21st-century American photographers

Howard Heemstra was an architect, professor of architecture, and photographer. He was born in Orange City, Iowa on December 22, 1928 and died in Ames, Iowa on July 22, 2011. He graduated from Northwestern Academy (1946), and Northwestern Junior College in Orange City in 1948 before earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Iowa State University in 1952.
After working briefly in Sioux City for an architecture firm Heemstra joined the US Army and served two years in the Korean War. After returning from abroad he applied for graduate studies to Harvard University and the Cranbrook Academy of Arts in Bloomfield, Michigan. Since he could not afford Harvard's tuition he enrolled at Cranbrook and earned his Master of Architecture degree in 1958. Heemstra worked twelve years as an architect before joining Iowa State University in 1966. He became a full professor in 1976 and continued to teach until his retirement in 2003, when he was named Professor Emeritus.
Heemstra worked at Ray Crites' architectural office in Cedar Rapids when the commission for Stephens Auditorium, part of the Iowa State Center on the Iowa State University campus, came to the firm, and he was the project architect for the building which was completed in 1969. Stephens Auditorium was selected as the "Building of the Century" by the Iowa chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2004.

Sam Abell (born 1945 in Sylvania, Ohio) is an American photographer known for his frequent publication of photographs in National Geographic.
Sam Abell's love of photography began due to the influence of his father who was a geography teacher who ran a photography club. In his book The Photographic Life, Abell mentions a photograph he made while on an outing with his father, a photograph that subsequently won a small prize in a photo contest. He credits that prize as being a major influence on the direction his life would take. Abell was the photographer and co-editor for his high school yearbook and newspaper.
Abell graduated from the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he majored in English, minored in Journalism, and was the editor of the Kentuckian Yearbook. He is also a teacher, an artist and an author.
Abell received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Toledo in 2009.Sam Abell's book The Life of a Photograph is one of three volumes begun in 2000 with Seeing Gardens. It was followed in 2002 with The Photographic Life.

William Wegman (born December 2, 1943) is an American artist best known for creating series of compositions involving dogs, primarily his own Weimaraners in various costumes and poses.

Herbert Ritts Jr. (August 13, 1952 – December 26, 2002) was an American fashion photographer and director known for his photographs of celebrities, models, and other cultural figures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His work concentrated on black and white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture, which emphasized the human shape.