Albert Watson
Albert Watson (born 1942, Edinburgh, Scotland) is one of the most prolific and technically commanding photographers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, whose practice spans fashion, portraiture, advertising, and fine art with a consistency of vision that has placed him among the most influential image-makers of his generation. Educated in graphic design at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and in film and television at the Royal College of Art in London, Watson began his photographic career in Los Angeles in 1970, working across editorial and commercial assignments with a discipline and visual intelligence shaped as much by his training in design as by photography itself.
Over five decades, Watson has produced some of the most recognizable images in contemporary photography, from his iconic portrait of Steve Jobs and his studies of Alfred Hitchcock and Kate Moss to expansive personal projects photographed in Morocco, Las Vegas, and the Scottish Highlands. Named by Photo District News as one of the twenty most influential photographers of all time, alongside Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, his approach is characterized by an exceptional command of light, composition, and the psychology of the subject. Working blind in one eye since birth, Watson has consistently produced images of extraordinary precision and atmosphere.
His work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., among others. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for his contribution to the art of photography.