35 Undiscovered Photographers… Discovered by You
I could say a lot about this article and the photographers featured in it… but I'm going to keep it short so you can start discovering some amazing artists. You nominated your favorite undiscovered photographer, then I chose my favorite photo from their work and contacted them about using it in this article. Now it's your turn again — go check out their stuff! And by no means does the term “undiscovered” imply anything about the quality of their work or their “popularity” — nor do I want to argue about the meaning of the term… just enjoy the photos.
All copyrights of the photos displayed are property of the photographers, I'm only displaying them with written permission.
1. TODD HANZELKA
discovered by laanba
2. EMIN KULIYEV
discovered by Claus Jepsen
3. MANUEL LIBRODO
discovered by Bobby Wong Jr.
4. MATTHEW BURRARD-LUCAS
discovered by John D
5. ERIK VAN HANNEN
discovered by Matthijs
6. TED BYRNE
discovered by Andreas Manessinger
7. SHAWN DUFFY
discovered by Gracie
8. JAN SCHOLZ
discovered by the_wolf_brigade
9. KATIA TRUDEAU
discovered by Jason Jang
10. VALERIO BERDINI
discovered by Loredana Spadola
11. SHIRLEY BITTNER
discovered by David Kimmel
12. NICKI
discovered by Mark Groves
13. JEREMY BROOKS
discovered by Trevor Carpenter
14. KUANYING
discovered by D. Travis North
15. THAMER AL-TASSAN
discovered by Sami Alharthi
16. BRUCE PERCY
discovered by jeremy
17. CHAD COOMBS
discovered by Drew
18. THOMAS JACK HILTON
discovered by Sarah
19. WYLIE MAERCKLEIN
discovered by Matthew
20. GAVIN HOLT
discovered by Russell Kipnis
21. JON THORPE
discovered by Trevor Connell
22. IAN THOMAS
discovered by Gary
23. JOHN KEATLEY
discovered by Mike Fiechtner
24. KIRITIN BEYER
discovered by Matias Okawa
25. VINCENZO COSENZA
discovered by Kevin R
26. RICKY MONTALVO
discovered by Alexander Katzeff
27. MICHAEL KANG
discovered by Bryan Villarin
28. GUIDO MUSCH
discovered by Matthijs
29. YOUNES BOUNHAR
discovered by Jack Thomas
30. HEIKE KÖLZER
discovered by Thias
31. ERIN WILSON
discovered by Mike
32. WILLIAM GREENFIELD
discovered by Linda
33. CHRISTINE MEINTJES
discovered by Karin
34. RUADH DELONE
discovered by Pawn
35. JERRY GARNS
discovered by Tyler Garns
Of course, a huge “thank you” to the featured photographers for taking the time to work with me on this article and for showing support and enthusiasm for the concept. And thanks to everyone who participated in the last article by sharing your favorite undiscovered photographer with all of us.
I really would encourage you to visit each of the photographers shown above — they have a lot of great work in their portfolios and many of them can't be properly represented by a single image. I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I spent pouring through their work and trying to narrow my photo selection down to a single image… but I enjoyed every hour of it.
Andrea Scott
September 10, 2009Great post! My thanks to you and everyone who submitted their fave photographers! There’s a lot of talent up on this post!
Nicki
September 10, 2009Thanks a lot for your recommendation. You show a lot of great photographers here – really fine!
Dave Wilson
September 10, 2009Great list, Brian – there are some fabulous images here. Thanks, too, for making me feel a lot less out of the loop than usual by including 3 photogs I already follow 🙂
Krzysiek
September 10, 2009micmojo – my favorite!
Sarah
September 10, 2009Oh wow, I forgot about this. Congrats to ALL of the photographers that are listed here. Each one of them is fabulous in their own way, and they deserve the recognition.
the_wolf_brigade
September 10, 2009Jan Scholz work really is top notch.
But Jon Thorpe’s work looks interesting – of course that could have something to do with the Citroen DS in the shot!
brett maxwell
September 11, 2009wow, awesome work. I don’t know that I would call John Keatly undiscovered though!
Brian Auer
September 11, 2009Haha… well, some of the photographers listed are less “undiscovered” than others — and John certainly has a lot of high profile clients. Even so, there are probably quite a few people who haven’t discovered his work yet. That line between discovered and undiscovered is quite broad.
Ted Byrne
September 13, 2009ZOWIE! After a half century of doing photographic visual art – DISCOVERED! There aren’t enough exclamation points in my PowerBook. What a wonder-filled field to find my work among. But then again, art without wonder is merely craft, eh? :-)Thanks Brian.
Wait… here are a few more !!!!!!!!!!!
Christine Meintjes
September 14, 2009Hi Brian! Thanks so much for adding me to the list! All the best with your blog!
joe kies
September 14, 2009hi,,, old school photog here… all the pics looked good, but I got to ask,, how many are “as taken” by the photog and not photoshopped????? and I specifically asked “photog,because the photographer takes the pic, not the camera…. no matter how good or poor the “camera” shows,,,,thhings like comp/light/contrat/etc [thought/consideration/plan of photog] will still give an idea of photogs future… sorry ,but being old shool I’m hung up on doing it right to begin with…
we had limited tools to help an enlarger….. if this gets through thanks joe
Brian Auer
September 14, 2009@Joe:
I really couldn’t tell you how many of the photos are not “photoshopped” — I didn’t ask, and it wasn’t even a thought in my mind as I chose the photos for the article. I would guess that most of them have benefited from some amount of post-processing, though most look very light on the editing. I certainly don’t see any of these photos being heavily modified as if they were trying to “hide” a mistake or poor execution of the capture. I see post-processing as a necessary skill to have as a photographer. The image that most cameras produce is not complete, nor is it even intended to be the final photo (ie. raw formats require post-processing). I guess you could think of the image produced by the camera as a negative — it’s an image, but it usually needs some amount of work to become a photo.
I see where you’re coming from, but even film requires work as it’s developed and printed. Which developer to use, how much agitation, chemical concentrations, time, and the actual film all play a role on the outcome of the negative. Same with printing — choice of papers, chemicals and concentrations, filters, burning, dodging, toning, etc, all play a role on the outcome of the print.
What I’m getting at is that you don’t just shoot a roll of film and have it developed and printed at Walmart or something. I mean, you could, but true enthusiasts wouldn’t. Same with digital. You don’t just shoot the image and upload it straight to the web. Again, you could, but true enthusiasts probably wouldn’t. Am I making any sense there?
Gary
September 15, 2009Great post Brian. Thanks for pulling this together!
Thomas Jack
September 17, 2009I am certainly honored and humbled to be included in such a wonderful list of talented photographers. I had no idea when you contacted me, B. Zowzers, these folks are awesome!
Jim
October 7, 2009That’s a great list, will keep me busy browsing trough the portfolio’s for a while.
Silvia
October 13, 2009Great list John! Although browsing the web I have seen many other togs who are yet to be discovered!
I did some research and Christine seems to be one of the top wedding togs in South Africa, her work being from the top shelf she must have definately been discovered long ago 🙂
http://www.larajade.co.uk
http://www.ericuys.com (incredible variety of work)
http://www.chipwillis.com
Keep up the good work!
Silvia
Jen Weiss
April 25, 2010wow some of those photographers I never heard of but they have such a amazing photos, thank you for the list very inspiring, Jen