Stepping away from gear and specs for a minute. I'm curious who everyone's photographic touchstones are, either the photographer whose work may have inspired you to pick up a camera yourself, or someone whose work you return to when your own inspiration's running low.
While I've always been interested in photography -- in part because my mother was always lugging her Minolta around, and partly also because I think I tend to be a bit visual by nature -- I think the first time I saw a photographer whose stuff made my jaw drop was Sebastiao Salgado. More recently, I've been looking a lot at older work (Weston, Cartier-Bresson, et al.) to open up my sense of composition a bit.
Okay, so this isn't as articulate as I'd like. But I'm curious to hear what some of you have to say (and hopefully discover some new photographers while I'm at it!)
