Famous photographers of the 20th century and their works. The most famous photographs (57 photos). Alfred Eisenstadt and his "Victory Day in Times Square"


Photography is an incredibly multifaceted art. Magnificent landscapes, photographic portraits, and advertising photographs also attract the attention of the public. Therefore, choosing the best masters is not an easy task.

Our Top 10 included the best photographers of our time in a variety of genres. Their works are known all over the world and are practically recognized as classics of photography.

10. Anne Geddes - best children's photographer

Anne Geddes has been photographing children for 30 years. Books, postcards and calendars with photographs of babies in a variety of images are known all over the world. Many photographers who begin working with children draw inspiration from Geddes’s photographs. Anna's secret to success is simple; she is sure that children are the only real joy in life.

9. Paul Hansen is the best photojournalist

Hansen is one of the most famous photojournalists in the world. Seven times he became the best photographer in Sweden, twice - winner of the prestigious photo competition POYi (International Photography of the Year). And in 2013, Paul won the World Press Photo competition with a photograph taken at the funeral of two young children killed in Palestine.

8. Terry Richardson - Best Advertising Photographer

Richardson's photographs are sometimes very unusual, but they always attract the eye and are remembered for a long time. Terry's clients include such famous brands as Gucci, Sisley, Levi's, Eres, Miu Miu, Chloe, APC, Nike, Carolina Herrera, Kenneth Cole and many others. Richardson's photographs are regularly published by Vogue, I-D, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Dazed and Confused, W and Purple.

7. Denis Reggie – the best wedding photographer

Reggae became a revolutionary in the industry wedding photo. After all, it was he who came up with the idea of ​​taking photographs in a reportage style. Denis’s works adorn not only family photo albums, but also the pages of such publications as W, Elle, Vogue, Town and Country, Glamour, and Harper’s Bazaar

6. Patrick Demarchelier - best fashion photographer

Over his long career, Demarchelier has worked with such publications as Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar. They ordered theirs from him advertising campaigns Dior, TAG Heuer, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Celine, Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Lacoste and Ralph Lauren.

5. Yuri Artyukhin - the best wildlife photographer

A researcher at the Laboratory of Ornithology at the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he is a passionate fan of birds. It is the photographs of birds that have repeatedly received prestigious prizes and awards at various competitions in Russia and abroad.

4. Helmut Newton is the best nude photographer

Newton's nude photographs are known throughout the world. For his contribution to the art of photography, Newton was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Order of Arts and Letters, and the Monegasque Order of Arts, Letters and Science.

3. David Dubilet - best underwater photographer

Beneath the surface of the water, Dubile has been working for five decades. His work is often published by National Geographic. David is the winner of many prestigious awards in the field of photography. He films the underwater world both in equatorial waters and under the ice at the north and south poles.

2. Steve McCurry - National Geographic's most famous photographer

Steve became famous for his photograph of an “Afghan girl,” which National Geographic put on the cover in 1985. The picture was soon recognized as the most famous photograph in the history of the magazine. In addition to the famous photograph, McCurry has many excellent works in the genre of photo reporting.

1. Ron Galella - the most famous paparazzi

Garella is a pioneer of the paparazzi industry. Among the stars who became Ron's “victims” are Julia Roberts, Madonna, Al Pacino, Woody Allen, Sophia Loren. Marlon Brando broke Garella's jaw and knocked out five teeth, and Jacqueline Kennedy sued the photographer, who forbade Ron to approach Jackie closer than 20 meters.

In fact, ratings are not a rewarding thing and are very subjective. When summing up the best of the best in rating lists, we still use some kind of inner tuning fork. We also decided to make our own ranking list of the 10 greatest Soviet photographers, according to the site.

Let us immediately note that the list will include several photographers who worked long before the formation of the Union of Soviets, however, their influence on the development of photography, both Soviet and world, is so great that it was simply impossible to say anything about them. And also, taking into account the subjectivity of this list, we tried to reflect in it the brightest representatives in each individual photographic genre.

