First one I researched was William Fox Talbot. He was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography, born on February 11, 1800 and died on September 17, 1877. He was one of the first photographers who combined his knowledge of optics and chemistry to create the calotype process.
http://www.differ.freeuk.com/learning/arts/oldphotos.html
Robert Capa
The British magazine Picture Post ran his photos from Spain accompanied by a portrait of Capa, in profile, with the simple description: "He is a passionate democrat, and he lives to take photographs.
In 1939 Capa emigrated to the United States and in 1942 he was recruited by Collier's Weekly as a photojournalist. He went to Britain and covered the Home Front before moving to North Africa. The following year Capa joined Life Magazine and accompanied Allied troops to Sicily in July 1943.
Capa also recorded dramatic photographs of the D-Day landing. In all, Capa took 108 pictures in the first couple of hours of the invasion of France. Unfortunately, a member of the staff of Life Magazine made a mistake in the darkroom and only eleven were publishable.
Subsequently he reported on the early days of the state of Israel and then the attempt by France to hold onto Vietnam. Robert Capa was killed by a land mine in Vietnam in 1954.
Here are a few of his photos from wars
And here is more modern photographer Carlos Tarrats.
Carlos Tarrats is a still life fine art photographer. His images are not digital manipulations but are constructed on a set and then printed digitally onto Kodak photographic paper. Much of his focus is on the versatility of plant life and serves as his main subject. When he holds his camera, he is considering life, death, hope and conflict. The protagonist is his photos, plants, may end up visually distorted, however he is shooting to give his viewer’s imagination a big dose of hope. “Hope is the possibility for something else, not necessarily something better and yet not necessarily something worse. Whether one is better than the other depends on one’s perception. It’s the uncertainty of the situation that gives the image tension and creates conflict.
Here are a few of his works:
