Martin Munkacsi

I realized that I could not leave Martin Munkacsi out of the group of innovative fashion photographers. Sport, portraiture, and fashion images were Munkacsi's trademarks. He gave life and vitality to photography, where past images remained static and stiff. Nancy Hall-Duncan, author of History of Fashion Photography, titled Munkacsi's genius-ness 'ACTION REALISM', stating:

"the photography was still glamorous,

but it was meant to appeal to a broader audience,

to appeal to the sensibility that you, too,

can partake of a fashionalbe existence."

"Henri Cartier-Bresson believes that one particular Munkácsi image launched him on his career as a photographer, it was the „the spark that set fire to the fireworks”: The photo in question shows three young black boys jumping in the cool waves on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, an incunabulum of photography. ...

In many of his publications, Richard Avedon cites Munkácsi as having inspired him, and in the 1950s dedicated the famous shot of the young woman jumping over a puddle, with umbrella held aloft (see below), to the Hungarian by way of homage. Avedon felt Munkácsi was his predecessor and wrote a moving obituary on him."

-http://www.deichtorhallen.de/418.html

...Someone who inspired both Cartier-Bresson

AND

Avedon...? Wow.