Ask HN: Who are your favorite photography and generative coding artists? | Hacker News Reader

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

184 pointsPirxThePilot77 comments

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?

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Frank Force for generative coding. He has made lots of clever and nice things. Includes game engine (https://github.com/KilledByAPixel/LittleJS), a procedural audio lib (https://github.com/KilledByAPixel/ZzFX) lots of stuff on dwitter.net (https://www.dwitter.net/u/KilledByAPixel/top)

Twitter: https://x.com/KilledByAPixel

portfolio in form of webdesktop: https://generative.3d2k.com/

Website: https://frankforce.com/

I really like the pen plotting art made by Adam Fuhrer. It was posted here a while back. https://adamfuhrer.com/pen-plotting

Wow! Those are really cool! Thanks.

Photography and algorithmic art are exactly my thing. In the past few years, I’ve been deeply exploring generative art, though I prefer calling it "Algorithmic Art" since "generative" is often linked to AI now.

Some of my works can even be drawn with a pen plotter.

Take a look: https://monokai.com

Very nice! Nice work grabbing that domain too!

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.

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

I have a couple of those digital art frames on my walls, and I load the art into them. One is for landscape aspect ratio, and one is for portrait aspect ratio.

https://www.tcl.com/us/en/products/home-theater/nxtframe-tv/...

thats one way to do it but feel like theres a better solution

Turn your houses floor and wall into a eink display and have art become your shadow?

My favourite code based generative artists, in no particular order:

- William Mapan - https://x.com/williamapan/

- Harvey Rayner - https://rayner.art

- Emily Xie - https://emilyxie.art

- Matt DesLauriers - https://www.mattdesl.com

- Ben Kovach - https://bendotk.com

- Piter Pasma - https://x.com/piterpasma

- Zach Lieberman - https://x.com/zachlieberman

BSP, but you may also like my work:

Anthony Hiley-Mann - https://www.mountvitruvius.art / https://x.com/mountvitruvius

My favorite is Fahad Karim, his generative art has a very cool style: https://www.fahadkarim.com/

Whoa, he did the album art for Shubh Saran's album Hmayra, I love that album!

Tyler Hobbs is one of my favorite generative artists. I recently enjoyed his talk "How to Hack a Painting" from Strange Loop 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R9eywArFTE

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.

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

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.

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!

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?

Bookmark dump. Sadly I haven't had time to dig into many of these.

Overtone (clojure) for music https://overtone.github.io/

Bauble https://bauble.studio/about/

Nannou (rust) https://nannou.cc/

Quil (clojure) http://www.quil.info/

Open Frameworks (C++) https://openframeworks.cc/

p5.js is a JavaScript library that I've enjoyed messing with. It's related to Processing.

https://p5js.org/

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

I got really into OPENRNDR for a while, I really enjoy working with it.

https://openrndr.org/

Checkout out this list: https://github.com/terkelg/awesome-creative-coding

Check Touch Designer.

For 2D output, Postscript and especially MetaPost are useful.

Julien Gachadoat: https://www.instagram.com/julienv3ga

Etienne Jacob: https://www.instagram.com/etinjcb/

Matt DesLauriers: https://www.instagram.com/mattdesl_art/

Yann Le Gall: https://www.instagram.com/ylegall/

Zach Lieberman https://x.com/zachlieberman does his work in C++ with https://openframeworks.cc/

Anthony Wood https://www.houseofgai.com/ the blog is really great: https://www.houseofgai.com/blog

Absolutely check out Refik Anadol, amazing contemporary work.

https://refikanadol.com https://refikanadolstudio.com

I am always inspired by the work of Carol Highsmith[0] who has had the dedication to go through the world and simply document what she sees in everyday life and donate all of her work to the LoC. A personal favorite of mine is her photo of the Seattle skyline [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_M._Highsmith [1] https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.14327/?co=highs...

Huge fan of Matt Deslauriers- meridian in particular is very beautiful. Recommend checking it out.

https://www.mattdesl.com/

I really like the work Kenny Vaden has done (mostly written in R of all things). His website is https://vadenart.com/ and instagram https://www.instagram.com/kenny.vaden

He also posts on the r/generative reddit and is really responsive to questions/feedback.

Check out Emily: https://emilyxie.art/

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.

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).

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

Does demoscene counts as generative coding? Farbrausch was my favorite for a while https://www.pouet.net/groups.php?which=322

Demos should count. The demoscene is almost archetypical in this regard, IMO.

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.

For very niche-y photography: Allison Pollack

https://linktr.ee/AlisonPollack

Ironically, iNaturalist is the better source than instagram for browsing her pictures (at least if you don't want to open an account).

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=alison_poll...

https://www.instagram.com/marin_mushrooms/

Almost any website with an image gallery is a better source than Instagram for browsing images available on both even for those with Instagram accounts; the image quality is almost always better elsewhere.

There are also pretty active facebook groups where she and others post remarkable slime mold photos ("Slime Mold Identification & Appreciation" and "Ascomycetes of the world").

Photography:

- William Klein

- Helen Levitt

- Sergio Larrain

- Jane English

- Josef Koudelka

Generative coding:

- Inigo Quilez - https://iquilezles.org/

- Shelby Wilson - https://shelby.cool/

- David OReilly - https://www.davidoreilly.com/

- Rekka and Devine - https://esoteric.codes/blog/100-rabbits

- David Whiting - https://www.vitling.xyz/

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/

https:// seems broken. Need to use: http://www.complexification.net/gallery/

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.

