As an artist, who are your role models? Whose pictures make you want to make pictures? Is there some sort of influence from another medium—poetry, music, couture? Ray K. Metzker took inspiration from contemporary percussive compositions; Walker Evans was inspired by Charles Baudelaire and Gustave Flaubert, as well as Eugene Atget (though he tried to obfuscate that connection), and repelled by Alfred Stieglitz.
In my informal education, I was drawn to Robert Frank and Ken Josephson (lucky me); Diane Arbus, introduced to me by good friends who simply showed me the book and let it knock me for a loop; and an anthology of pictures of musicians published by Rolling Stone magazine. (Also, there is a children’s book titled “A Hole Is To Dig.”) Ask Ms. H. who hers were. Lately I’m interested in Giorgio Morandi and Henry Threadgill.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16376
This is not idle chatter: it’s not only important to know whose are whose, but also whose others’ are. A current runs through everyone’s best pictures. It’s a conversation, and it’s a continuum.
So what’s your specific, personal answer to my questions?
We want to know. It’s Comment Time. Click on it.
Creative Camerawork 