Pieter Wisse, a photographer based in Rotterdam has put together a website http://500photographers.blogspot.com/ where he:
"posts 5 active photographers a week for 100 weeks. The photographers can be from any discipline within the photographic range, but they have to be worth looking at and have a certain level of quality. When we get to number 500, we will have a deep database of great photographers."
click below to read more..
Though simplistic, it's a great idea. at this point (April26, 2o1o) he's only up to #16, the collection is already great. I particularly love Denis Darzacq's work with floating figures (especially since it's done sans photoshop.
Also, I've always been a fan of Dave Hill. But quite a few of the other 16 are unknown to me, so it's already paying dividends to follow this site.
What I've done, and suggest you do, is add his RSS feed so you're updated whenever he posts new photographers.
Thanks for the great motivational tool Pieter!