Shout out to cabbibo and mrdoob

https://cabbi.bo/me/

https://mrdoob.com/

Big fan of Roni Kaufman https://bsky.app/profile/ronikaufman.bsky.social

For anyone interested in learning more about generative art and getting started creating it, here’s Sudhan Chitgopkar’s TED talk and free online lecture series on Generative Art:

https://youtu.be/la8MevQxLZw?si=m1KwdHB0kTScSXj6

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtHrXQsUhv82Iqqdx9y5r3qA9...

This is my goto guy for such things: https://www.artstation.com/greenindian8

Henri Prestes https://henriprestesp.com/

Elsa Bleda https://www.collater.al/en/elsa-bleda-photography/

But does it float used to feature generative art sometimes https://butdoesitfloat.com/

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

www.amygoodchild.com

+1 to Amy Goodchild.

Also worth checking out are Murilo Polese and Camille Roux.

Camille Roux really hits it out of the park, I have a hard time even starting to think how you could generate stuff like this [0].

[0] https://bsky.app/profile/art.camilleroux.com/post/3ldixh4oeu...

I covet the watercolor shader they co-wrote. I wish we had a high-quality open source watercolor shader.

Mark Knol is a great generative coding artist: https://github.com/markknol/

Chris Randall is pretty awesome too: https://www.instagram.com/chris.randall.art/

William Latham https://doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01whl/index.html

and lots of the people featured on https://executable.graphics/

It’s generative art, made with Houdini from what I gather—so not technically coding—but davidope is making amazing things all the time and I personally find him a very inspiring visual artist. You can see his art on IG @dvdp or check his very Hackernewsy about page davidope.com for more info.

favorite generative artist: vera molnar (http://www.veramolnar.com/)

websites: https://thecodingtrain.com/, https://www.holo.mg/, https://www.rightclicksave.com/about

my list of generative artists: https://github.com/rethread-studio/algorithmic-art-course/is...

Yuanchuan[0] and his project css-doodle[1].

[0]: https://yuanchuan.dev/ [1]: https://github.com/css-doodle/css-doodle

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.

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).

Daidō Moriyama is a great Japanese photographer who exemplified the Provoke movement in the 1970s. I find his work inspiring and liberating.

He pioneered a style that combined gritty black and white street photography with an avant garde approach.

Shameless plug: I do algorithmic art with Python (no AI) at https://gods.art. Recently I've been focusing on lenticular holograms.

You might like this combination of photography and computation: https://www.instagram.com/dirkkoy/

I was an artist before I was a coder. Now I do both fulltime. https://lucidbeaming.com/

For generative coding, I'm a big fan of Raven Kwok https://ravenkwok.com/

Shameless plug: https://www.curtiswmoore.com/

Joshua Davis https://joshuadavis.com/

Photography: Andreas Gursky, Thomas Demand, Sebastiao Saldago. Taschen Publishing has the best art books of all.

https://bleuje.com/

Check out The Poet Engineer – Amazing work in Touchdesigner

Ix hun (anything Visualized Math)

By far my favorite photographer to study and learn from is Ansel Adams. Part of why is not just that I like his photographic works, but that he approached photography in a technical way that was unusual at the time and invested significant effort in documenting and writing about his approaches.

The entire Photography Series is worth reading (but the edited books re-released in the 80s, not the originals), but book 2, "The Negative" that focuses on the Zone System Ansel codified based on prior work by Fred Archer is really crucial reading for a strong technical understanding of how camera exposure works in a scene with a wide dynamic range. This is critical when working with film, especially medium format and large format films, but is also helpful to produce much better images even with modern digital cameras. While things have consistently gotten more forgiving and thus easier for photographers, having a really strong technical understanding of the principles of light and how cameras expose film/sensor is still one of the most useful things you can learn as a photographer, even as an amateur.

Going in a completely different direction, I also think Simon d'Entremont is a photographer worth paying attention to. He's a professional wildlife photographer and Youtuber who has invested a lot of effort into simplifying the techniques and technicalities that come with using digital cameras. He has an understandable approach, a high level of technical competence (e.g. what he says is correct and opinions are clearly stated as opinions). By learning the core technical principles of photography and then adding onto it the specifics of digital photography, it can make any photographer better, both from the perspective of the images they capture and from the perspective of how they get there (e.g. learning a "feel" for exposure settings for a given scene).

Completely separate from the technical aspect, I think Annie Leibovitz might be one of the most important photographers to pay attention to in the last 50 years. She has a deep understanding around the art of storytelling through photography, and ultimately a strong photo is not just one that is exposed perfectly for the scene and captures the full dynamic range and makes the best use of light. It's one that captures something interesting and tells a story about it. Nobody does this better than Annie. Both in her portraiture and her photojournalistic work, she captures subjects in a way that truly emphasizes the meaning behind "a picture is worth a thousand words."

I have no opinions around generative coding, but I consider myself a "good" amateur photographer, and these are three photographers I've studied in depth to try to understand and build my own style and increase my technical competence and the quality of my outcomes. Also, not for nothing, both Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz preferred a Contax rangefinder for much of their work (although Ansel is most famous for his large format work done with a view camera). It's sad Contax doesn't exist anymore, I'd loved to have seen how they would have come into the digital/mirrorless age.

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/