The first place in our ranking undoubtedly belongs to. This is the greatest figure of culture and art. His influence on the development of Soviet art cannot be overestimated. He concentrated on himself all the fine arts of the young country of the Soviets - he was a sculptor, an artist, a graphic designer, and a photographer. Considered one of the founders of constructivism. Rodchenko is a universal and multifaceted figure. It became an effective impetus for the development of photography and design. His methods of constructive construction of photographs are used as canons.

In second position is the Russian photographer of the early 20th century, Georgy Goyningen-Hüne. Despite the fact that Georgy spent his entire professional life and activity in France, England and the USA, he is still Russian by origin. And in this case, he serves as an example of how immigrants from Russia achieved recognition and success abroad. Georgiy is one of the greatest fashion photographers of the 20s and 30s. By 1925, he became the chief photographer of French Vogue. In 1935 - American Harper's Bazaar. In 1943, two of his books were published, after which all his photographic attention concentrated on Hollywood celebrities.

The contribution of Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky to the development of photographic art is great. Prokudin-Gorsky was a chemist and a photographer, and his occupation helped him improve the other. He went down in history as the first experimenter to propose the possibility of creating color photography in Russia. The method of acquiring color in a photograph that Prokudin-Gorsky used was not new. It was proposed back in 1855 by James Maxwell; it involved the superposition of three negatives, each passed through a filter of a certain color - red, green and blue. These three negatives, superimposed on each other, produce a color image in projection. Today, thanks to Prokudin-Gorsky, we have the opportunity to see Russia at the beginning of the 20th century in color.



Continuing our top ten greats is the Soviet war photographer, author of two of the greatest, iconic photographs of the Great Patriotic War– “The First Day of the War” and “The Banner over the Reichstag” - Evgeniy Khaldei. As a war photographer, Khaldei went through the entire Great Patriotic War, and his most significant works were made in the period from 1941 to 1946. Chaldea's photographs are filled with a sense of historical importance. It is no secret that many of the photographer’s works, including the work “The Banner over the Reichstag,” were staged. Khaldei believed that photography should convey the spirit of the times and events as fully as possible, therefore there was no need to rush. The author approached the creation of each work responsibly and thoroughly.


Our list continues with the classic of photographic journalism - Boris Ignatovich. Ignatovich was a close friend and associate of Alexander Rodchenko, with whom he organized the photographic association “October Group” in the late 1920s. It was a time of aspiration and search for new forms. Creative people, as a rule, were fruitful in several directions at the same time. So Ignatovich was a photographer, a photojournalist, a documentary filmmaker, a journalist, and an illustrator.



Next comes the greatest Soviet portrait photographer -. Nappelbaum went down in the history of photography as an unsurpassed studio portrait photographer. Nappelbaum, a master of compositional solutions, had a surprising and original approach to light composition, in which all the viewer’s attention is concentrated on the person being portrayed. As in the case of , through whose studio all the foreign celebrities of the 20th century passed, the greatest representatives of the Soviet country, right up to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, passed through Nappelbaum’s lens. Nappelbaum enjoyed enormous success and popularity as a good photographer. It is noteworthy that it was he who was invited to photograph the place of death of the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.

The first Russian landscape photographer, Vasily Sokornov, continues our list of ten great Soviet photographers. One of the first landscape painters who captured the beauty of Russian nature, and primarily Crimea, with a camera, was an artist by education and a photographer by vocation - Vasily Sokornov. Sokornov’s works were extremely popular during the photographer’s lifetime. Just like the works of Sokornov, who spent his entire life photographing the nature of Virginia, Sokornov’s works are mostly dedicated to the Crimea. They were published in magazines and postcards were sent all over Russia. Today he is considered the main chronicler of Crimean nature in the first decades of the 20th century.

