Reddit reviews The Photography Book

You might be interested in Hiroshi Sugimoto, Aaron Siskind, Bill Brandt, André Kertész, William Eggleston, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Aleksander Rodchenko, Alfred Steiglitz or many, many others. This is a pretty broad array of 20th century photographers that have each done some amazing abstract work in addition to more concrete pieces.

As I started putting my thoughts together, I realized that it's hard to think of historically significant photographers, going back to Atget, that have not worked with abstraction in their images. Especially street and landscape photographers. Photojournalists tend to reduce abstraction, but even in the work of Capa, Cartier-Bresson, Martin Parr and others, there are elements of minimalism, blur, and general compositions that sometimes lean toward abstraction. I'd recommended grabbing a survey of photography like this one to get a feel for some images and some of the language that an author uses to discuss each style/ technique. Books like this are on the shelves at most libraries (I mostly use my library card to get 'picture books' these days).

And, I agree that Google doesn't do a good job of pointing someone toward historically relevant or significant (or even interesting) photographers. I don't have a better search method other than to say try off line. Museums, libraries, or professional photo stores are still the best starting points for understanding things related to the artistic side of photography.

"The Photo Book" by Phaidon Press is just what you need. it's basically an alphabetical index of the must crucial photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries. it's cheap too ($6 used).

beyond that, here are some giants you should know about:

• Stanley Forman
  
  
• Diane Arbus
  
  
• William Eggleston
  
  
• Rosalind Solomon
  
  
• Arthur Fellig (also known as "Weegee")
  
  
• Lee Friedlander
  
  
• Henri Cartier-Bresson