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PFRE is the original online resource for real estate and interior photographers. Since 2006, it has been a community hub where like-minded professionals from around the world gather to share information with a common goal of improving their work and advancing their business. With thousands of articles, covering hundreds of topics, PFRE offers the most robust collection of educational material in our field. The history of real estate photography has been documented within these pages.
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Image banner for the November 2023 PFRE Photographer of the Month Winner Javier Sotomayor, with a featured image of his winning photo titled "Open"

Congratulations to Javier Sotomayor, November 2023 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Open." Javier Sotomayor - Entry #879 Dave Koch - Entry #877 Peter Wingfield - Entry #874 Here's what Javier has to say: Hello First of all I wa ...

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For over a decade, photographers from around the world have participated in PFRE’s monthly photography contests, culminating in the year-end crowning of PFRE’s Photographer of the Year. With a new theme each month and commentary offered by some of the finest real estate & interior photographers anywhere, these contests offer a fun, competitive environment with rich learning opportunities. 

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The ONLY 7 Famous Photographers You Need To Know

Published: 16/11/2022

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Professional real estate photographers need high skills to capture attractive and captivating interior and exterior photos. Fortunately, learning artistic skills, composition, and framing techniques from famous photographers can help you capture aesthetically pleasing photos and improve your overall photography skills.

Top Famous Photographers

Famous photographers do not necessarily capture attractive photos using modern cameras that come with advanced autofocus, ISO sensitivity, and image stabilization mechanisms. In most cases, famous photographers have been in photography and contributed to its evolution and development.

They combine the learned skills with innovations to develop new techniques for enhanced image sharpness and focus, even when working with low-end camera gear. The following are some famous photographers who used their artistic skills to capture photos with great composition and framing.

A black and white image of Ansel Adams while using a camera

1. Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams is one of the most famous photographers, born in San Francisco, California, on February 20th, 1902. Ansel Adams was more of an environmentalist, and his photography featured the untouched wilderness, mostly the landscapes and national parks on the American west coast.

Adams received his first camera in 1916, and he started creating aesthetically pleasing landscape photographs of Yosemite Valley and the High Sierra. In 1932, Ansel formed the West Coast Photographers Association, which focused on sharp focus and the use of grayscale from black to white.

In 1946, he founded the California school of fine arts, currently known as the San Francisco Art Institute, as an academy for training photography as a profession. With his colleague, Adams also developed the zone system that helps to expose a photo properly and improve contrast adjustability.

A black and white image of Dorothea Lange sitting on top of a car

2. Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange is a renowned American documentary photographer born on May 26, 1895, in Hoboken, New Jersey. She studied photography as a profession at Columbia University and got informal apprenticeships in a couple of New York photography studios. In 1918, she started traveling around the world, selling her photographs.

She later settled back in San Francisco and started shooting portraits of jobless men wandering around the streets of San Francisco during the Great Depression. Leaving her studio to go and document the Economic and Social upheaval of the Great Depression on the streets led to the development of documentary photography.

These photographs made her receive recognition from other photographers and the general public, and she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941. She was invited by Ansel Adams to teach photography at the California school of fine arts in 1945 and later co-founded the aperture photography magazine in 1952.

3. Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark was born in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, on March 20, 1940. She is one of the American photographers that covered a wide scope of photography, ranging from advertising, portraiture, and documentary to photojournalism. Her photography was driven by a sense of care and closeness to the subjects she photographed.

Her photography mainly focused on social issues such as prostitution, drug addiction, loneliness, and homelessness. She believed that as a photographer, your mind and emotions must be involved in your composition. Mary Ellen Mark had mastered the art of composition and framing such that she never cropped her photos.

Typically, this is one of the best techniques you can borrow from Mary Ellen Mark to improve your real estate photography results. You can use her technique to make the viewers feel connected to the real estate property in the photo without cropping and losing image quality.

A black and white image of Robert Capa wearing a long sleeves knitted shirt while holding a camera

4. Robert Capa

As Endre Friedmann, Robert Capa was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, on October 22, 1913. Unlike other photographers on our list, Robert was an American-Hungarian photojournalist and war photographer who spent most of his photography career photographing war. Some of the wars that Robert photographed include:

  • The Spanish civil war: During this war photography, Capa displays the devastating impact of war on people's homes and lives. He shows the sad faces of the people affected by war to personalize war and its effects.
  • World War II: The photographs he makes from this war show his desire to capture amid tough situations as he can capture an American soldier who is shot unaware by a German sniper as the other soldiers run to hide in the apartments
  • The 1948 Arab-Israeli war: In his photographs during this war, Capa shows refugees' struggles before they are resettled in their new homes.
  • The first Indochina war: He photographed this war in Thai-Binh Indochina in 1954 and was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.
Richard Avedon wearing a black suit with a black tie near framed photographs on a cream-colored wall

5. Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon was born in New York City on May 15, 1953. He developed his interest in the fashion world as his father owned a clothing store and his mother came from a family of dress manufacturers.

Although he worked as a photographer in the Merchant Marine for two years capturing identification portraits of sailors, his biggest interest was in fashion photography as he worked with the director of Harper’s Bazaar, a popular fashion magazine for women.

His main task was to take pictures of models wearing the latest fashion in the city. Richard is famous for his elegant black and white photos showcasing the new fashion in real-life settings such as cabarets, picturesque cafes, and streetcars.

Harry Lim wearing a black suit and blue long sleeves shirt while smiling near fresh plants and flowers

6. Harry Lim

Harry Lim worked as a news videographer until 2010 when he was hired as a staff photographer in a vacation rental home. His background in the broadcast field had given him high camera skills and good exposure, which made his transition into real estate photography effortless.

Although Harry established his photography studio in Orlando, Florida, he is a famous real estate photographer who travels all over the United States, capturing commercial real estate photos. One of the things that makes Harry’s work outstanding is his ability to capture well-balanced, sharp, and bright photos.

Furthermore, Harry is a certified drone pilot member and a member of the AIA Orlando. This certification and skills allow him to capture fantastic aerial photos of the backyards or the general location and environment of the property.

Black and white image of Scott Basile wearing a beret and glasses

7. Scott Basile

Scott Basile is a professional real estate photographer from Upstate New York. Driven by his passion for art and photography, he worked on three-dimensional art before joining college. He later got an art scholarship and joined San Diego State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

He worked as a graphic designer for Dream Homes magazine for around two years. One time when the staff photographer went surfing in Costa Rica, Scott got an opportunity into his position. The editor liked his skills, and he ended up joining real estate photography.

With a good understanding of the impact of real estate photography in the digital market, he has set up his studio in San Diego, specializing in architecture and interior photography. Scott Basile’s work has been featured in the San Diego Magazine, Dream Homes Magazine, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

A photographer wearing a denim long sleeves top while pointing a black SLR camera in a clear blue sky

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Renowned Photographers Learn Photography as a Profession?

Most renowned photographers took photography as a career and even learned the skills in colleges and universities. Most of these photographers are also talented and dive into photography out of passion, not money. 

Why Are Most Famous Photographers Also Artists?

Most famous photographers are also artists because it takes skills, experience, and talent to create artistic drawings and paintings. As a result, these photographers can take pictures at unique angles with interesting compositions and framing, making them famous.

Final Thoughts

Knowing famous photographers and learning what contributed to their success can help you borrow and apply some of their techniques in your real estate photography. This can help you take unique and well-composed photos, making viewers feel connected to the property in the photo.

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