Dorothea Lange’s (1895 - 1965) iconic picture known as Migrant Mother is forever cemented in our mind as the image describing the Great Depression. It truly is one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century. However, when you know that Dorothea suffered from polio as a kid, which left its mark even in her adulthood, you start to understand where she got the ability to connect to her photography subjects on such a deep level. Her empathy and deep levels of connection were among the traits that made her into one of the most famous portrait photographers of all time.

Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984) was a landscape photographer best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. He was also a founding father of Group f/64 - an alliance of photographers who wanted to create ‘pure’ photography art emphasized with sharp focus and full tonal variety of an image. Adams was also a lifelong supporter of environmental protection, and this cause was always tangible in his work.

Emmanuel Radnitsky (1890 - 1976) was born in Philadelphia, grew up in New Jersey, and started his work as a professional artist in 1910 New York. After two years there, he started signing his name as Man Ray, despite his family surname not being changed to that until the 1920s. He learned photography purely so that he could recreate his own works of art, which comprised paintings and mixed media.

Jacques Henri-Lartigue (1894 - 1986) was a French photographer who had to wait the better part of his life before becoming a renowned artist. In fact, he was 69 when he first showed a collection of his photographs in MoMa! However, he got his first camera when he was eight, so up until the point of his show, he had already gathered thousands of invaluable images from sporting events, car races, family vacations, the life around him, and most importantly - his brother’s crazy inventions.

Edward Henry Weston (1886 - 1958) is regarded as one of the most innovative, inventive, and influential American photographers of the 20th century. Throughout his 40 years of active photography he encompassed a wide variety of subjects like portraits, landscapes, nudes, still lifes, genre setting, and even parodies.

Walker Evans (1903 - 1975) was best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration, where he captured the impact the Great Depression had on people. His use of a large-format camera made his images almost alive and aligned with his objectives to create ‘literate, authoritative, and sublime’ pictures. Evans’ images captured and documented the true face of the Great Depression so powerfully that you can still feel the gloom of the times when looking at them in our day.

Annie Leibovitz (1949 - Present) is probably one of the most well-known photographers of this day. She started her career as a photographer for the legendary Rolling Stone magazine and worked there for ten years, before embarking on other photography projects. To capture the perfect image, Leibovitz uses special light arrangements that produce that iconic subdued, almost impressionistic look.

Eliot Porter (1901 - 1990) was a biological scientist by vocation, but wildlife photography had always been his true calling. After the success of his exhibition in 1938, Porter pursued wildlife photography full time and began experimenting with Eastman Kodak’s dye transfer method for color pictures. This influenced his work greatly, even changing the way he took his images.

Robert Capa’s (1913 - 1954) turbulent upbringing and life on the move might have been one of the factors that pushed him into documenting the fleeting moments of life. Capa’s most significant works were taken during the five wars he documented to be published in various magazines and newspapers. In fact, Capa risked his life on several occasions to take the best shots, especially so when he decided to go to the D-Day on Omaha beach as a sole amateur photographer. After the war was over, Robert went to co-found Magnum Photo agency in Paris, which was the first agency ever to represent freelance photographers.

Robert Doisneau (1912 - 1994), a Parisian from an upper-class family in Gentilly, had an insatiable attraction to the arts from a very young age. So, naturally, he took to photography and as early as 1934, he got his first job as an industrial photographer at a Renault factory. However, that didn’t last long and he was sacked for tardiness. Despite that, and the start of WWII, mister Doisneau kept working as a freelance photographer, thus garnering a vast collection of incredibly detailed and powerful photographs.