Sometimes, photography is about inspiration and discovery. As well as the internet can be a great source to view well known photographers, it is also a great place to discover new talents. Here are a few sites, carefully curated, where you might discover the next Helmut Newton or the new Annie Leibovitz.

1.Pinterest.com
Ever seen great images that you would like to keep and share ? Well Pinterest is a solution for this. Frequented by creative directors, photographers, designers, this website allows them to “pin” the visuals that they like on a digital cork board. Others can add their votes, comments, or just browse through them. While it covers anything visual, it has a photography section which is a great source of recommendation. What is good about this site is that its simplicity allows for a quick and agreeable browsing.

2.Behance.com
Want to know what gets the creative community juice going? The Behance Network is perfect for that. This is where art directors come to find their creative talents. Solely frequented and managed by creative professionals, it is constantly updated with the latest work from those who reinvent fashion and advertising photography.
It would be very hard not to find a portfolio or two that is not amazing.

3.1×.com
Unlike the two previous ones, 1×.com is 100% pure photo. It is a photo community site where anyone can upload images to be judges by others. Anyone? Another Flickr? Not at all. 1×.com is heavily curated by a team of editors who filter what goes up. Not by whom took the image but how they look. Like a lot of discovery sites, there is a lot to be left aside, but here, at least, you will not see images of your next door cat. It is serious about the quality of photography and you can see it.

4.ffffound.com
In the world of photography discovery, ffffound.com is probably the best known. Probably because it has a very simple and clean interface, this website allows for quick and simple posting and viewing of great images. It is not entirely dedicated to photography but they do take the majority of the space.

Here, people share those images that they like, as they browse through the internet. Unfortunately, there is no way to filter photography from the other visuals. However, because it is so simple, it is very easy and simple to navigate directly to your interest.

5.Abduzeedo.com
Created by a Brazilian designer, Abduzeedo.com is a highly curated website about everything visual on the internet. It has a section on photography that will guide you to some highly interesting portfolio of known, or less well known photographers. It might not be as updated as frequently as the others, but it is certainly worth a monthly visit.

6.One Eyeland.com
If your looking for cutting edge photography, than oneeyeland.com might be for you. As it defines itself, “One Eyeland is for the photographers, by the photographers and of the photographers. It is a place where every soul has one birthright: right to visual delight. “
Nicely curated from India, it is a place for refreshing , highly visual commercial photography. It might not be updated as often as the others on this list but certainly deserves a peek here and there.

If you would like to recommend a website for this column, please do not hesitate to send me an email to pmelcher@gmail.com