Use this list as a starting point for Project One. It is not a ranking, and the categories overlap. Choose a photographer whose work gives you enough material to make meaningful decisions about hierarchy, sequence, navigation, typography, and image scale.
Before committing to one photographer, look closely at at least three. Make sure your choice has a substantial, coherent body of work and enough supporting content—projects or series, biography, exhibitions, clients, press, or other context—to support a complete site. You may propose someone who is not listed here with instructor approval.
Constructed & Conceptual Photography
- Andreas Gursky — large-scale images of contemporary life, architecture, and systems
- Gregory Crewdson — cinematic scenes built through elaborate staging and lighting
- Hiroshi Sugimoto — serial projects that connect photography, time, architecture, and perception
- Rineke Dijkstra — portrait and video work centered on identity and transition
- Thomas Demand — photographs of carefully constructed paper models
- Viviane Sassen — bold color, abstraction, fashion, collage, and the human figure
Documentary & Social Practice
- LaToya Ruby Frazier — family, community, labor, public health, and environmental justice
- Zanele Muholi — portraiture, self-portraiture, community, and visual activism
- Susan Meiselas — long-form documentary projects and collaborative archives
- Alec Soth — portraits, landscapes, and narrative journeys through American life
- Cristina de Middel — projects that move between documentary evidence and fiction
- James Nachtwey — conflict, humanitarian crisis, and long-form photojournalism
Portrait, Fashion & Editorial Photography
- Annie Leibovitz — editorial portraiture, cultural figures, and constructed narrative
- Platon — direct portraiture paired with personal and political storytelling
- Nadav Kander — portraiture, landscape, fine-art series, and commissioned work
- Tyler Mitchell — fashion and portrait photography shaped by leisure, beauty, and possibility
- Campbell Addy — fashion, editorial, portraiture, casting, and publishing
- Tim Walker — theatrical fashion images and highly constructed visual worlds
Place, Architecture & Environment
- Edward Burtynsky — industrial landscapes and humanity’s transformation of nature
- Iwan Baan — architecture as it is occupied, adapted, and lived in
- Candida Höfer — carefully structured photographs of public and institutional interiors
- Massimo Vitali — large-scale views of beaches, leisure, crowds, and public space
- Catherine Opie — portraiture, community, landscape, and the built environment
- Richard Misrach — landscape, environmental change, borders, and political geography
Color, Still Life & Experimental Practice
- Roe Ethridge — commercial image-making, still life, portraiture, and fine-art photography
- Laura Letinsky — still life, domestic space, leftovers, and photographic illusion
- Daniel Gordon — constructed paper objects, collage, color, and studio still life
- Elad Lassry — tightly controlled studio images, appropriation, and display
- Wolfgang Tillmans — portraits, still lifes, abstraction, installation, and everyday observation
- Penelope Umbrico — found and networked images, repetition, and digital visual culture
Make Your Selection
Come to class prepared to identify:
- The photographer you want to work with
- Two or three projects or series you find especially strong
- The audience you think their site should serve
- The content and actions that audience will need most
- One early idea for how the interface could support the character of the work
This is a classroom prototype, so you may use images from the photographer’s published work. Feature the photographer’s name prominently throughout the portfolio and include project or series titles where they are available.