To celebrate International Women's Day we decided it is about time that we share our favourite influential women photographers from around the world with you. From Landscape to Fashion, these ladies have sure left their footprint in photography.
Annie Leibovitz
"When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see"
With a career spanning over 5 decades, Annie Leibovitz has become one of the most influential photographers of her generation.
She began her career in the 1970’s working for the Rolling Stones and by 1973 she was their chief photographer. By the time she left the magazine 10 years later she had shot more than142 covers. She then moved on to work for Vanity Fair and Vogue and her iconic and often provocative work has since been showcased in publications and major exhibitions around the world.
Annie is well known for her use of bold primary colours and her wildly lit, staged and provocative celebrity portraits. She has photographed everyone from Whoopi Goldberg to Bill Clinton. One of her most famous shots is her portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. “We took one Polaroid, and the three of us knew it was profound right away”.
Leibovitz’s ability to make her sitters become physically involved in her work is one of the unique qualities of her photography that has contributed to her reputation as one of America’s best portrait photographers.
Anne Geddes
"In my images, I hope to convey a measure of the beauty that exists in all children"
Anne Geddes is famous for her ability to capture the beauty, purity and vulnerability of children through photography. Her style is based on depicting the personality and character of children through photography in a more natural way. Her portraits often portray babies as flowers, small animals or fairytale creatures.
Anne set up her first official studio in 1988 when her first ever photograph was published in a local New Zealand magazine. The feature created interested in what was seen at the time to be a very unique style of portraiture.
Her business thrived and in 1990 she decided she would take one day a month to explore her inspiration and crate an image purely for herself. Throughout her career Geddes has accumulated the most merits ever granted to an individual photographer, an example being her Lifetime Membership to the Professional Photographers of America Association.
Geddes has revealed that the secret to taking great baby pictures is choosing the right time of day and making sure the baby is happy and well fed before the shoot. She always schedules her shoots in the mornings as she believes babies are generally more settled at this time and her average shoot only lasts 10 minutes.
Jackie Ranken
“The ongoing pursuit in finding new ways of seeing and exploring the landscape”
Jackie has over 30 years photography experience and started her long career by capturing greyhounds at the local race track at just 16yrs old. From here she went on to study Fine Arts and began capturing life around her.
It wasn’t until 2001 when she was upside down in an old biplane ,piloted by her father, that her Landscape career started to blossom with a series of images called ‘Aerial Abstracts’. From this Jackie has gone on to make her mark within the photographic world winning numerous amounts of awards and is the only photographer to have won both the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography, ‘Photographer of the Year’ award with her unique landscape photographs.
Jackie married a fellow photographer, Mike Langford, in 2004 and they spend their days running photography workshops at the Queenstown Centre for Creative Photography. Throughout this time Jackie shares her passion and teaching with students and in return provides her with the opportunity to continually develop their teaching and mentoring skills.
Suzi Eszterhas
"One day, I'm going to live in a tent in Africa"
Suzi is an award-winning wildlife photographer based in California. Best known for her work documenting family life on the African savanna, she has undertaken commissions and led instructional photography tours and workshops everywhere from Antarctica to the Arctic and Alaska to Montana.
In her twenties she decided it was time to quit her job, put everything in storage and live in the bush in Africa. From this plan, she ended up living in a bush camp for 3 years.
Facing so many obstacle on her adventures, it is the highest of acknowledgment that she captures the animals in their natural environment and still lives to tell the tale. If its not the wild elephants or snakes, its is being swarmed by bees.
But Suzie does tell that it is all worth it because the moments that she shares with the animals. Being able to be the only photographer in 20 years to have the opportunity to spend a month with a wild newborn tiger cubs at their den or holding rescued orangutan who is getting a second chance at life in the wild are all privileges that she holds closely.
Follow's Suzi's adventures and see her work on her website.
Krystle Wright
"I've an insatiable desire to explore with a camera"
Krystle's lifestyle is driven by a passion to capture the most unique perspective no yet thought of. She is a complete inspiration with her addiction to adventure photography.
With her photography she brings attention to the demanding adventures and landscapes that the public are rarely fortunate enough to be exposed to and we couldn't be more impressed if we tried.
She started to get inspired about adventure photography after seeing Adam Pretty's folio in a magazine. She knew instantly that climbing mountains to capture BASE jumpers and going on two months kayaking expedition was the career for her.
You can follow Krystle on her incredible journey's through her Instagram account.
Jenn Cooper
"Say Yes! Then figure out how."
Hand-picked by Canon Australia, Jenn Cooper is an adventure and portrait photographer who is now apart of the Canon Collective Team.
Her love for Photography started from a young age, finding inspiration through travelling the world with her family and immersing herself into her High School darkroom.
Jenn's photography has taken to her to some incredible places to tell some incredible stories.
Whether it is rubbing shoulders with the King Penguins in Antarctica, or being one with the locals in Ethiopia, her travel experiences are those to dream of. She has a very inspirational take on photography which we think you will all enjoy.
We were lucky enough to sit down for a quick Q&A with Jenn, which you canread all about here.
Follow Jenn's adventures through her Instagram account.
Now, in sharing our favourite's with you, we hope you decide it is time to get out there and capture the world and everything it has to offer.
