 Who is this woman outlined in silhouette against these panes of glass in this house, this average suburban house on the outskirts of Denver in Colorado? Take three photographers, one of whom was instrumental in redefining modern landscape photography. The other was breaking down gender barriers by being the very first female photographer of Magnum Photos and the third, well, she started off as a printer for Man Ray, was instrumental in rescuing Eugene Adjaye's prints and ended up being a hugely influential photographer in her own right. Put them together and what do you get? How's it housing? And welcome to the letter A. Yes, this isn't an episode of Sesame Street, but it's a series of short introductions to three photographers throughout the alphabet. As always with these videos, I will link to more information about these photographers in the description box below. There is a name in photography that isn't particularly well known. That name is Alexei Brodovich. Now, he is possibly one of the most influential figures in modern photography. He was responsible for mentoring Irvin Penn, Gary Winogrand, Richard Aberdon, and our first A photographer, Eve Arnold. Eve Arnold is probably best known for her photo essays on celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. And you can see in her photographs that she treats the subjects whom she photographs with complete respect, you know, that she gets close to them. She finds intimacy amongst the people whom she's photographing and almost treating them like friends. And of course, this lends a far more of a great depth to her photographs because it feels like we're not just observing, say, Marilyn Dietrich, you know, singing, but we are going behind the curtain. We're seeing the real person behind the common facade that they want to show to the world. And that's what makes her photographs so compelling that she treats everybody from Chinese peasants through to world famous celebrities with respect. Throughout her work with Magnum, Eve Arnold travelled the world photographing for various publications. And if you are interested in photo essays and photo journalism and what have you, then she would be a fantastic place to start. I'm going to interrupt you very quickly here just to tell you something about how you can stop YouTube showing you all those silly cat videos. When you subscribe to the channel, YouTube takes that as a sign that you like this kind of content, content that talks about the why of photography. So it will take all of those silly cat videos that it's trying to shove down your throat and shift them all away because it goes, hey, you like the photographic guy. So we're going to find you more content like the photographic guy that deals in the why of photography. So get rid of the cat videos, hit subscribe, and you're going to get more of this fantastic kind of content. Bernice Abbott is one of those names that is a bit of an enigma, certainly for myself, and I'm going to hold up my hand and beg forgiveness for my ignorance because it took me so long, like so long between first hearing her name and actually being able to put a photograph to that name. And that's a huge failing on my part, but I have rectified it and hopefully for some of you out there who may have heard of the name, you're now also going to be able to rectify it. She got her start printing for Man Ray, that very famous surrealist photographer who does all the glass tears and the solarizations and what have you. And it was while she was in Paris that she also met Eugene Ager. He was that very famous French photographer from sort of the turn of the century whose work is very celebrated now. And I believe it's only really because when he passed away, Eve Arnold through his estate bought all of his negatives and his prints and kept them for posterity. After this she became very much an influential photographer in her own right. And you can see her photography in this 1930s New York is extremely reminiscent of Ager's photography. It has this kind of a very straight aesthetic, which is interesting given that she must have picked up quite a lot of surrealist pens when working for Man Ray, but you look at her photographs and they are as if you took Ager and put him into a modern context. I don't think that's necessarily saying that she is a copyist because of course she certainly isn't. She is making photography in her own right. It's just a great example of taking something that speaks to you just as much as obviously Ager's work spoke to Abbott and then she translated that into her modern world and so too can we. In addition to this straight urban landscape photography that Bernie's Abbott was creating, she also produced some rather interesting portraits in sort of the 1920s and 30s of great artistic and literary figures. Now they're not mind-blowing portraits by any means of the imagination, at least to me. I mean you may have a different perspective on that, but I do think that that's kind of something that is interesting with a lot of these, as I say to say older photographers, is that they try their hands at a number of different genres and so should we as photographers in the modern age. We shouldn't feel that we must only photograph one set thing. Who is this woman outlined in silhouette against these panes of glass in this house, this average suburban house on the outskirts of Denver in Colorado. Whoever she is, she is instrumental in introducing me to one of my favorite photographers of all time. There has been a lot written about Robert Adams. Part of the New Topper graphics movement, his work changed the way that landscape photography was perceived in kind of the 1970s or so. I could sit here and talk for ages about all the stuff that has been written about New Topper graphics and the way that the photography has discovered the things that have been lost and yet replaced with things that have been found and the way that man changes and shapes the landscapes and what have you. And that's fine, but that's not really what this channel is about. This channel is about finding photography or introducing you to photography that hopefully will move you, not inspire you to read a thesis. Robert Adams' photographs move me because they're quiet because they have a solitude of stillness to them. It is interesting to see houses being built and the landscape being altered and changed before our very eyes, but that's not the core of why I like his photographs. I love his imagery because it has that quietness. It has a dryness to it. It communicates so clearly with us how it must have felt for people growing up around that time. Seeing the landscape that they had outside their window change and evolve within the space of a few years from being the sweeping almost unending world of huge skies to becoming this closeted and closed world of suburbia. The reason this has so much meaning and input in my own way that I interpret these photographs is because it's much like the world that I grew up in, the felt that's across from the house that we lived in initially in South Africa is now a giant shopping mall. The river where we used to fish for crabs and stuff is long gone. It has all been swallowed up and maybe that's what I like about these photographs is that they appeal to my sense of simplicity, of minimalism, but also they remind me of a time in my childhood. They take me back to that dustiness and and worlds populated by construction sites and giant hoardings telling us that if you lived here you'd be home by now. If you've enjoyed this episode then click here and just move out the way to see other inspirational photographers.