The founder of Russian, Soviet journalistic, social photography, Maxim Dmitriev, occupies the eighth position in our rating. Dmitriev's life and work is a story of incredible rise and equally incredible fall. A native of the Tambov province, a student at a parochial school, by the early 1900s, Dmitriev became a leading photographer in Moscow. The founder of the photo studio, through which the leading people of the time pass - Ivan Bunin, Fedr Chaliapin, Maxim Gorky. But we love and remember Dmitriev for his chronicle photographs of the Volga region. They contain the original life and way of life of Russia, skillfully noted by the brilliant photographer. The downfall of Dmitriev was the coming to power of the Bolsheviks and widespread dispossession. By the early 1930s, the artist's photographic studio had been selected, along with more than seven thousand magnificent local history photographs.





This section presents a large number of portfolios of famous, creative and best photographers of our time.

12-03-2018, 22:59

We present to your attention a selection of amazing works, after viewing which you will definitely think about the shooting process and realism. A photographer named Mikhail Zagornatsky first picked up his own camera in 2011. I studied the process of learning photography on my own. The main directions are conceptual and fine art photography. The latest projects have absolutely no Photoshop elements.
The master loves to create his creations in real time, without piecemeal additives. Before a new project, it takes a lot of time to prepare the necessary props and draw up a creative plan. The camera lens only shows true beauty.

7-03-2018, 20:14

If you are ever in Gloucestershire, be sure to visit the picturesque village called Bybury. The famous artist and singer named William Morris called this place the most amazing English village. Many tourists agree with this opinion to this day. Landscapes of the village can be seen on the inside cover of the British passport.
The total population of the village is about six hundred people. For many centuries, an authentic atmosphere has been maintained, even despite the frequent visits of tourists. Bibury is a typical English village. Now the population is about 600 people. The Koln River flows through the territory of the village.

5-01-2018, 18:25

Today we want to present the work of a talented female photographer named Anne Guyer. Recently, she presented her original series of photographs. The main source of inspiration was pets and charming autumn leaves.
Anne began to be interested in the art of photography as a child. The girl watched her father, a photographer, who created interesting works. But the final passion began about seven years ago. The primary source of inspiration was Cindy's first dog. You can see more amazing photos thanks to our article today.

15-12-2017, 22:16

Today we will introduce you to the works of a young but very talented photographer named Craig Burrows. He's taking pictures various flowers and plants using modern technology UVIVF. All the subtleties of the process of creating new works are not known for sure. The artist creates a fluorescent glow in his works using UV light. During shooting, ultraviolet radiation is blocked in the lens.
On this moment Barrows has in his arsenal only individual flowers and plants, but his immediate plans are to work with entire gardens. For large projects, 100-watt floodlights will be used. Look for detailed photos in today's materials!

15-12-2017, 22:16

Today's selection of photographs will tell you all the secrets of Patty Waymire's journey to the island called Barter. This area is located off the coast of distant Alaska. The main goal was to photograph wonderful polar bears in a snowy area. But after arriving at the site, Patty did not find the expected snow, and sea ice had not even begun to form. The conceived ideas for photographs had to be put aside, and the local owners of the sea ice floes lay serenely on the sandy shore. Such a sad picture should serve for each of us a clear example human impact on the environment. Find more photos in our article today.

23-06-2017, 12:45

Our material today will tell you about the work of a self-taught photographer named Daniel Rzezhikha. In his works he uses the techniques of minimalism and classic black and white photography. It is in these shades that all the subtleties of photography are conveyed. Daniel comes from the small town of Krupke, which is located near Teplice. Throughout his childhood, he was very fond of travel and the surrounding nature. His first passion for photography began precisely during various travels, in which the boy took pictures with a point-and-shoot camera.
The first thought about taking up photography professionally came in 2006, after which I bought a Pentax camera. Since then, Zhezhikha has been completely immersed in the world of filming!

