He’s not been on any list yet, bit someone who’s had an enormous impact on (commercial and fashion) photography is Helmut Newton. We were recently in Berlin for a (chilly) week’s cultural and culinary battery charging (most successful) and spent most of an afternoon in the Helmut Newton museum. Some of it is so so, but a few of his images are burned into the bit of the head behind my retina... His reputation is mixed, a lot of his work is ‘strictly commercial’, but there are images that are simply mind b*ggering, especially seen 10 feet tall. And despite brilliant technique, he didn't apparently give a crap about cameras -- whatever got the job done, judging from the pile of stuff he left behind (including paired Canon EOS 100's, one labelled CNEG with masking tape, the other B&W. What made him so heart-warmingly human and so endearing to me was the scrawled letter to Schröder, the then German Chancellor, apologising for having turned up a day too late for his dinner in his own honour with the same due to “an error in his diary”. He quoted the guard at the chancellery turning him away and refusing to let him park with the remark “that was yesterday evening, sir”. Priceless!

You do realize that you've loosened the lock on the floodgates? OK, to start the flow, a couple of favourites I employ (professionally) from time to time... “Quality cannot be retrofitted” (as it happens, adapted from ‘201 Principles of Software Engineering’, by Alan M. Davis, long ago, but just so beautifully applicable in so many situations). Totally irrelevant and wildly off topic: “Change management is like drilling in water – there’s a lot of splashing and excitement while you’re doing it, but two minutes later there’s no trace of what you did.” (I have to admit to forgetting the source. Nothing to do with photography, I know, but still appealing.) I’ll get my coat now...

MarkB wrote: The response to which was "If my lens goes to elven, does it have less pixie-dust?" No, but your images may be pixielated. (sound of Goon-show-type rapid running...)