Greatest Photographers
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2026 9:51 am
Criteria: Influence, contemporary & historical acclaim, cultural impact
Disclaimer: This list is strongly influenced by the Western canon of art. This means that in the broader scope of a global art history certain regions may be underrepresented, among them Russia, India, China, Africa and Latin America.
1. Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984) - The Tetons and the Snake River
2. Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004) - The Decisive Moment
3. Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946) - The Steerage
4. Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965) - Migrant Mother
5. Robert Capa (1913 - 1954) - The Falling Soldier
6. Diane Arbus (1923 - 1971) - Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962
7. Richard Avedon (1923 - 2004) - In the American West
8. Edward Steichen (1879 - 1973) - The Pond–Moonlight
9. Edward Weston (1886 - 1958) - Pepper No. 30
10. Cindy Sherman (1954 - ) - Untitled Film Stills
11. Walker Evans (1903 - 1975) - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
12. Irving Penn (1917 - 2009) - Portraits in a Corner
13. Man Ray (1890 - 1976) - Le Violon d'Ingres
14. Sebastião Salgado (1944 - 2025) - Workers: Archaeology of the Industrial Age
15. Paul Strand (1890 - 1976) - Abstraction, Porch Shadows
16. Robert Frank (1924 - 2019) - The Americans
17. Annie Leibovitz (1949 - ) - John Lennon and Yoko Ono
18. Yousuf Karsh (1908 - 2002) - The Roaring Lion
19. Bill Brandt (1904 - 1983) - The Lambeth Walk
20. William Eggleston (1939 - ) - The Red Ceiling
21. Andre Kertész (1894 - 1985) - Circus, Budapest
22. Robert Doisneau (1912 - 1994) - Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville
23. James Nachtwey (1948 - ) - Inferno
24. Steve McCurry (1950 - ) - Afghan Girl
25. Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879) - Portrait of Sir John Herschel
26. Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) - You Have Seen Their Faces
27. Cecil Beaton (1904 - 1980) - The Book of Beauty
28. Gordon Parks (1912 - 2006) - American Gothic
29. Mary Ellen Mark (1940 - ) - Streetwise
30. Don McCullin (1935 - ) - Albino Boy, Biafra
31. Roger Fenton (1819 - 1869) - The Valley of the Shadow of Death
32. Nan Goldin (1953 - ) - The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
33. Helmut Newton (1920 - 2004) - Self‐Portrait with Wife and Model
34. W. Eugene Smith (1918 - 1978) - Saipan
35. Vivian Maier (1926 - 2009) - The Mirror Self-Portraits
36. Martin Parr (1952 - ) - The Last Resort
37. Gustave Le Gray (1820 - 1894) - The Brig
38. Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863 - 1944) - Leo Tolstoy
39. August Sander (1876 - 1964) - Bricklayer
40. William Klein (1926 - 2022) - Gun 1, New York
41. Peter Lindbergh (1944 - 2019) - Images of Women
42. Elliott Erwitt (1928 - ) - Son of a Bitch
43. Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948 - ) - Seascapes
44. Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) - Women Are Beautiful
45. Lee Friedlander (1934 - )- America By Car
46. Weegee (1899 - 1968) - The Critic
47. Rineke Dijkstra (1959 - ) - Beach Portraits
48. Joel Meyerowitz (1938 - ) - Cape Light
49. Andreas Gursky (1955 - ) - 99 Cent
50. Lisette Model (1901 - 1983) - Promenade des Anglais in Nice
51. Philippe Halsman (1906 - 1979) - Dalí Atomicus
52. Horst P. Horst (1906 - 1999) - Mainbocher Corset
53. Edward S. Curtis (1868 - 1952) - The Vanishing Race–Navaho
54. Erich Salomon (1868 - 1944) - The Hague
55. Julius Shulman (1910 - 2009) - Case Study House no. 22, Los Angeles
56. Bruce Davidson (1933 - ) - Brooklyn Gang
57. Eve Arnold (1912 - 2012) - Marilyn Monroe
58. Arnold Newman (1918 - 2006) - Igor Stravinsky, New York City, 1946
59. Thomas Struth (1954 - ) - Museum Photographs
60. Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 - 1986) - Une Delage au Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France de 1912
61. Brassaï (1899 - 1984) - Paris of the Night
62. Eugène Atget (1857 - 1927) - Organ Player and Singing Girl