22-06-2017, 12:18

A professional photographer named Elena Chernyshova works in the documentary genre. Originally from Moscow, but currently lives and works in France. Initially, Elena graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, but after working in her specialty for a couple of years, she decided to do something else. The idea of ​​becoming a photographer appeared after traveling on a bicycle from Tula to Vladivostok; she covered such a huge distance in 1004 days.
Many of Cheshnyshova’s works can be seen in famous world publishing houses. She dedicated her new series called “Winter” to the chic beauty of the Russian winter. Each of the works very subtly conveys the entire atmosphere of this wonderful time of year.

21-06-2017, 10:14

A clear starry sky is becoming a rare phenomenon for residents of modern megapoles, and the night starry sky has always been a great mystery for man, and man has always wanted to find out what is above the sky, in the universe strewn with myriads of stars. Finnish photographer Oskar Keserci is interested in photographing the starry sky. Most of the year it is cold in Finland. At night the temperature drops to 30 degrees below zero.
Blue shades The photographs successfully convey the feeling of frosty Finnish nights, Oscar believes. It is on a starry night that you can experience special sensations that will immerse you in a world of fantasy. A series of photographs of the master is presented in our review!

See also - ,

IN modern world photography is a popular and very widespread branch of art, which continues to actively develop and delight with new discoveries and creations. It seems that why there is so much enthusiasm around ordinary photography, how can it be compared with a painting in which the artist puts a large number of time, soul and strength?

But not everything is so simple, talented photographic works can hardly be called “simple”; in order for the frame to come out truly mesmerizing, the master must be a true connoisseur of the moment, be able to catch beauty where to an ordinary person it remains invisible, and then present it so that it becomes accessible to the masses. Isn't this art?

Today we will talk about the most talented and famous fashion photographers who managed to turn the usual world of photography upside down, introduce something new, and also gain recognition from the whole world.

These people collaborate with the most famous glossy publications in the world, they created the most famous advertising campaigns of the leading companies of our time, and the most famous and wealthy people on the planet strive to get to their shoots. Isn't this enough to arouse everyone's admiration?

  1. Annie Leibnovitz

Our top 10 opens with one of the highest paid and sought-after professionals in her field, Annie Leibovitz. Each of her works is a recognized work of art that evokes admiration even among the most ignorant viewers.

Although Annie is a master of portrait photography, she excels in many other genres. Music stars, famous actors, models, as well as members of her family visited her lens, and everyone who was there became a part of something perfect and extraordinary.

Among them are Queen Elizabeth II, Michael Jackson, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Natalia Vodianova, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp and many others.

  1. Patrick Demarchelier

One of the most famous and sought-after French photographers, who began shooting back in the 80s and quickly managed to achieve success. Very soon his photographs began to appear in Glamor, Elle, and a little later in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.

Being in his lens is the dream of any model, and iconic fashion houses from all over the world fought for the right to get a meter to shoot the next advertising campaign. At one time he was the personal photographer of Princess Diana, photographed the very young Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, and more than once worked with Madonna, Scarlett Johansson and other stars of modern Hollywood.

  1. Mario Testino

One of the most famous British photographers, winner of many prestigious awards. An interesting fact is that Mario became a photographer, basically, by accident, his family was far from the world of art, and the path that he had to go through to achieve success turned out to be very thorny. But it was worth it!

Today, Testino's work can be found in almost every glossy publication, he has worked with most of the most famous and popular models, became Kate Moss's favorite photographer, and is also known for his magnificent photographs of the royal family.

  1. Peter Lindbergh

Another worldwide celebrity, winner of many awards and simply a talented person. Peter, to a greater extent, became famous as a master of black and white photography, an opponent of the worldwide craze for Photoshop, and therefore prefers to look for perfection in the imperfect.

  1. Steven Meisel

Considered one of the most popular fashion photographers, he is known for his unique photo shoots for Vogue magazine, as well as a series of very provocative photographs for Madonna’s book. His works cause a very wide resonance in the public world, however, most of his works continue to be published in fashion publications.

