), likelihood is you would have researched their work to some degree, looking at BTS footage and so on. I've seen the likes of Rankin shooting film before, more specifically instant film for that whiskey campaign thing he did, but as I've seen him shoot much more digital than film I didn't mention him. There's no right or wrong, but if the photographer only rarely uses film, a link to that particular work would be beneficial like with Dave Hill, most of his work is VERY heavy composite in post but his black and white portfolio is shot on film :)
 
Most of the greats are dead, its an unfortunate bi-product of genre that has history way beyond the past 10-15 years.
There is nothing comparable during this period specific to film, we have to go back if we are gonna find the very best that film photography ever had to offer.
 
There was a photographer from about 50 odd years ago whose portraits I liked.
Can't remember his name though :bang: He was bald and wore glasses, if that rings a bell with anyone?
 
Is that Captain Mannering ?

Don't tell him your name...Pike

anyway lol

I'm going with Harry Hill
 
garry71 said:
There was a photographer from about 50 odd years ago whose portraits I liked.
Can't remember his name though :bang: He was bald and wore glasses, if that rings a bell with anyone?
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Reminds me of a time I was going to meet someone from a forum I'd never met before at a model railway exhibition, "I'll meet you by the coffee stand", he said, "I'll be the balding, slightly overweight, middle-aged guy with the beard" :bang:
 
:LOL: - I remember arranging to meet someone at a Sisters of Mercy concert by saying "I'll be the Tall Bloke in Black standing by the Bar!"
 
A few names not mentioned so far -

Bill Brandt- Saw an exhibition of his work at the Ikon in Birmingham years ago and some of his b&w portraits made a strong impression that still stays with me.

Paul Graham- I've recently been looking at his work from the 80's, people sat around in job centres, really captures the era.

Brian Griffin- Saw some of his work last year in the entrance to Snow Hill Railway Station !!
 
Royals who photographed:

Anthony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon)
Patrick Lichfield
I won't count Andrew because his stuff was mostly crap
 
Mahoneyd187 said:
Coffee, over keyboard. Lol thanks Ed lol
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Well anyone can produce a few good images when you have Gene Nocon printing for you.

Seriously though, if he had not been a Royal he would not have even been considered a decent amateur.
 
The better question is... how does their work compare to the best of today's crop?
 
Well in Robb Kendrick's case he is part of today's crop!
The pictures he produces would be almost impossible to replicate with digital, partly because of the wet-plate but mainly because they're portraits taken on large format.
 
Richard King said:
The better question is... how does their work compare to the best of today's crop?
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Alot of the photographers mentioned ARE very current, confused.
 
I'm not sure if he could really be classed as a 'portrait' photographer as he's a photojournalist (although his style does involve lots of portraits), but Steve McCurry has a collection of about 1,000,000 Kodachrome slides that he's shot over his career.

Sadly he doesn't use film as much these days (although he's admitted he prefers colour transparency) with most of his work being done on a D700 now. He did shoot the last roll of Kodachrome though his Nikon F6 though a year or so ago.
 
s162216 said:
He did shoot the last roll of Kodachrome though his Nikon F6 though a year or so ago.
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I swear I saw this in a Magazine actually, did he shoot a portrait of Robert De Niro with it?
 
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Yes he did, he used the roll for a variety of things all over the world, the pictures can be found here:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/02/last-kodachrome-slide-show-201102#slide=27

Interestingly, the slide I've linked to is a self portrait of McCurry, take a look at the numberplate of the taxi, PKR-36 which is actually the designation used by Kodak for 135 36 exposure Kodachrome! (Professional, Kodachrome, Reversal) A sheer coincidence according to McCurry in an interview I read, the owner of Dwaynes (the last processing facility) said that he would have thought it was photoshopped had it not come out of the processor in front of him.
 
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Woz! said:
Well in Robb Kendrick's case he is part of today's crop!
The pictures he produces would be almost impossible to replicate with digital, partly because of the wet-plate but mainly because they're portraits taken on large format.
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Its pretty much spamming now, the number of times I've posted this vid link, there can't be hardly anybody that hasn't seen it but that last dip in cyanide to make the plate neg a positive, is pure magic.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/bestvintage/multimedia_vid2.html
 
Annie Leibovitz


Love this image by her

AL-1612.jpg
 
chivers67 said:
Annie Leibovitz

Love this image by her
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See I love Annie Leibovitz's work, but I really don't like that shot. Have you seen her Disney shots? They're not shot on film I know but regardless they're fantastic
 
Im not sure if he has been mentioned already, but Terry Richardson? As far as i know he shot a lot of stuff on a Yashica T4 :)
 
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