Through a lens clearly

I love looking at beautiful photographs. As a child, my first introduction to beautiful photos were of Ansel Adams in Life Magazine. Yes, there was Life magazine in our school principal’s home in Borongan, Eastern Samar.

I would go over his works especially his photograph of Yosemite Valley and I would imagine what life was like at the other side of the mountain. Having been raised in a mountainous terrain, I always wondered what lies beneath the mountains and the seas that enveloped the island. And I always thought, red-hot Manila was the other side of the world.

That beautiful photo of the Yosemite Valley is still etched in my mind. As I grow older and was exposed to more magazines, I got to love the photos of Edward Weston, especially his black and white photo of "pepper" and "shell" which to me was more than just pepper and shell. I like his nude photos. They are art pieces. Edward seduces your imagination. Edward Weston has the sexiest photos of the human body. Jun de Leon is also a favorite as well as Raymund Isaac. Jun treats me like Tyra Banks while Raymund thinks I’m Paris Hilton. Here are some of the best photographers in the world.

Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was the undisputed master of candid photography. He was also considered the father of photojournalism. He developed "street photography." He believed in composing his photographs in his camera and not in the darkroom.

He came from a wealthy family that enabled him to study as he pleased. He took up painting and photography. As a photojournalist, among his first photos were the coronation of King George VI, photographs of World War II, photos of the Nazi occupation and the liberations, Gandhi’s death in India in 1948 and the Maoist revolution in China in 1949. He was known to have "become the first Western photographer to photograph ‘freely’ in the post-war Soviet Union."

Ansel Adams. He began taking photos in High Sierra and Yosemite Valley, with which his name is permanently associated. With Edward Weston and others, he founded the Group f/64. He specialized in characteristic regional landscape and worked to emphasize the conservation of nature. He wrote numerous technical manuals, including the classic Basic Photo-Books series, and helped found photographic art departments at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (the first such department) and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1946 he established the first college department of photography at the California School of Fine Art. His work has become known to a wide audience through the many books, posters, and calendars that have featured his photographs.

Richard Avedon. He has done beautiful portraits of Brigitte Bardot, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacques Cousteau, Andy Warhol, and Lena Horne, among others. But they are just a few of the many famous personalities whose beauty has been caught by Avedon’s camera. . He is one of the premier American portrait photographers. His ability to present personal views of public figures, who were usually distant and inaccessible, was immediately recognized by the public and celebrities themselves. Many sought out Avedon for their most public images. More than anything, it is Avedon’s ability to set his subjects at ease that helps him create true, intimate and lasting photos. He is famous for minimalism. His portraits are often well lighted and set against white backdrops. He was voted one of the ten greatest photographers in the world by Popular Photography magazine, and in 1989 he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London.

Edward Weston. He is recognized as one of the greatest photographic artists of the 20th century. He was born in Highland Park, Illinois on March 24, 1886 and had his first camera at 16. He began taking photographs in Chicago parks and in his aunt’s farm. In later years, Weston worked mainly with nudes, still life — his shells and vegetable studies were especially important — and landscape subjects. He co-founded Group f/64 with Ansel Adams, Willard van Dyke and others. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson houses a full archive of Weston’s work.

Francesco Scavullo. He is famous for his work on the covers of Cosmopolitan and Vogue magazines and for his celebrity portraits. He was in demand as a fashion photographer. He changed the way magazine covers look when he was commissioned to do covers for Cosmopolitan magazine where he was given a free reign in the selection of the models, wardrobe, make-up, hair styling. He created the image of the modern day Cosmo Girl. Scavullo’s most controversial work include the Cosmopolitan centerfold of a nude Burt Reynolds, and photographs of a young Brooke Shields that some considered overly sexual. He also created posters for movies and Broadway shows including A Star is Born and Victoria Victoria. His celebrity portraits include Andy Warhol, Donna Summer, Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Janis Joplin, Cher, Elizabeth Taylor and Gore Vidal. His works also landed in Time Magazine and Rolling Stone and he has published a book Scavullo on Beauty and Scavullo Nudes.