Lee Friedlander

The lesson: let the clutter in, then organize it. Friedlander fills his frames with poles, signs, store windows and his own shadow, and somehow every piece has a job. His book Self Portrait (1970) turns that shadow and his reflection into a running joke across about fifty pictures, and The American Monument (1976) finds statues half-swallowed by traffic and storefronts. He showed alongside Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand in MoMA's 1967 New Documents exhibition, and he is the one to study when a scene looks too messy to shoot. Try framing through a window or past a lamppost on purpose, and see how layers that seem to block the view can become the picture.