  1. Ellen von Unwerth

A popular German photographer, known for her passion for erotic and staged subjects. Particular success came to Ellen after shooting Claudia Schiffer for Guess. After this, offers poured in, and her work constantly appears in publications such as Vanity Fair, The Face, Vogue and many others.

  1. Paolo Roversi

In the fashion world he is known as one of the most mysterious and unattainable personalities. Few people know this photographer by sight, but many know his signature style, and his work is strikingly different from the typical magazine “stamping”.

His extraordinary works, captured using long exposures, are some of the most graceful and magnificent images to be created in the last century.

  1. Tim Walker

A British photographer who gained his popularity thanks to the fabulous style in which most of his works were created: the directions of surrealism and rococo. As the author himself says, he is often inspired by literary heroes and fairy-tale characters, which is probably why each of his photographs is a whole story.

It is also noteworthy that Walker does not like Photoshop, and therefore tries to use real props and lighting to create his unique works.

  1. Mert and Marcus

One of the most famous and best photo duos, whose works are always recognizable and in demand no less than the works of their older colleagues. Known for their bright, shocking and often provocative photographs, all the most beautiful divas of our planet have appeared in their lenses: Kate Moss, Jennifer Lopez, Gisele Bundchen, Natalia Vodianova and many others.

  1. Inez and Vinoodh

Another talented photo duo, whose members have been collaborators and have been creating masterpieces for 30 years. Like most of the above colleagues, they collaborate with the most fashionable glossy publications, shoot advertising campaigns for Isabel Marant and YSL, and are also one of Lady Gaga’s favorite photographers.

Everyone has seen these pictures: a selection of the most famous and most impressive photographs that have repeatedly flown around the world.
“The most famous photograph that no one has seen,” is what Associated Press photographer Richard Drew calls his photograph of one of the victims of the World War II. shopping center, who jumped out of the window towards own death 11 September

Malcolm Brown, a 30-year-old photographer from New York, following an anonymous tip, filmed the self-immolation of the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, which became a sign of protest against the repression of Buddhists.



The 21-week fetus, which was due to be born last December, was in the womb before spinal surgery began. At this age, the child can still be legally aborted.

The death of the Al-Dura boy, filmed by a television station reporter as he is shot by Israeli soldiers while in the arms of his father.

Photographer Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph "Famine in Sudan," taken in early spring 1993. On this day, Carter specially flew to Sudan to film scenes of famine in a small village.

A Jewish settler confronts Israeli police as they enforce a Supreme Court decision to dismantle nine houses at the outpost of Amona settlement, West Bank, February 1, 2006.

A 12-year-old Afghan girl is a famous photograph taken by Steve McCurry in a refugee camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

July 22, 1975, Boston. A girl and a woman fall trying to escape a fire. Photo by Stanley Forman/Boston Herald, USA.

"Unknown Rebel" in Tiananmen Square. This famous photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widene, shows a protester who single-handedly held off a tank column for half an hour.

The girl Teresa, who grew up in a concentration camp, draws a “house” on the board. 1948, Poland. Author - David Seymour.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were a series of coordinated suicide terrorist attacks that occurred in the United States. By official version The Islamist terrorist organization al-Qaeda is responsible for these attacks.

Frozen Niagara Falls. Photo from 1911.

April 1980, UK. Karamoja region, Uganda. Hungry boy and missionary. Photo by Mike Wells.

White and Colored, photograph by Elliott Erwitt, 1950.

Young Lebanese men drive through a devastated area of ​​Beirut on August 15, 2006. Photo by Spencer Platt.

The photo of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head not only received Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also finally changed the attitude of Americans to what was happening in Vietnam.

Lynching, 1930. This photo was taken as a mob of 10,000 whites hanged two black men for raping and murdering a white woman. young man. Author: Lawrence Beitler.

At the end of April 2004, the CBS program 60 Minutes II aired a story about the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by a group of American soldiers. This became the biggest scandal surrounding the American presence in Iraq.

