HN Explorer

Ask HN: Who are your favorite photography and generative coding artists?

184 points by PirxThePilot ↗ HN
I’m looking to explore new visual artists for inspiration, particularly in photography and generative coding. Who are your favorite artists in these fields? Any recommendations for books (photo albums), websites, or projects to check out?

80 comments

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seaports
Check out The Poet Engineer – Amazing work in Touchdesigner
afpx
Objkt.com has a lot of great curated collections, and it's a rabbit hole.

https://objkt.com/

Similar with Highlight:

https://highlight.xyz/explore/curated?period=30d

Here's a guy I found recently that I like:

https://x.com/perfectl00p https://www.reddit.com/user/PERFECTLO0P/?sort=top https://objkt.com/@perfectloop

NFTs are interesting. When they were originally hyped up, I didn't see the point when you could just save the work. But, I've learned to understand them more as 'signed' copies. Also, there's pride in knowing that you sponsored someone before they became known.

Finally, I love generative art. I'm a huge fan. But, too few works appeal to the human condition, and they're often just algorithmic designs.

kiririn7
i really like the idea of nfts (despite not owning any) but i feel like there is a problem with the current implementation, i imagine they will be big in the future but not in their current form. humans want to show off their things to get status from them(expensive cars, expensive game items(csgo)) with nfts there is no real way to show them off, the closest thing was profile pictures. im not sure of a good way to solve this, i think zuck said something about putting nfts in your metahouse
iamacyborg
Gregory Crewdson

Benoit Paille

Anders Hoff

Davide Quayola

Robbie Barrat

opto
I love the early generative artists:

- Frieder Nake

- Vera Molnar

- Manfred Mohr

More recently people like Casey Reas, who developed the language Processing, Jared Tarbell (https://complexification.net), and Anders Hoff (https://inconvergent.net) are the people I'd look at. Hoff works in Lisp if that's your thing.

For a place to look at the history of generative art, the best resource is still http://dada.compart-bremen.de/

fjfaase
Do you know about Peter Struycken, who made many art works, painting, carpets, light shows, and 3D animations with the help of computers? Even his painting of the last decade where made using computer programs to find pleasant looking random patterns for placing coloured squares. See www.pstruycken.nl for more information.
akharris
On photography, in no real order, and probably overweight on street photography.

- Henri Cartier Bresson - Joseph Koudelka - Gordon Parks - Phil Penman - Alan Schiller - Annie Leibovitz - Micha bar Am - Bruce Gilden - Steve McCurry - Constantine Manos - Dorothea Lange

bag_boy
Generative art - I produced a collaboration with Gee’s Bend, Anna Lucia, and the Artist Rights Society.

It’s called “generations.”

It was a pretty crazy project that took 2+ years to produce.

Anna is really talented. The Gee’s Bend quilters are some of the finest artists in America.

WillAdams
May I piggyback here?

What software tools are used for this sort of work?

I'm aware of/have tried:

- Processing (as well as processing.py)

- Nodebox

- OpenSCAD (and its derivative PythonSCAD which allows using Python in it)

EDIT: and METAPOST/Asymptote/TikZ which I forgot to mention

What other tools would folks recommend?

aranazo
For 2D output, Postscript and especially MetaPost are useful.
abrefeld
p5.js is a JavaScript library that I've enjoyed messing with. It's related to Processing.

https://p5js.org/

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acomjean
I will second p5/processing as a fun tool. It's really a pretty easy and way to get into generative art. P5.js has an online editor which makes it easy.

The new nature of code book was updated to use p5 instead of processing and a fun way to start. As is the "coding train videos" which are interesting in the seem for kids but cover more advanced topics..

https://natureofcode.com/

https://youtube.com/@thecodingtrain?si=dmjxLScgm9Wdi4sV

I used p5.j5 to merge DNA sequences and my photographs. People seem to like them ( they've been accepted to jurrored shows)

I make they layers in p5 then manipulate in gimp.