63. Larry Clark (1943 - ) - Tulsa
64. Raghu Rai (1942 - 2026) - Exposure: Portrait Of A Corporate Crime
65. Daido Moriyama (1938 - ) - Stray Dog, Misawa
66. Harold Edgerton (1903 - 1990) - Bullet Passing through a Candle Flame
67. Jerry Uelsmann (1934 - ) - The Mind's Eye
68. Ernst Haas (1921 - 1986) - The Creation
69. Helen Levitt (1913 - 2009) - Crosstown
70. Saul Leiter (1923 - 2013) - Red Curtain
71. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) - Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter
72. David Bailey (1938 - ) - Michael Caine
73. Brian Duffy (1933 - ) - Aladdin Sane
74. David LaChapelle (1963 - ) - Heaven to Hell
75. Lewis Hine (1874 - 1940) - Child Laborer in Newberry, South Carolina Cotton Mill
76. Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898 - 1995) - V-J Day in Times Square
77. Mathew Brady (1822 - 1896) - Abraham Lincoln
78. Mario Testino (1954 - ) - Princess Diana
79. Nick Knight (1958 - ) - Plant Power
80. Jay Maisel (1931 - 2026) - Kind of Blue
81. Guy Bourdin (1928 - 1991) - Exhibit A
82. Zanele Muholi (1972 - ) - Somnyama Ngonyama
83. Sally Mann (1951 - ) - Immediate Family
84. Ellen von Unwerth (1954 - ) - Heimat
85. Art Wolfe (1951 - ) - Earth Is My Witness
86. Frans Lanting (1951 - ) - Eye to Eye
87. Herbert List (1903 - 1975) - Goldfish Bowl
88. Herb Ritts (1952 - 2002) - Richard Gere at the Gas Station
89. Philip Jones Griffiths (1936 - 2008) - Vietnam Inc.
90. Patrick Demarchelier (1943 - 2022) - Princess Diana
91. Steven Meisel (1954 - ) - Erotic
92. Richard Prince (1949 - ) - Untitled (Cowboy)
93. Nadar (1820 - 1910) - The Mime Charles Deburau as Pierrot
94. O Winston Link (1914 - 2001) - Hot Shot Eastbound at Iaeger Drive‐In
95. Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882) - The Dead of Antietam
96. Lorna Simpson (1960 - ) - Corridor
97. William Henry Jackson (1843 - 1942) - Old Faithful
98. Carrie Mae Weems (1953 - ) - The Heart of the Matter
99. Gregory Crewdson (1962 - ) - Twilight
100. Lee Miller (1907 - 1977) - Fire Masks
Honorable mentions:
Robert Adams (1937 - ) - New West
Dmitri Baltermants (1912 - 1990) - Grief
Hippolyte Bayard (1801 - 1887) - Self‐Portrait as a Drowned Man
E.J. Bellocq (1873 - 1949) - Storyville Portrait
Louis Boutan (1859 - 1934) - Portrait of Emil Racoviță
Louis Daguerre (1787 - 1851) - Boulevard du Temple
Ken Domon (1909 - 1990) - Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples
David Doubilet (1946 - ) - Water Light Time
Ralph Gibson (1939 - ) - The Somnambulist
Bruce Gilden (1946 - ) - Haiti
Bert Hardy (1913 - 1995) - Blackpool Promenade
Robert Howlett (1831 -1858) - Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern
Gertrude Käsebier (1852 - 1934) - The Manager
Michael Kenna (1953 - ) - Forms of Japan
Yevgeny Khaldei (1917 - 1997) - Raising a Flag over the Reichstag
Baron Adolphe de Meyer (1868 - 1946) - Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Martin Munkácsi (1896 - 1963) - Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika
Eadweard Muybridge (1830 - 1904) - The Horse in Motion
Nicéphore Niépce (1765 - 1833) - View from the Window at Le Gras
Rankin (1966 - ) - Sad Lad
Tony Ray-Jones (1941 - 1972) - Beachy Head boat trip
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813 - 1875) - Two Ways of Life
Jacob Riis (1849 - 1914) - Street Arabs in the Area of Mulberry Street
Alexander Rodchenko (1891 - 1956) - Girl with a Leica
Paolo Roversi (1947 - ) - Audrey, Paris
Stephen Shore (1947 - ) - Uncommon Places
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 - 1877) - Windows from Inside South Gallery
Juergen Teller (1964 - ) - Young Pink Kate
Tim Walker (1970 - ) - The Garden of Earthly Delights
Jeff Wall (1946 - ) - Dead Troops Talk
Carleton Watkins (1829 - 1916) - Yosemite Valley, View from Inspiration Point
Bruce Weber (1946 - ) - Boys from Red Cloud, Nebraska
Disclaimer: This list is strongly influenced by the Western canon of art. This means that in the broader scope of a global art history certain regions may be underrepresented, among them Russia, India, China, Africa and Latin America.
1. Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984) - The Tetons and the Snake River
2. Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004) - The Decisive Moment
3. Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946) - The Steerage
4. Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965) - Migrant Mother
5. Robert Capa (1913 - 1954) - The Falling Soldier
6. Diane Arbus (1923 - 1971) - Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962
7. Richard Avedon (1923 - 2004) - In the American West
8. Edward Steichen (1879 - 1973) - The Pond–Moonlight
9. Edward Weston (1886 - 1958) - Pepper No. 30
10. Cindy Sherman (1954 - ) - Untitled Film Stills
11. Walker Evans (1903 - 1975) - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
12. Irving Penn (1917 - 2009) - Portraits in a Corner
13. Man Ray (1890 - 1976) - Le Violon d'Ingres
14. Sebastião Salgado (1944 - 2025) - Workers: Archaeology of the Industrial Age
15. Paul Strand (1890 - 1976) - Abstraction, Porch Shadows
16. Robert Frank (1924 - 2019) - The Americans
17. Annie Leibovitz (1949 - ) - John Lennon and Yoko Ono
18. Yousuf Karsh (1908 - 2002) - The Roaring Lion
19. Bill Brandt (1904 - 1983) - The Lambeth Walk
20. William Eggleston (1939 - ) - The Red Ceiling
21. Andre Kertész (1894 - 1985) - Circus, Budapest
22. Robert Doisneau (1912 - 1994) - Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville
23. James Nachtwey (1948 - ) - Inferno
24. Steve McCurry (1950 - ) - Afghan Girl
25. Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879) - Portrait of Sir John Herschel
26. Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) - You Have Seen Their Faces
27. Cecil Beaton (1904 - 1980) - The Book of Beauty
28. Gordon Parks (1912 - 2006) - American Gothic
29. Mary Ellen Mark (1940 - ) - Streetwise
30. Don McCullin (1935 - ) - Albino Boy, Biafra
31. Roger Fenton (1819 - 1869) - The Valley of the Shadow of Death
32. Nan Goldin (1953 - ) - The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
33. Helmut Newton (1920 - 2004) - Self‐Portrait with Wife and Model
34. W. Eugene Smith (1918 - 1978) - Saipan
35. Vivian Maier (1926 - 2009) - The Mirror Self-Portraits
36. Martin Parr (1952 - ) - The Last Resort
37. Gustave Le Gray (1820 - 1894) - The Brig
38. Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863 - 1944) - Leo Tolstoy
39. August Sander (1876 - 1964) - Bricklayer
40. William Klein (1926 - 2022) - Gun 1, New York
41. Peter Lindbergh (1944 - 2019) - Images of Women
42. Elliott Erwitt (1928 - ) - Son of a Bitch
43. Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948 - ) - Seascapes
44. Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) - Women Are Beautiful
45. Lee Friedlander (1934 - )- America By Car
46. Weegee (1899 - 1968) - The Critic
47. Rineke Dijkstra (1959 - ) - Beach Portraits
48. Joel Meyerowitz (1938 - ) - Cape Light
49. Andreas Gursky (1955 - ) - 99 Cent
50. Lisette Model (1901 - 1983) - Promenade des Anglais in Nice
51. Philippe Halsman (1906 - 1979) - Dalí Atomicus
52. Horst P. Horst (1906 - 1999) - Mainbocher Corset
53. Edward S. Curtis (1868 - 1952) - The Vanishing Race–Navaho
54. Erich Salomon (1868 - 1944) - The Hague
55. Julius Shulman (1910 - 2009) - Case Study House no. 22, Los Angeles
56. Bruce Davidson (1933 - ) - Brooklyn Gang
57. Eve Arnold (1912 - 2012) - Marilyn Monroe
58. Arnold Newman (1918 - 2006) - Igor Stravinsky, New York City, 1946
59. Thomas Struth (1954 - ) - Museum Photographs
60. Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 - 1986) - Une Delage au Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France de 1912
61. Brassaï (1899 - 1984) - Paris of the Night
62. Eugène Atget (1857 - 1927) - Organ Player and Singing Girl
63. Larry Clark (1943 - ) - Tulsa
64. Raghu Rai (1942 - 2026) - Exposure: Portrait Of A Corporate Crime
