Let me start this by saying I am going to struggle keep this list short. There is a plethora of amazing photographers out there, way too many to mention all of them, but I am going to try and keep this short by talking about the ones who have a direct impact on my own photography, be that as a photographer or their impact on me as an instructor/teacher. 

This list is presented in no particular order…

Peter McKinnon

My first choice is perhaps a little but out of  left field, and I know would create some debate amongst my photography friends, but without Peter McKinnon I wouldn’t be the photographer/creator I am now. When I first started out, his tutorials, vlogs and high energy kept me engaged, lept me focussed and kept me wanting to do more. I found them invaluable. 

Some people will tell you he’s “just a YouTuber” and I couldn’t disagree more. His photography is fantastic, he has a great photographic style and works in a variety of different genres; his portraits are equally as a good as his landscapes and his flat lays are some of the best you will see - the level of attention to detail that you see in the latter is IN-SANE!

His knowledge of photoshop and lightroom and his easy way of explaining some of the concepts you need to understand to be able to use these effectively played a huge part in the development of my own post processing and editing. It was by watching these videos that I started my foray into video editing, and I still jump back into these videos when I need a little refresher, even though the software that’s in them has been superceded more than once by this point, I find them to be really helpful. 

Ansel Adams

It would be remiss to have such a list and not to include Ansel Adams, probably acknowledged by anyone who has heard of him as the godfather of Landscape Photography. He was working and creating stunning images before the advent of anything digital, relying on his skill (and some luck of being in the right place at the right time) and his knowledge of photography and the landscape to create some visually stunning images.

His compositions are consistently excellent and his use of light is second to none. 

I was lucky enough to receive one of his books as a  gift in the last couple of weeks and I have spent a lot of time pouring through its pages studying the way in which Adams composed his images and then creating them in the dark room to produce some genuinely awesome captures. 

The premise of what Adams was doing was exactly the same as we are aiming for as photographers now was the same, but he was employing, in part, a very different skill set and certainly didn;t have the access to the post processing techniques that we have today. 

Nigel Danson

Next on my list is Nigel Danson. I was talking about him with some friends a few days before I started writing this and someone remarked “I really like him, he knows what he is talking about, he’s a real student of photography”. 

Nigel is another photographer I found on YouTube. He is one of the most knowledgeable photographers on the internet, and, I suspect, has forgotten more about photography than many of us will ever know. 

His knowledge of optics is first rate, and it is thanks to Nigel that I understand the concept of hyperfocal distance! I also really enjoyed his tutorials on focus stacking, which is something I have been working on recently and has been a really important part of my continued learning in the art of landscape photography and has been a real game changer in the way that I shoot some of my images. 

His level of enthusiasm remains as high as ever and he is always on the lookout for new places to shoot alongside making the most of what his local area has to offer, which is something I think many of us (me included!) are guilty of overlooking. 

His series where he spent a month at Luskentyre Beach on the Isle of Skye and the images and book that resulted from this are simply incredible and you should definitely check these out. The whole series shows just how wide a range of images you gather in one location where the weather and the light is so changeable. A real masterclass!

Liam Wong

I came across Liam Wong’s work when I was deep into a night photography obsession and was spending a lot of time huntington down neon lights and other bright sources of lights to create Cyber Punk inspired images. It meant I spent a lot of time either carrying bottles of water or getting very wet out shooting in the rain to get the reflections I wanted in my images to add extra depth to them. 

Both of the books he has published (To:ky:oo and After Dark) are incredible and Wong’s past as a video games designer is evident in the style that he choose to work in. He makes strong use of leading lines and is masterful at controlling both the light and the colour in his images and subsequent edits that he makes. 

Now that I am away from the bright lights of the city, I find myself doing less and less of this style of photography (Cyber Punk Blea Tarn anyone?!), but I still find myself reaching for these books very often, as there is something about the stories that these photos tell that keeps me going back time after time after time. 

Ernst Haas

This is a choice from when I was living and taking photos in London. Haas, for me, is a great example of someone who worked as a photojournalist and who allowed this to mix with the creative, artistic side of photography and his visual storytelling is truly awesome. 

Haas Renowned for his mastery of color and composition, Haas captured the essence of moments with a blend of spontaneity and precision. 

One of the most important aspects of his work was that he was (along with William Eggleston) instrumental in getting the Art world to see colour photography as a valid form of the medium. Prior to this, exhibitions were pretty much exclusively black and white photography - snobbery towards colour photographers/photographs largely prevented their exhibition in the mainstream; photography was only seen as “serious” if it were in black and white and it wasn’t seen as art if it was shot in colour. 

But what is Art anyway? I’ll let you decide.