I put some online: https://aramcomjean.smugmug.com/DNA-is-Just-Part

mft_
The artist that springs to mind right now is Amy Goodchild.

www.amygoodchild.com

spike021
for photography, I really enjoy Benjamin Beech from Japan. he does a lot of work for tourism associations there, for instance: https://www.beechphotography.tokyo/visit-mie

There’s also Adrien Sanguinetti. He’s also based in Japan but honestly I really just enjoy his street photography videos. He does an excellent job narrating while wearing an action cam how he composes his photos. What types of compositional elements he uses. etc. His youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriensanguinetti

I don’t think my street photography would’ve really taken as much form as it has if not for watching his videos.

vaidhy
Shameless self plug.. but my favorite artist is myself. My photography journey is documented here - https://vaidhys.world

Most of the photographs are around Seattle and focused on wildlife and landscapes.

jgehrcke
You have some really nice shots there, even with the rare wild dog!

Jumping on the shameless plug train here -- just a few days ago I decided to finally show some of my photography on Instagram (for those of you that still use it):

https://instagram.com/nowslice

I have a deep passion for photography but had so far not put effort into an online presence. Here I intend to publish only the besties from many years of putting myself out there with mostly a fixed focal lens at 135 mm (f/1.8).

Adrig
Here's are a few you might enjoy! Living artists only to give them a little boost

Photography:

- Hideaki Hamada https://hideakihamada.com/works/?tab=grid

- Henri Prestes https://www.instagram.com/henrifilm/

- Liam Wong https://www.instagram.com/liamwong/

- lllonilll https://www.instagram.com/lllonilll/

- Trung Bao https://www.instagram.com/trungbaotr/

- Clémentine Ecobichon https://www.instagram.com/clementine_art_gallery/

Digital / generative art:

- Slap Comp https://www.instagram.com/slapcomp/

- Oprisco https://www.instagram.com/oprisco/

- michael murdock https://www.instagram.com/mjmurdoc/

Bonus, artists & illustrators:

- seongryul https://www.instagram.com/sseongryul/

- huihuabiji https://www.instagram.com/yaozh.i/

- Kris Ancog https://www.instagram.com/krisancog/

- August Sandström https://www.instagram.com/august.artwork/

- daisukerichard https://www.instagram.com/daisukerichard/

- Viktoria Prischedko https://www.instagram.com/viktoriaprischedko/

- Thomas Wells Schaller https://www.instagram.com/thomaswschaller/

- Little Thunder https://www.instagram.com/littlethunder/

smugglerFlynn
Great resource to explore new fine art photography projects and artists is LENSCRATCH https://lenscratch.com/photographers/

But have you explored all of the old ones yet? Magnum has excellent courses, each is a rabbit hole of references and inspiration: https://www.magnumphotos.com/learn/ (personally working through the Alec Soth one atm)

Regarding photobooks, the best way by far is to visit your local brick and mortar book store for a photography section, or find local community place / coffee shop that has these available. Just pick whatever catches your eye! I know some libraries also provide access to photobooks, should be a good resource if you have one nearby.

johnmaguire
I own a lot of photo books and highly recommend them. Nothing is more inspiring to me. The YouTube channel "The Photo Book Guy" is worth a look too. I also like "The Art of Photography."

The Magnum courses look interesting. Do you find the are generally worth the price? Do they ever go on sale?

https://youtube.com/@photobookguy1380

https://youtube.com/@theartofphotography

smugglerFlynn
They are quite expensive for the content, given these are not true learning courses, more like well structured and deep interviews. But photo education is very tech(nique) focused nowadays, so I don’t know any good online alternatives that would touch upon the art and creative side of photography, like Magnum does.
johnmaguire
Thanks. I agree it's very easy to find information on how to operate a camera, and even easier to find reviews... but it's incredibly difficult to find good art/design resources online, through the noise.

Personally, I had a good experience early in my photography learning with an in-person class that focused on "taking creative photos" (skipping the instructor's "camera fundamentals" class.) It was a mix of basic composition and basic editing.

Along a similar vein, I liked this Udemy course quite a bit for further solidifying compositional knowledge: https://www.udemy.com/course/landscape-composition/learn/lec...

Thanks for the feedback, I've long been interested in some Magnum courses (e.g. Alec Soth has created some of my favorite images.) I'll give one a go!

Bjorkbat
I'm going to add a bit of a left-field contribution since his work is less generative coding more mathematics and geometry in general, but it has inspired me when it comes to generative coding. I'm assuming the works he's done which are printed rather than painted were created in such a way not too dissimilar from creating coding.

Anyway, Clark Richert (https://www.clarkrichert.com/, see also MCA's page on him as well https://octopus.mcadenver.org/artists/clark-richert).