PHOTOGRAPHY

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BILL BRANDT - Brandt was one of the most gifted artists in the photographic medium. A pioneer in the field whose career stretched from the 1930s right up to 1980. His work includes highly distinctive social documentary, portraits and landscapes, as well as startlingly original nudes.

JEANLOUP SIEFF - Great French maestro famous for his fashion and nudes. He also fancied himself as a bit of a philosopher, musing at length for instance on the subject of bottoms. There is now finally an official website where you can view high quality reproductions of his work. Words are superfluous. Click and enjoy. Then go out and buy his book "Jeanloup Sieff - 40 Years Of Photography" (Evergreen) which is full of marvellous images and humourous observations.

MAN RAY - Another early 20th century ground-breaker. The images on this site are quite small, but there is a huge archive. Some of his work is very well known, but you will find a lot of pictures here which, to my knowledge, have not been published anywhere. A bit of a treasure trove, if you like Man Ray.

RALPH GIBSON - One of the greatest photographers of recent decades. His best images are brilliant achivements of pure form and shape., which go well beyond the merely visual. This is his official site, but includes only a small amount of his work. His book Deus Ex Machina (Taschen) is the definitive collection.

JAN SAUDEK - Grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre, unbelievable. And they're his more accessable pictures. This is Saudek's own site and it contains what seems like his entire portfolio going back forty years. Many of these images will make you feel uncomfortable. Others will astonish you. In a world which becomes more homogenised by the day, Saudek has a genuine capacity to startle and shock.

HARRY THUILLIER - An interesting and highly gifted Irish photographer, with a finely developed poetic sensibility, who died tragically in 1997 at the age of 33. He left us with a portfolio of distinctive and original images printed to an exceedingly high standard. He specialised in making platinum and palladium prints, a technically demanding process which results in a very rich and broad tonal range. A book of his work, Through The Glass Darkly, is now available.

FRANCESCA WOODMAN - American-born Woodman was another young genius who died long before her time - in 1981 at the tender age of just 22. Her work is introverted and challenging and mature far beyond her years. It dwells a lot on transient nature of existence. She mostly photographed herself, much of the time paradoxically trying to render herself invisible. You'll find another good site with images and information about her HERE

MICHAEL KENNA - Englishman Kenna is an exceptional talent, a giant of photographic composition. Spend lots of time savouring the large number of excellent images on this wonderful site.

PAUL KOZAL - Magical landscapes. Wonderful images of trees. No need to put it any stronger than that.

THOMAS SAUERWEIN - Check out this guy. There's not a lot of information about him on his site, but his images speak for themselves. His grandly composed nude work is highly individualistic. Look for the image which he calls Tip Toe Torso.

SANDERS McNEW - With a name like that, he could be a huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ laird of a vast Scottish estate with his own family tartan. In fact, he is a sophisticated denizen of Manhattan and has no Scottish roots at all. His large-format nude portraits are wonderful to behold - direct, unaffected and yet filled with the personalities of his subjects. His portfolio is like an American version of Jeanloup Sieff’s Torses Nus. Click here for another wonderful selection of his images.

WYNN BULLOCK - A master American photographer who could in some respects be compared to Edward Weston; both strived to find deeper meaning in natural forms. Bullock however chose his own distinctive route. His B&W landscapes and nudes are sublime; his experiments with colour light abstractions are thrilling. But he enters entirely original territory with his monumental "negative" prints. A good introduction to his work can be found in Phaidon Books' excellent little "55" series.

TAMAKI OBUCHI - This is a Japanese photographer of considerable subtelty and delicacy. Her nudes are very fine. I suspect the original prints are truly wonderful.

ERNESTO TIMOR - Take plenty of time on this fascinating and mysterious site. Timor is a French photographer whose work goes well beyond the merely visual and literal. Most of his images are of women, who inhabit a world which is blurred around the edges, often dark, sometimes a little foreboding, with many half formed and fleeting glimpses. Don't ask too many questions; just allow yourself to be drawn into the mind of a man who uses his camera with a little more imagination than most of us.

ALEX INGRAM - A charming site from a photographer who must possess a considerable amount of personal charm himself. Why? Because almost all his nude in the landscape work is done in the north-west Highlands of Scotland where the elements can intimidate even fully dressed people. Yet his subjects cheerfully disrobe in all kinds of weather - including snow. He shoots outdoors all year round. I feel cold just thinking about it. His models obviously hold him in in very high regard. The frozen waists of Scotland.

PAT BURNS - An Irish photographer from Laytown, County Meath. Many of the new images on his website were printed in my darkroom which, I regret to say, he uses more often than I do. You may already have seen a sample of his work in my Friends gallery. His site contains a good representative selection of his excellent portrait work and landscapes.

PETER McCABE - Peter is also featured in my Friends gallery. He is a passionate photographer who possesses perhaps the single most important attribute of a landscape artist - an ability to get up very early for the morning light. This is not something I manage to do very often; personally I am much more comfortable working in nice well-developed afternoon light. His site has many excellent images from Laytown, Drogheda, Achill, Donegal and the Canary Islands.

BP FALLON - It's almost impossible to categorise the incomparable BP Fallon - music guru, photographer, journalist, author, broadcaster, deejay. For more than 30 years, he has been at the centre of the rock music universe, photographing, working with and just hanging out with.....well, almost anybody you can think of. Writes and thinks in a style which is his alone - a truly unique character.

KENNETH O'HALLORAN - An excellent Irish photojournalist with a strong portfolio of frequently moving images from Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Rwanda, Vietnam and Ireland. Kenneth is a staff photographer with the Irish Independent.

ED GORDON - An Irish photographer from County Louth who specialises in nudes in the landscape. It is important to point out that most of his images are not shot in our relatively damp climate; being nude in the Irish landscape is not a popular lifestyle choice. His pictures are generally made in more exotic locations such as Arizona, the Greek Islands and elsewhere. You can even join him on one of his many expeditions. He runs frequent workshops in Ireland and abroad - though they are expensive.

DROGHEDA PHOTOGRAPHIC CLUB - Ireland's top photographic club. I was a member there for a number of years and currently am again. They have been winning all the main Irish photo club awards for about two decades now and show little sign of throwing in the towel.

DUBLIN CAMERA CLUB - My friends at Dublin Camera Club invite me, from time to time, to show my work or judge one of their competitions. And I never turn down the opportunity to give other photoghraphers the benefit of my opinions. They have a thriving international membership and produce lots of excellent work. Their gallery at Camden Street is open every Saturday.

TARA LIGGETT - Tara is a wonderfully patient model from Portadown, County Armagh, with whom I have had the pleasure of working twice in recent months. This is her own website which features her own current portfolio.

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