65. Daido Moriyama (1938 - ) - Stray Dog, Misawa
66. Harold Edgerton (1903 - 1990) - Bullet Passing through a Candle Flame
67. Jerry Uelsmann (1934 - ) - The Mind's Eye
68. Ernst Haas (1921 - 1986) - The Creation
69. Helen Levitt (1913 - 2009) - Crosstown
70. Saul Leiter (1923 - 2013) - Red Curtain
71. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) - Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter
72. David Bailey (1938 - ) - Michael Caine
73. Brian Duffy (1933 - ) - Aladdin Sane
74. David LaChapelle (1963 - ) - Heaven to Hell
75. Lewis Hine (1874 - 1940) - Child Laborer in Newberry, South Carolina Cotton Mill
76. Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898 - 1995) - V-J Day in Times Square
77. Mathew Brady (1822 - 1896) - Abraham Lincoln
78. Mario Testino (1954 - ) - Princess Diana
79. Nick Knight (1958 - ) - Plant Power
80. Jay Maisel (1931 - 2026) - Kind of Blue
81. Guy Bourdin (1928 - 1991) - Exhibit A
82. Zanele Muholi (1972 - ) - Somnyama Ngonyama
83. Sally Mann (1951 - ) - Immediate Family
84. Ellen von Unwerth (1954 - ) - Heimat
85. Art Wolfe (1951 - ) - Earth Is My Witness
86. Frans Lanting (1951 - ) - Eye to Eye
87. Herbert List (1903 - 1975) - Goldfish Bowl
88. Herb Ritts (1952 - 2002) - Richard Gere at the Gas Station
89. Philip Jones Griffiths (1936 - 2008) - Vietnam Inc.
90. Patrick Demarchelier (1943 - 2022) - Princess Diana
91. Steven Meisel (1954 - ) - Erotic
92. Richard Prince (1949 - ) - Untitled (Cowboy)
93. Nadar (1820 - 1910) - The Mime Charles Deburau as Pierrot
94. O Winston Link (1914 - 2001) - Hot Shot Eastbound at Iaeger Drive‐In
95. Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882) - The Dead of Antietam
96. Lorna Simpson (1960 - ) - Corridor
97. William Henry Jackson (1843 - 1942) - Old Faithful
98. Carrie Mae Weems (1953 - ) - The Heart of the Matter
99. Gregory Crewdson (1962 - ) - Twilight
100. Lee Miller (1907 - 1977) - Fire Masks
Honorable mentions:
Robert Adams (1937 - ) - New West
Dmitri Baltermants (1912 - 1990) - Grief
Hippolyte Bayard (1801 - 1887) - Self‐Portrait as a Drowned Man
E.J. Bellocq (1873 - 1949) - Storyville Portrait
Louis Boutan (1859 - 1934) - Portrait of Emil Racoviță
Louis Daguerre (1787 - 1851) - Boulevard du Temple
Ken Domon (1909 - 1990) - Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples
David Doubilet (1946 - ) - Water Light Time
Ralph Gibson (1939 - ) - The Somnambulist
Bruce Gilden (1946 - ) - Haiti
Bert Hardy (1913 - 1995) - Blackpool Promenade
Robert Howlett (1831 -1858) - Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern
Gertrude Käsebier (1852 - 1934) - The Manager
Michael Kenna (1953 - ) - Forms of Japan
Yevgeny Khaldei (1917 - 1997) - Raising a Flag over the Reichstag
Baron Adolphe de Meyer (1868 - 1946) - Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Martin Munkácsi (1896 - 1963) - Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika
Eadweard Muybridge (1830 - 1904) - The Horse in Motion
Nicéphore Niépce (1765 - 1833) - View from the Window at Le Gras
Rankin (1966 - ) - Sad Lad
Tony Ray-Jones (1941 - 1972) - Beachy Head boat trip
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813 - 1875) - Two Ways of Life
Jacob Riis (1849 - 1914) - Street Arabs in the Area of Mulberry Street
Alexander Rodchenko (1891 - 1956) - Girl with a Leica
Paolo Roversi (1947 - ) - Audrey, Paris
Stephen Shore (1947 - ) - Uncommon Places
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 - 1877) - Windows from Inside South Gallery
Juergen Teller (1964 - ) - Young Pink Kate
Tim Walker (1970 - ) - The Garden of Earthly Delights
Jeff Wall (1946 - ) - Dead Troops Talk
Carleton Watkins (1829 - 1916) - Yosemite Valley, View from Inspiration Point
Bruce Weber (1946 - ) - Boys from Red Cloud, Nebraska