Burial of an unknown child. On December 3, 1984, the Indian city of Bhopal suffered from the largest man-made disaster in human history: a giant toxic cloud released into the atmosphere by an American pesticide plant killed more than 18 thousand people.

Photographer and scientist Lennart Nilsson gained international fame in 1965 when LIFE magazine published 16 pages of photographs of a human embryo.

Photo of the Loch Ness monster, 1934. Author: Ian Wetherell.

Riveters. The photo was taken on September 29, 1932, on the 69th floor of Rockefeller Center during the final months of construction.

Surgeon Jay Vacanti from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1997 managed to grow a human ear on the back of a mouse using cartilage cells.

Freezing rain can form a thick layer of ice on anything, even destroying giant power poles. The photo shows the consequences of freezing rain in Switzerland.

The man tries to soften difficult conditions son in prison for prisoners of war. March 31, 2003. An Najaf, Iraq.

Dolly is a female sheep, the first mammal successfully cloned from the cell of another adult creature. The experiment was carried out in Great Britain, where she was born on July 5, 1996.

The Patterson-Gimlin film's 1967 documentary film of a female Bigfoot, the American Bigfoot, is still the only clear photographic evidence of the existence of living relict hominids on earth.

Republican soldier Federico Borel García is depicted facing death. The photo caused a huge shock in society. The author of the photo is Robert Capa.

The photograph, taken by reporter Alberto Korda at a rally in 1960, claims to be the most circulated photo in the history of photography.

The photograph showing the hoisting of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag spread throughout the world. 1945 Author - Evgeniy Khaldey.

Death of a Nazi functionary and his family. The father of the family killed his wife and children, then shot himself. 1945, Vienna.

For millions of Americans, this photograph, which photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt called “Unconditional Surrender,” symbolized the end of World War II.

The assassination of the thirty-fifth President of the United States, John Kennedy, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 local time.

On December 30, 2006, ex-president Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. The Supreme Court has sentenced the former Iraqi leader to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out at 6 a.m. in a suburb of Baghdad.

American soldiers drag the body of a Viet Cong (South Vietnamese rebel) soldier on a leash. February 24, 1966, Tan Binh, South Vietnam.

A young boy looks out of a bus loaded with refugees who fled the epicenter of the war between Chechen separatists and Russians, near Shali, Chechnya. The bus returns to Grozny. May 1995. Chechnya

Terry the cat and Thomson the dog are dividing who will be the first to start eating Jim the hamster. The owner of the animals and the author of this wonderful photograph, American Mark Andrew, claims that no one was hurt during the photo shoot.

French photographer Henry Cartier Bresson, who is considered one of the founders of the genre of photo reporting and photojournalism, took this shot in Beijing in the winter of 1948. The photograph shows children queuing for rice.

Photographer Bert Stern became the last person to photograph Marilyn Monroe. A few weeks after the photo shoot, the actress passed away.

There were times when alcohol was sold to children - all the parent had to do was write a note. In this shot, the boy proudly walks home, carrying two bottles of wine to his father.

The English Rugby Championship final in 1975 gave rise to the so-called streaking, when naked people run onto the field in the middle of a sporting event. A fun hobby, and nothing more.

In 1950, at the height of the Korean War, General MacArthur, when the Chinese launched a counteroffensive, realized that he had overestimated the capabilities of his troops. It was then that he uttered his most famous phrase: “We retreat! For we are moving in the wrong direction!”

This photograph of Winston Churchill was taken on January 27, 1941 in a photographic studio in Downing Street. Churchill wanted to show the world the resilience and determination of the British during World War II.

This photograph was made into a postcard and for a long time was the most popular postcard in America. The photograph shows three girls with dolls arguing furiously about something in an alley in Sevilla (Spain).

Two boys collect the fragments of a mirror, which they themselves had previously broken. And life is still in full swing around.